Video games set in foreign locations tend to still get a lot of furor from the home countries if they involve violence. North Korea, Venezuela, Mexico, and Bolivia’s governments all launched official decrees against various video game manufacturers for including their country in various action games, and even American mayors get involved where after the release of Rainbow Six: Vegas the Mayor of Las Vegas decried the game for associating “The fun city of Las Vegas with terrorism”. Oops.
When Coppola made “The Godfather” he and producer Al Ruddy had to meet with mafia boss Joe Columbo Sr (who was running an Italian America Anti- Defamation League to confront law enforcement agencies and scam money out of Italian-Americans). Ultimately they agrred not to use the words “Mafia” (which appears occasionally in the novel) or “Cosa Nostra” (appears once at the peace conference). A decade earlier the “Untouchables” tv show started out with with lots of Italian-American criminals with accents and quickly shifted to names chosen randomly out of a dictionary when the sponsor found his product was being left on docks.
At least one person on the internet thought this was funny.
Thanks.
Also, this is a great example of a way to convey tone in text without using an emoticon or an emoji.
As for offended Iron Curtain countries, remember that all (not just MI) shows vetted the names of characters, especially villains. They didn’t want someone named Anton or Lenore Karidian all upset (and maybe suing) because your show portrayed them as mass murderers. Every name used had to have a source that couldn’t sue.
I don’t know if it’s true but I read that they completely removed all the swastikas in at least one of the Wolfenstein games. Supposedly they were afraid they might offend Germans. The Return to Wolfenstein game had a few Swastikas in it, so I’m not sure if this is true.
It’s illegal in Germany to display the swastika in any form so they probably thought it would cramp their marketing in that territory.