At the very end of August, a few days after release, Eight-Minute Empire: Complete Edition was removed from Nintendo eShop in the following regions: Europe, Australia, and New Zealand.

The reason for that was IARC, who judged the age rating of Eight-Minute Empire should be higher in specific countries. This by itself would have been harmless, if not for Russian rating, that was declared to be 12+ (due to violence). That is two tiers higher than previously. According to the Nintendo’s policy, if the age rating difference between the game files and the one assigned by IARC is two tiers, the game gets removed from the store in the entire region. In this case: Europe, Australia, and New Zealand.

And so it was. We have both resubmitted a new version of the game files, the one with correct age ratings, and appealed to IARC (as we disagree with their assessment). Unfortunately, they confirmed that 12+ stays.

And, should you wonder which part of the game is violent (as we do too), here’s the only bit of violence that can be found in this otherwise casual are of control, turn-based strategy game with no combat mechanics whatsoever:

https://youtu.be/vtg-w4oQ8HQ?t=22

There are two cards in the game (in the deck of 39) that allow a player to destroy one of the enemy’s troops. The full animation can be seen in the above link between 0:24 and 0:26.
The main thing to get out of it, however, is that the game is well on it’s way back to European, Australian and New Zealand Nintendo eShops. It’s currently undergoing (slow and thorough) Nintendo approval process, and once it’s done, it will be back out.

Unfortunately, we can not reapply the launch discount (that was of 15%) due to Nintendo of Europe’s discount policy. We can’t reappear on the New Releases tab either.

We will, naturally, make an announcement once Eight-Minute Empire: Complete Edition is back in Nintendo eShops in Europe, Australia, and New Zealand.