Stone talks censorship in South Park

The censorship debacle that has overshadowed the launch of South Park: The Stick of Truth has been well documented.

In an interview with The Observer, the show's creator and collaborator on the game, Matt Stone, spoke about the scenes that were cut from the game, and the reasons why he doesn't think it's a big deal.

"I was told that we had to submit it for ratings and they come back and tell you this will pass, this won't," said Stone. "Ultimately, the full version of the game is in North America, so at least that version is out there, but anywhere it's censored, we just put in little black cards explaining what has happened."

He continued: "It's not that big a deal. It doesn't change things that much, but we weren't going to change the game downwards somewhere and just not tell anybody. You'll see how ridiculous that is."

During the censored scenes, a placeholder screen appears describing the events that players aren't able to see (if they bought the console version of the game that is, the PC version remains uncut).

"It does feel like a double standard, a little bit. We weren't willing to change the content, but also it doesn't ruin the game. It's like 40 seconds' worth of the whole game. As long as we could make a joke out of the fact that they made us cut this, that was fine."

South Park: The Stick of Truth is out today, and you can read our review of the RPG here.