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BrainBlow wrote:

Anita is a nobody, and only "matters" because people(primarily the people who hate her) decides that she's important. If people didn't get so butthurt over her in the first place, she'd still be yet another no-name Youtuber nobody cares about.
And then this massive, laughable boogeyman has been built around it, and any differing opinions coming from the direction of this boogeyman becomes "censorship."

I think it also says something that while the Gamergate controversy had a Wikipedia article since September 2014, it took several months later for someone to redirect "Gamergate" to it, showing just how little the mainstream really cares about it. (And Gamergate isn't even mainstream. Undertale is more mainstream than it.)

kurotsuki wrote:

Quickly butting in to say this :
Japan in general practices the concept of "If I pretend something doesn't exist, all will be fine".

This is how they get out of most things that could lead to conflict.

That might explain why Konami blacklisted Hideo Kojima from the Video Game Awards.

Actar wrote:

To add on to the above comment, it's also because it's extremely hard to please people. For instance:

- If a game puts them in the background, the girls are being objectified.
- If a game gives them active roles, the girls are "men in female bodies".

They constantly shift the goalposts and their arguments are fraught with double standards.

Just wanted to say here that the whole 'women in men's bodies' argument criticizing strong or more aggressive women is a load of crap and a self defeating argument. I hate when people get down on this. It's actually a lot more regressive and sexist to me when they say "a woman who swears and kills things is a man in a woman's body." So... I guess all female atheletes, MMA fighters, and soldiers are men. What is this, the 1950's? Reminds me of that scene in A League of Their Own where some social critic was claiming women playing baseball made them more masculine. We'd laugh at that today, so why do people repeat it when it comes to things like being a solder in a game? I love playing as Samus (Metroid) because she's a mature, capable woman. A lot of my friends love characters like Kaine from Nier, or Kitana from Mortal Kombat... it CAN be a female power fantasy to want to look good and kick ass (and save hot guys). Just because the woman critiquing action games isn't into that doesn't mean all women aren't.

That out of the way ya'll are bein' played. Japanese companies are always looking for a scapegoat to not release stuff over here because the bottom line is the potential for sales here is less than their fear of reverse importation. They just now have a bogeyman to blame. Even the strictest feminist online don't say jack about anime games usually, and focus on AAA stuff like GTA and whatnot. Seriously. Go google a game called Blade and Soul. Women are HIGHLY sexualized, game's been out here for awhile, no one cares.

As others pointed out we've had loli characters all scantily clad in several games (Senren Kagura, Disgea, Fire Emblem) and no one cared outside of 'oh its a pervy anime game' if they had any complaints at all. That said if I understand right the only game this company actually censored was Monster Monpiece, and even that they got rid of the lolis. IIRC isn't this the game where u rub the screen to make the girls clothes come off? Yeah... rubbing a naked picture of a girl who looks about 10 just might possibly get somone up in arms over here (call me crazy but it's true!) Also this isn't like anime usually games are licensed for both Canada AND the US as the same time and IIRC Canada has stricter laws about equating loli ecchi with child porn

encrypted12345 wrote:

Anita is a nobody, and only "matters" because people(primarily the people who hate her) decides that she's important.

Yep. Ironic because if 'gators' just ignored her she wouldn't be as popular. Joke's on them. The death threats is what got her on major news networks, not her critique on games.

"First, they came for the loli, and I did not help.

Then, they came for the incest-anime, and I did not help.

But then they came for our mecha, and nobody was around to help."

Any minute now, someone's gonna quote me in earnest. Rolling Eyes

But, in all honestly, it's kinda weird that nobody has thought that the reason that this is happening isn't because "feminist too mah gamez!" but because people are so staunchy against the idea that people might not be cool with the idea of ten-year-olds in bikinis that they refuse any possible alteration to a product from a different culture with differing cultural mores.

Maybe Idea Factory's not doing this because of teh evul feminists, but because of the people who hate having their lolis covered up being their only audience. I mean, nobody else is going to want to rub a virtual card of a kid, and there's no other way to get a mainstream release of this kind of thing without bowdlerizing something.

I said it with DOA, and I'll say it again: the argument that these games can't be released in the U.S. because of arguments from Feminists and people self-declared "gamers" in particular might disagree with is laughable and immature. No amount of criticism from your feminist boogeymen do any tangible thing to games. Except maybe have people, y'know, think about games as actual art instead of just genuflecting about how pretty Bioshock Infinite is and then dismissing any arguments to the contrary as "It's just a game!".

SilverTalon01 wrote:

Apparently some companies that do localizations are run by SJ warriors.... These are the people companies look to in order to localize stuff, and apparently it isn't rare at all that they just aren't comfortable themselves with the games they broker deals to handle. It is entirely possible that IF is being told by whoever they approached to do the localizations that things need to be censored.

first, lmao @ bolded.
second, no one has to give you a platform to release your game just like broadcasting companies don't have to air what you made. disney does not have to air your explicitly violent and sexual TV show. everyone is allowed their own terms and conditions. you don't wanna go through that? establish your own branch here to release what you want or deal with it.

Quote:

We also have nuts like Anita and Zoe getting to speak to the UN about how people saying mean things to them on the internet is equivalent to sexual assault and saying to censor the internet.

"means things" = death and rape threats in a number of cases. while obviously not sexual assault, don't down play the problem with quite a few of Anita's critics. i never liked her, but the reaction she received for just proposing the idea of critiquing games (which she has the right to do. she has freedom of speech; if you don't like it then leave.) was the biggest overreaction i have ever witnessed.

BrainBlow wrote:

It's lovely how vague you're being, so that you can modify this intangible boogeyman of yours as much as fits you.

I'll keep this simple: I was answering someone's question (from my own view, of course), not presenting an argument that we can go point-counterpoint at forever and ever.

I knew there would be people who strongly disagreed with what I said. I don't care. Furthermore, I'm not interested in getting drawn into an argument with them, since the arguments tend to get heated and I don't want to say anything that might get me in trouble. If you disagree with my post, you're welcome to give your own opinion (as you have indeed done). I'll leave it to the reader to decide whether or not what I said has any validity.

infamoustakai wrote:

Fantastic news. It's great they're not giving in to these toxic groups. Hopefully they'll continue to dub the games in English as well.

dont be so sure. worse case scenario they may just pull a lilith/pixy and make all their products only for eastern shores,and to add insult to injury make them region locked. that way they wont have to worry about any of the censorships.

wohdin wrote:

Maybe, and I mean just maybe, they should consider not making every one of their games borderline-pornographic. Have they ever considered that? I mean, whatever happened to just making a solid game and marketing it on its own merits, instead of making it all hypersexualized for no real reason? At least be honest about what you're producing - raw fanservice, softcore porn - instead of blaming "the west" and their "puritanical views" for your own laziness.

Games have had sexualized content in them forever, it's just back in the 90s we weren't aware of the censorship going on as much because the lack of internet and environment where we had accessibility to see these games the second they get released in Japan and see tons of videos and screenshots of them.

If older games came out today, we'd see a lot of articles and complaints about the censorship. Stripper girls in Final Fantasy 4 being removed, mouth tentacle rape scene removed in D2, nude bathing scenes and girls dropping their pants to prove they're a woman in Breath of Fire IV removed, and tons of other things. Then you had some things which made it in surprisingly enough. Tons of this kind of stuff was censored for Americans back in the day, but we were blissfully ignorant of it all.

So in that regard, I'd be open to more Japanese games being import friendly by offering subtitles if it avoided censorship. The only winning move is to not play.

Lili-Hime wrote:

Yep. Ironic because if 'gators' just ignored her she wouldn't be as popular. Joke's on them. The death threats is what got her on major news networks, not her critique on games.

Anita's pretty smart, all things considered. She focused entirely on movies and television shows before video games, and nobody cared what she had to say. It wasn't until she focused on games and realized gamers and the industry would listen to her did she become famous and profitable. It also just shows you how this is only an issue in video games, and nobody cares about this kind of stuff in television and movies, which have way more sexualized/marginalized content in them and Hollywood just shrugs its shoulders as if they don't care. "Avengers only has one female in it and she's the sexy Russian secret agent stereotype? Oh well, let's do it again for Age of Ultron" If they were games they'd be torn to shreds, but they're movies so instead they're two of the highest grossing and popular movies of all time. This just tells me if you want an open dialog about these issues, focus on games, because nobody cares about these issues when it comes to mainstream forms of entertainment like books, movies, television, or music.

-Stuart Smith

Last edited by DangerMouse on Wed Dec 09, 2015 7:21 pm; edited 1 time in total

Stuart Smith wrote:

So in that regard, I'd be open to more Japanese games being import friendly by offering subtitles if it avoided censorship. The only winning move is to not play.

It also just shows you how this is only an issue in video games, and nobody cares about this kind of stuff in television and movies, which have way more sexualized/marginalized content in them and Hollywood just shrugs its shoulders as if they don't care. "Avengers only has one female in it and she's the sexy Russian secret agent stereotype? Oh well, let's do it again for Age of Ultron" If they were games they'd be torn to shreds, but they're movies so instead they're two of the highest grossing and popular movies of all time.

This should really tell them, just release the things here, while ofcourse being sensitive, but not everything needs to be a controversy. People want these games and they want them without censorship which is something that anime and game fans have generally always pushed for whether it was violence or fanservice.

Stuart Smith wrote:

Lili-Hime wrote:

Yep. Ironic because if 'gators' just ignored her she wouldn't be as popular. Joke's on them. The death threats is what got her on major news networks, not her critique on games.

Anita's pretty smart, all things considered. She focused entirely on movies and television shows before video games, and nobody cared what she had to say. It wasn't until she focused on games and realized gamers and the industry would listen to her did she become famous and profitable... This just tells me if you want an open dialog about these issues, focus on games, because nobody cares about these issues when it comes to mainstream forms of entertainment like books, movies, television, or music.

-Stuart Smith

I don't think it's that no one cares about these issues, just that gamers got more upset and personally hurt by feminist criticism because let's be honest, it never was applied too much to videogames before because no one cared to. People have been talking about these issues in movies, books, TV and music for decades, so it's not a hot button issue anymore. Also most other media is far less homogeneous than video games. It's a lot easier to not care about gender equality in a comic book movie when there is diversity in the latest Star Wars and we have a big sci-fi/action franchise with a female lead (Hunger Games). There is no Hunger Games equivalent for videogames yet. Take a look at the top grossing 15 movies this year so far. 5 have female leads and/or cater mainly to female demographic. If that number changed in games next year manchildren would be whining about women taking over their games, when it's normal for other media. Games are just nowhere near as diverse as other media.

No one cares also about cheesecake / sexualization in movies or TV because culturally we're used to that. Japanese otaku culture often sexualizes images of what look like prepubscent girls. That is not going to fly with mainstream audiences here, and likely never will. Western culture is NOT used to that.

@Lili-Hime: ^ You took the words right out of my mouth. TBH, video game and internet culture seem to be amongst the last bastions of mainstream entertainment venues that have a largely visible immature adult demographic. My thoughts are that they're such comparatively young entertainment platforms that they haven't had the chance to "grow up" quite yet. Obviously all forms of entertainment have a ways to go (and society too), though it seems the heads of Japanese gaming companies are kicking and screaming their way into the 21st century.

So, let me get this straight.

There are no problems with Japanese game companies releasing their games fully uncensored in the West. However, because they are afraid of a possible backlash with regard to the content, they censor their own games in an effort to prevent potential controversy and to increase sales in a foreign culture. Can anyone actually confirm this?

However, in that case, what is the problem with their stance of not wanting to bother with localizing anymore? If anything, they're only "hurting" themselves with less sales. They can just make it more import friendly with subtitles and voila, everyone's happy (cost notwithstanding).

Also, some people are saying that no one will care, but others are saying that people will care. So, even that's uncertain. With the recent Yohjo Simulator debacle and infamous Rapelay debacle, evidently people do care. Is the right move to then push forwards despite the vocal minority? Are there truly zero negative implications? If so, why do so many companies bow to their demands?

Looking at cartoons, there is a ton of censorship in anime with regard to violence, religion and sex. Are there actually no regulations for what kind of content can get released in the West for games? What role do localizing companies play in this? At this point, there are way too many unknown factors.

Kikaioh wrote:

@Lili-Hime: ^ You took the words right out of my mouth. TBH, video game and internet culture seem to be amongst the last bastions of mainstream entertainment venues that have a largely visible immature adult demographic. My thoughts are that they're such comparatively young entertainment platforms that they haven't had the chance to "grow up" quite yet. Obviously all forms of entertainment have a ways to go (and society too), though it seems the heads of Japanese gaming companies are kicking and screaming their way into the 21st century.

Well, video games actually have audiences younger on average than movies, TV shows, or comic books (or other types of games). The young age of the biggest part of the video gaming population, I would say, is a huge factor in why you have this outcry: Teenage boys and young men commonly think about sex a lot (not romance so much as sex) and are the ones most desperate to find a social group to belong to. They're also the ones most desperate to prove they're worth something and will behave quite aggressively to get it. Thus, they'd be the ones most upset about the increasing importance of women in their entertainment. When guys grow older and mature, they find their worth, they find the groups to belong to, and they mature enough to look outwards and behave more civilly and less impulsively.

This very same outcry happened in professional sports, especially ones previously male-dominated, like soccer (football to a lot of you, but I'm American so we call it soccer), basketball, and hockey, when women started entering. Now, I watch the national championships for drag racing and see that 5 of the top 10 drivers are women.

Actar wrote:

Looking at cartoons, there is a ton of censorship in anime with regard to violence, religion and sex. Are there actually no regulations for what kind of content can get released in the West for games? What role do localizing companies play in this? At this point, there are way too many unknown factors.

In the United States, there currently exists no regulations on what can or cannot be in a video games that pertain specifically to video games. (Video games are, however, subject to laws that apply to all media, such as scenes depicting sex with a minor.) We do have the ESRB, which rates content of every video game that gets a retail release. (I'm not sure why Steam's games don't need to be ESRB-rated, however.) Unlike the MPAA, the ESRB's sole purpose is to give these ratings, and they do so by having the developer submit a video showing content that may be objectionable. The ESRB has no power to restrict a game's content or its distribution, though by law enacted independently of the ESRB, retailers cannot sell games rated M (Mature) or AO (Adults Only) to people under 18. (This doesn't prevent a minor's parents from buying the game, though they are still warned about the rating.) In addition, games rated AO cannot be advertised where minors can see it, nor can it be sold in stores where minors are allowed in, hence why hardly any games get the AO rating.

That being said, I do know that the ratings board for Australia is not only far stricter than the ESRB, but has the power to block a game from being sold in Australia. it also has no AO equivalent; games that intense are automatically banned. Because of that strictness and power, big-time developers who intend to sell to every major region prioritize Australia regarding their levels of sexual imagery and violence.

The PEGI system is used throughout Europe, but Germany, in particular, is sensitive to violence; games are often toned down for German releases. Games with references to Nazism and/or concentration camps are also not allowed. For some reason, until recently, zombies were also not permitted in video games in Germany, hence why Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed consistently refers to the House of the Dead zombies as "creatures."

leafy sea dragon wrote:

Kikaioh wrote:

@Lili-Hime: ^ You took the words right out of my mouth. TBH, video game and internet culture seem to be amongst the last bastions of mainstream entertainment venues that have a largely visible immature adult demographic. My thoughts are that they're such comparatively young entertainment platforms that they haven't had the chance to "grow up" quite yet. Obviously all forms of entertainment have a ways to go (and society too), though it seems the heads of Japanese gaming companies are kicking and screaming their way into the 21st century.

Well, video games actually have audiences younger on average than movies, TV shows, or comic books (or other types of games). The young age of the biggest part of the video gaming population, I would say, is a huge factor in why you have this outcry: Teenage boys and young men commonly think about sex a lot (not romance so much as sex) and are the ones most desperate to find a social group to belong to.

This is actually not true. Adult women make up a much larger segment of gaming than boys age 18 and under. Source
And the average gaming age is in the early 30's. It would be very easy to pass off the toxic attitudes in gaming as teenage boys, but adult men should know better. Overall I do agree with both of you though that it is a case of immaturity both in vocal minorities and in game developers not wanting to take any risks financially.

Actar wrote:

Looking at cartoons, there is a ton of censorship in anime with regard to violence, religion and sex. Are there actually no regulations for what kind of content can get released in the West for games? What role do localizing companies play in this? At this point, there are way too many unknown factors.

Quote:

In the United States, there currently exists no regulations on what can or cannot be in a video games that pertain specifically to video games. (Video games are, however, subject to laws that apply to all media, such as scenes depicting sex with a minor.)

Yep pretty much this. It's not like sex is banned in videogames or any other media. Sexual images of children? Yes that is illegal, at least in the US under obscenity laws and in Canada I believe their general child porn laws cover comics too not sure. Sure, a company could probably fight it in court IF it came up but who wants to risk that? Having to pay legal fees and all that when they can just make people import it. THEN the blame lies with the imporer, not the company who is outside US / Canadian jurisdiction. People get up in arms about feminists or other media critics when in reality they have no power to censor or restrict content. The US government does however.

Huh. I guess things have changed since I last checked. I didn't realize video gamers got that old. That makes the complainers look worse then.

But thinking about it, it makes sense: Guys can feel threatened at any age if women start coming into their hobbies in large quantities and making themselves noticed. And the same goes for any demographic majority for any medium. It's a growing pain that occurs with any medium when it diversifies.

Lili-Hime wrote:

Yep pretty much this. It's not like sex is banned in videogames or any other media. Sexual images of children? Yes that is illegal, at least in the US under obscenity laws and in Canada I believe their general child porn laws cover comics too not sure. Sure, a company could probably fight it in court IF it came up but who wants to risk that? Having to pay legal fees and all that when they can just make people import it. THEN the blame lies with the imporer, not the company who is outside US / Canadian jurisdiction. People get up in arms about feminists or other media critics when in reality they have no power to censor or restrict content. The US government does however.

Okay... then the censored content would possibly be considered too inappropriate by law? And that means that they aren't the "cowards" that a majority of the people above claimed that they are? It's so gosh darn confusing.

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