You have had a save ruined by an injury, an impatient chairman or a bug. But an entire game banned in a country because of its list of national teams? It happened to Football Manager 2005.
The problem was in the database
In December 2004, a few weeks after release, the Chinese government banned Football Manager 2005. The problem was not the match engine or violence (hard to find in a football game). It was the database: in the versions reaching the country, Tibet and Taiwan appeared as separate countries.
For the Chinese authorities, this undermined China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and seriously violated the country’s law.
A game that should not even have been there
The curious thing is that the game had not even been officially released in China. The copies in question were apparently imported or downloaded, burned onto CDs and sold in illegal software shops. They were not even translated into Chinese.
SEGA’s response was pragmatic: it promised a Chinese version in which Taiwan appeared as part of China, as the government wanted.
FM and geopolitics
Anyone who has played FM for many years knows the database is one of the most sensitive parts of the game: names, nationalities, borders, national teams. This story shows that the care involved goes far beyond getting a full-back’s preferred foot right. Sometimes, one line in a data file is enough to create a diplomatic problem.
Do you remember FM 2005? It was the first Football Manager after Sports Interactive split from Eidos, which also makes it special for other reasons.