14 DAY TRIAL // We reported a few days ago that the Indian branch of major software and gaming corporation, Microsoft, announced that it wouldn't be releasing the Xbox 360 version of the upcoming RPG (Role Playing Game), Fallout 3. This decision, coupled with the fact that the PC and the PlayStation 3 versions of the game aren't even scheduled to appear in India, rendered it the only country that would not get the very anticipated title.
This decision didn't make a whole lot of sense in the eyes of the Indian gaming community as other, more violent games, like Grand Theft Auto IV or BioShock, are on the store shelves and nobody ever complained about their impact on kids or their negative influence in general. As Microsoft didn't provide any reasons to its decision, citing only "cultural sensitivities" a few people started investigating the game to find out what could've been so serious that the company wouldn't bring it to a very large market.
Such was the case with Blend Games, which started digging around the features and gameplay elements of Fallout 3, in order to see what was so different and insensitive to the Indian culture. And it found a very interesting thing that would have surely angered the Indian society. In the game, the player can use as a pack animal a mutated two headed cow, and, as you probably know, in the Indian culture, the cow is holy and worshiped by everyone.
"In the Fallout games, survivors of the apocalypse use "brahmin" - two-headed cows mutated by radiation - as pack animals. In Hindu religion, cows are revered and it wouldn't surprise me if the ability of players to shoot up herds of "brahmin" in Fallout 3 factored into the cancellation. The name of the radiated cows probably didn't help matters, either, as the term originates in India. "Brahman" is the name of a breed of cattle from India and the name of a prominent concept in Hindu religion ("the primal source and ultimate goal of all beings"). "Brahmin" is also the term for "the class of educators, scholars and preachers in Brahminical Hinduism."" states a Blend Games representative.
Taking all this into account, perhaps it is better that Microsoft, or any other publisher for that matter, didn't release Fallout into this country. Although the Indian society is becoming more and more modern, the religion still plays an important role, and such a sacrilege would have surely been met with anger and frustration against the companies behind the game.