Microsoft’s Mass Effect banned in Singapore due to lesbian sex scene

Singapore has banned a Microsoft Xbox video game, which contains an alleged lesbian scene.

The game, Mass Effect, is to be launched globally on November 20, 2007.

The scene in question shows a human woman and an alien woman kissing and caressing each other. It ends with the alien saying, “By the gods, that was incredible, Commander.”

In Singapore, homosexual scenes in other media such as films are rarely allowed and shown only if they do not promote a gay lifestyle.

Singapore’s newspaper The Straits Times reported that Mass Effect – a futuristic space adventure game from Microsoft – was banned by Singapore’s Media Development Authority.

In a statement, Chetra S, deputy director of the Board of Film Censors, said Mass Effect has been banned from sale because of “lesbian intimacy” between two characters.

“Singapore’s video games industry is largely self-regulated, with game importers responsible for declaring to the censorship board that the game content falls within a set of guidelines,” The Straits Times quoted Chetra as saying. “This helps to ensure that games are suitable for a general audience and do not feature exploitative or gratuitous sex and violence, or denigrate any race or religion,” Chetra added.

Singapore’s Media Development Authority, which oversees the Board of Film Censors, would introduce in 2008 classification for video games, which could allow games such as Mass Effect to be passed under a mature classification, the report said.

In October 2007, the country’s parliament had decided to keep a ban on sex between men. At that time, Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong had said that the country should keep its conservative values and not allow special rights for homosexuals.

So far, Singapore is the only country to have banned the Mass Effect game, and it is the first video game from Microsoft to be banned in the city-state, The Straits Times said.

Earlier Singapore had banned two other video games Sony Corporation’s God Of War 2, for “nudity,” and Top Cow Productions’ The Darkness, for “excessive violence and religiously offensive expletives.”

The banning of Mass Effect, reports said, has triggered protests from local and international gamers who described the Singapore government’s decision as “too strict.”

A spokesman for Microsoft in Singapore said the company respected Singapore’s decision to ban the game Mass Effect.