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So due to tobacco and alcohol advertisement bans across the world most racing games I have seen do not show these brands on the liverys of cars. For example in NASCAR games you won't see a Budweiser sponsorship nor will you see a Marlboro sponsorship in F1 games. However in Sega Rally 2 the appropriate Lancia cars have their famous Martini (Vermouth Brand) colors and the Martini name on the car. They also have a Subaru 555 (British American Tobacco Brand) car in the game, it doesn't have the 555 logo on the car but obviously the brand name is in the game.

My question is how did Sega get around the restrictions to have these brands in the game? The F1 World GP games and Flag to Flag do not include tobacco brands, in fact the Marlboro sponsored Penske cars in Flag to Flag are just all white even without the Marlboro colors.

Probably the law in japan is different.

Could have something to do with it's arcade roots, perhaps? Out of all the games you mentioned, Sega Rally is the only one to have an arcade presence. It's possible the legislation doesn't account for arcade titles, and this issue was then either forgotten or there's some legal workaround for ports which doesn't exist for straight-to-console titles. Though the former seems more likely than the latter. I will assume, due to the liveries appearing in the arcade titles, that arcades have to follow different legislation to home games.

The other aspect could be regions of release. Legislation on brand advertising is unique to each country (moreso in the 90s than now as the EU wasn't quite as established in this area at the time). Sometimes companies don't release in countries that are restrictive, or they adapt a game for that specific country only (See Wolfenstein's lack of Nazi imagery in the German release, despite it existing in every other country in Europe). With the Dreamcast, and SEGA in general, lacking financial and strong third-party support it's possible they simply evaded releasing in specific countries. Sega Rally 2 had a jumbled release as it was, with a fully online Japanese edition, then the PAL release was done with a solid 30fps (which angered 60fps purists) and finally a US edition with a choppy 60fps frame rate (According to Wikipedia, this is the correct order of release). The game had work done in each region, clearly, and yet the liveries remained.

I can't get any more specific information, but it's possible that if a country (for example Germany) took issue with the liveries due to a legal issue, SEGA may have simply chosen not to release in that country. A PAL/EU version still exists, but it would not be officially available in that specific country. This happens currently with EA titles due to loot-boxes, gamers in Belgium can't buy the game locally due to the law (To be fair, I'm glad as I loathe loot boxes). In 1999 this legal difference from country to country would have been even broader. It's clear there's no issue with arcade law, and that Japan, the US and the UK seem to not take too much issue with the liveries - as I can verify the game was released in those countries. Sadly I can't get a breakdown of the EU release to see if any countries actually rejected the title or called for changes. It might be easier if you have any information on which countries hold tobacco and alcohol promotion restrictions, and when those laws came into place. I'm pretty certain we have them in the UK now, but clearly we didn't back then.

The craziest version of this I saw was Carmageddon on the N64. Carmageddon was infamous for being a driving game which gave you extra points for running down civilians/pedestrians (inspired clearly by the movie Death Race 2000 starring Sylvester Stallone and David Carradine). On the N64, Nintendo insisted the game couldn't have pedestrians killed so they were replaced with zombies - killing the undead is perfectly fine... except in Germany for some reason. The German version of Carmageddon 64 replaced the zombies with dinosaurs! I haven't seen it in action, no idea how that works tbh, but I remember the furore about it in UK N64 mags of the time. Very strange.

So I live in the US and can't speak for other regions but those ads and mentions of those companies haven't been allowed in games since before that time as far as I can tell. Flag to Flag got an earlier US release than SR2 and still everything was stripped.

The point about the Arcades is interesting but I would think the at home version would still get censored.

This reminds me, I was emulating the arcade version of Virtua Fighter 2, and the service menu had a yes/no option for alcohol. Basically setting it to no would simply remove the wooden flask that Shun Di (the drunken fighter) has on his hip. It seemed a little funny that there would be an option just for this one aspect, but I guess sega in the early 90s thought they were playing it safe and it could otherwise be objectionable, especially if the arcade machine were situated in a more kid-focused venue.

Woodneeded wrote:So I live in the US and can't speak for other regions but those ads and mentions of those companies haven't been allowed in games since before that time as far as I can tell. Flag to Flag got an earlier US release than SR2 and still everything was stripped.

The point about the Arcades is interesting but I would think the at home version would still get censored.

Hmmm. Interesting, it does make you wonder how Sega got away with it. Perhaps it was literally just getting away with it. The Arcade angle is the only other possibility, but I agree with you in that I don't think any laws being relaxed on arcade editions would affect home ports. They would be as lax or as rigid as any other release.

Fascinating to note, though, that Virtua Fighter 2 had the foresight to allow for the removal of alcohol. Perhaps this wasn't required but was added just in case laws changed? Or maybe alcohol and tobacco are as regulated in the arcade as they are at home, in which case I'm completely stumped. It seems most likely to me that the arcade law doesn't require the removal of these types of sponsors and the issue was simply forgotten in the porting process and SEGA somehow got away with it. It sounds a smidge far fetched, but it's the only possibility that currently fits known facts.

Okay. So tobacco and alcohol in sega games, and now just recently, Virtua Fighter characters on fancy saki bottles. Wow!

Yeah, really fascinating.

Come, come, sega saki!
I am the good guy, so saki not alright!

Wooah, wooah, sega saki!
I am the good guy, so me,........I say, don't drink it, drink it, drink it, drink it!