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By the time the Japanese version reaches the Amer. public domain (lapse 12/31 on the 95th year of creation), our great-grand kids might have found "Star Trek" holo technology to be more exciting.

John Hayabusa wrote:

Well this is a crime shame. Perhaps they can try porting it to PC/Steam since Steam said that it is open to any game as long as it is not illegal. This is most likely the only way to localize the game, otherwise all those efforts will be put to waste.

This is the type of thing that tanks a game studio. I'm reminded of Crawfish getting jerked around by Capcom over the GBA Street Fighter Alpha stuff. While I'm not entirely aware of the depth of this situation and that the Crawfish thing involved outright porting and technical knowledge (not just localisation efforts), this is the sort of last-minute change of tune that loses people their jobs.

I agree, I hope that they get this onto Steam instead, but then porting for PC might make the workload even worse. An Asian/English version like DoaX would maybe be best-case for us players, but PQube probably doesn't have the rights for regional distribution there I'd bet.

Either way, censorship/game dev responsibility/tasteful content/blah blah - I had a feeling this announcement has been coming for the last two weeks and seeing this posted isn't shocking me one bit. There's a discussion to be had whether devs should push characters in these sorts of situations and the double-standard that Sony Japan has versus Sony America/EU, but all this is going to do is push the serious Ecchi/Hentai devs and publishers to Steam (I hope).......while also hurting PQube for trying to feed their families.

I'm sad, I'm angry. As a functioning/educated adult, I was hoping for some cheeky gametime that has now been cancelled for what I imagine is ultimately going to boil down to social pressure and censorship. Hopefully a Steam version appears. Otherwise, looks like a leak or translation patch is next on my to-do list.....

sigh

Lord Oink wrote:

Given Inafune's completely failure that was Mighty No 9 and his reliance on the western market sinking his career and led to his company going under and being bought out, I think we've established he has zero credibility.

Mighty No 9 bombing doesn't negate the fact that Japan puts out a lot of games most of which have sub-par game design and gameplay that makes the worst western developed games look like Game Of The Year material or rely very blatantly on the adage of "sex sells" or rather "fetishes" sell.

Lord Oink wrote:

His was the grumblings of a man who could not find work in the industry that moved ahead and left him behind.

This is the same industry that features companies like Konami who aren't exactly known for encouraging fresh ideas or doing right by their employees so ya might want to be careful with giving the industry credit for doing being "progressive"....especially when half of it not most of it isn't really know for progressive policies or ideas.

Primus wrote:

Yes, it's definitely Pqube's fault that they assumed a title already approved by Sony's Asian branches would be so controversial when Sony's western branches have let games like Criminal Girls*, Dungeon Travelers*, Gal Gun and Valkyrie Drive come over.

Which isn't saying much since none of those games had a mechanic that centered increasing the bust size of it's main cast who were almost exclusively high school students.....and funnily enough when one of those very games mentioned had it's content edited when it was released in the West.

Primus wrote:

I don't see why you'd defend a multi-billion dollar business bullying a tiny publisher.

I don't see how you think said multi-billion dollar company stopping a niche publisher from releasing a game on their platform, with a hokey (and blatantly questionable premise), in western markets is bullying and when doing so is exclusively up to the discretion of the aforementioned company.

Primus wrote:

Pqube took a game that was already deemed acceptable for a release on PS4 and Vita in Asia.

Yes in Asia not in the U.S. which of course has different standards when it comes to what they find tolerable in media than Asia.

Primus wrote:

They announced their intent months ago to release it in English. They translated it and got industry acceptable ratings from the two major ratings boards. Just as the game got ready to go gold, SIEA/SIEE comes out of no where and denies its release.

Yes because Sony just like Nintendo, Microsoft, & Valve can choose on their own on whether or not to allow the release of a game on their platforms for any reason they deem legitimate. The ratings boards don't determine this all they are, are basically middlemen who decide who is the audience for a particular game is for and issue ratings accordingly.

Primus wrote:

Pqube isn't at fault here.

Nor is Sony at fault for PQube choosing of their own free will to sink money and time into the localization of game that was not guaranteed to be approved for release on Sony's platforms simply because other games (that didn't have the same aspects that Sony presumably took issue with in the one PQube were publishing) were approved by them.

Primus wrote:

Like I said, if Sony had their earlier concept approval infrastructure in place, they could've told Pqube no before they dumped money into the game. Instead, they did away with that to "be friendlier to indies" and are now using it as a way to financially hurt an indie publisher who wanted to bring titles to market that apparently Sony's western employees dislike.

Yeah I'm pretty sure the intent wasn't to hurt PQube financially that's simply an unintended consequence of the decision they made and something that as a for profit like a game publisher or developer you have to potentially concern yourself with if a investment or risk doesn't pay off like you wanted to. And it's a not necessarily a matter of simple dislike but the problem of "do we want to get people pissed at us for selling a game like this?"

Primus wrote:

That number is likely now much higher than 190k,

I would hope it is since selling less than 200,000 copies is not good for most games.

@BadNewsBlues, you know, you can just up and say you hate moe anime anything and you and that crowd can be free of all emotional and social crutches, I'm just saying. Occam's Razor especially applies here.

And in before everyone goes off on me and says "well you're just a pedo sympathizer for defending Nobuhiko Watsuki", I left that topic a long time ago because 1. I can't get my point across forums worth to save my life and 2. You can't convince fervent self righteous people with a zealous agenda when they are hellbent on playing the games of sides to the extreme. Unless you're willing to hear me out without threatening to lynch mob me with an irrational mindset, you're not getting anything out of me.

As for you BadNewsBlues, and anyone reading this, this topic has gotten so ridiculously politicized I'm going to inject some thought outside of the BS US Politics topic. Western politics, whatever. It's just embarrassing. Now I'm just going to swallow the rest of the poison on the plate clean off and inject some personal and social issues here.

The fact that this game got "canned because people will be angry at them selling this game" speaks volumes about how insecure, overtly self victimizing, detached, and removed from humanity about what those who laud this game being cancelled, and the society they come from.

The other thing is the fact that the US and Great Britain specifically has tremendous issues with body image, self esteem, toxic gender specifications, toxic lifestyle expectations by the general populace, and a lack of understanding one's own body, and especially today. This also doesn't help with how compounded this is with those who preach and actively practice current contemporary Christian values entwined with a mindset born of Imperial Age mindsets and bias to enforce these "values".

Then we have people who have lives affected by this in some way, shape, and form.

And then we have this game from Japan, which doesn't even cater to these people.

So if you ask me, this speaks volumes about how current Western society is these days. I would think that the 90's and how everything about how it tore down oppressive aspects of society regarding being open about social criticism, challenging topics, and delving into the more carnal and wild aspects of our human selves, but no, I guess that's just "a trend". The same with the 1960s Sexual Revolution.

The fact that anime and video games, the few things that helped jumpstart this would help lend messages about this too and influence a new generation to act differently, but then again, I don't think we'll find it on here on ANN. Mostly. Now everyone gets offended by how "boobies are not realistic and that makes me uncomfortable because of some selfish Freudian excuse therefore that shouldn't exist".

And you know what? Split hairs. Don't expect me to answer your drivel. I'm done.

BadNewsBlues wrote:

Nor is Sony at fault for PQube choosing of their own free will to sink money and time into the localization of game that was not guaranteed to be approved for release on Sony's platforms simply because other games (that didn't have the same aspects that Sony presumably took issue with in the one PQube were publishing) were approved by them.

Yeah I'm pretty sure the intent wasn't to hurt PQube financially that's simply an unintended consequence of the decision they made and something that as a for profit like a game publisher or developer you have to potentially concern yourself with if a investment or risk doesn't pay off like you wanted to. And it's a not necessarily a matter of simple dislike but the problem of "do we want to get people pissed at us for selling a game like this?"

Sony denying the release of Omega Labyrinth Z was not at all a reasonable expectation. They've never publicly blocked a Japanese title in recent history and have in fact, only started publicly blocking the release of games weeks before this decision. This is Sony's failure. If they had a problem with the game, it should've been shared immediately, not at the very last stage. If they're going to behave like this, they should reinstate concept approval.

BadNewsBlues wrote:

I would hope it is since selling less than 200,000 copies is not good for most games.

How did I know you were going to try that?

DoAX3 is a sexploitation game whose assets are predominantly recycled from earlier titles. It's not a massive AAA blockbuster that was in development by a team of 200 for five years. It never even saw an official release outside of Asia (granted, not as big an issue now than in the past) and has loads of DLC to nickel and dime people. There is no reason to believe the game required some gigantic investment to produce, therefore it doesn't need to sell millions to be successful. It's called living within your means. The smaller Japanese publishers do a decent job at that. If you looked at the Koei Tecmo document I linked to, you'll notice its first week sales actually outsold some of the titles the company releases on an annual basis.

I'm not even sure how you could bring up a counter like that on an anime website. This entire industry is all about super serving a small amount of people.