Modern Warfare 2, one of the bloodiest and most realistic video games this year, was released on 11.10.09.  The game was produced by Infinity Ward.  The premise is that in the near future, a war is fought by the U.S. against Russian ultranationalists and Afghani militants.  The Russian gamer community is not too pleased.  (*Spoiler Alert*)  In particular, there is a gory mission in Modern Warfare 2 entitled “No Russian,” where the protaganist, Army Ranger Pvt. Allen, finds himself undercover with a terrorist group that walks into a Russian airport and opens fire on civilians.

Russian authorities have banned and recalled Modern Warfare 2 due to this controversial “No Russian” mission.  Infinity Ward plans to cut the level and redistribute the game in Russia pending government approval.

Whether you like the terrorist bloodshed shown in the video above or not, censorship is a threat to domainers. Besides giving me an excuse to talk video games, a lesson to be learned is that the Russian government can be quite hands on. Russian IDNs are a superb investment but there is always censorship risk, and in my opinion, the risk of having your domains and websites censored or seized greater if you own a ccTLD managed by a foreign entity rather than an IDN.com.