Koei Tecmo Confirms No Western Release for Dead or Alive Xtreme 3

[Lizzy Finnegan]

Koei Tecmo Confirms No Western Release for Dead or Alive Xtreme 3

//cdn.themis-media.com/media/global/images/library/deriv/1009/1009830.png

Koei Tecmo comments on decision not to bring Dead or Alive Xtreme 3 to the West.

post on the game's official Facebook page [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/165216-HuniePop-Offers-1-Million-for-Right-to-Publish-Dead-or-Alive-Xtreme-3-in-US], a representative stated that the decision not to publish the game in the West was made in order to avoid the ongoing debate surrounding depictions of women in video games.

"Do you know many issues happening in video game industry with regard to how to treat female in video game industry? We do not want to talk those things here," the post reads. "But certainly we have gone through in last year or two to come to our decision. Thank you."

In an official statement posted to Twitter today, Koei Tecmo states that the Facebook comment reflects the opinion of the individual who posted it and does not reflect the business strategy or opinion of Koei Tecmo.

"The comments recently made by an employee regarding Dead or Alive Xtreme 3 on the official Dead or Alive Facebook page only reflect that individual's opinion and not the opinion or business strategy of Koei Tecmo Games," the statement reads. "We remain focused on delivering the best in fighting entertainment to our fans around the world, while consciously respecting and strategizing to support the different global audiences the Dead or Alive franchise lends itself to."

"Dead or Alive Xtreme 3 remains in development and is still planned for release in Japan and Asia only."

[tweet t=https://twitter.com/KoeiTecmoUS/status/671690347727093760]

Dead or Alive Xtreme 3 releases on February 25th, 2016. Import retailer Play-Asia will be offering an English version of the game through its website [http://www.play-asia.com/english-release-of-dead-or-alive-xtreme-3-fortune/venus-confirmed-for-asia/5f/746wd?ref=twitter].

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[Diablo1099_v1legacy]

Edit: And I realize it was actually a facebook post, man, I really know shit about social media >.>

On topic, I figured it was just something the CM put in rather then some kinda marketing ploy on Tecmo's part.
Still, Play-Asia took the ball and ran with it for clicks.

 

[Travis Fischer]

Couldn't help but notice that they didn't provide an alternative reason for not releasing the game in Europe and North America.

 

[Dragonlayer]

Hang on a minute.

So the "issue" of this latest of the stupid, vaguely gender war related nontroversies was that Play Asia was too cowed by the merciless oppression of the Social Justice Stasi to bring this game over to the West right? But there's going to be English language import versions anyway. Soooo....

What exactly were people having a hissy-fit over?

 

[chocolate pickles]

Nice job moral guardians. Thanks for policing what i can buy as entertainment.

 

[Diablo1099_v1legacy]

Hang on a minute.

So the "issue" of this latest of the stupid, vaguely gender war related nontroversies was that Play Asia was too cowed by the merciless oppression of the Social Justice Stasi to bring this game over to the West right? But there's going to be English language import versions anyway. Soooo....

What exactly were people having a hissy-fit over?

The problem was that Koei Tecmo wasn't going to localize that game for Western Audiences with the CM vaguely stating that recent debates of women in gaming being a factor. (Which was just debunked by the company)
Play-Asia just rode the wave of outrage to promote itself and the projects it would sell as being "The Stuff """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""SJWs"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" don't want you to buy!"

So basically, you can still import an English verison of the game, Tecmo just aren't going to sell it retail in Western Markets.

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

Even better marketing strategy, not risk the funds to publish in specific country where sales are falling, in the hope that these public statements make certain collectives feel they are losing some imaginary battle, tempting them to stick it to certain other collectives buy buying out the game overseas to show Tecmo they can still make the sales. I highly doubt these people, who's careers are in IT, have no idea what the internet environment reacts to lately. Let the media do the advertising for you.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

Hang on a minute.

So the "issue" of this latest of the stupid, vaguely gender war related nontroversies was that Play Asia was too cowed by the merciless oppression of the Social Justice Stasi to bring this game over to the West right? But there's going to be English language import versions anyway. Soooo....

What exactly were people having a hissy-fit over?

That they'd have to pay premium for an imported version? Honestly, I doubt that was the important point these people wanted to make, to them it was most likely the symbolism of "yet another" game that the "SJWs" "censored" that had to be fought against tooth and nail.

Couldn't help but notice that they didn't provide an alternative reason for not releasing the game in Europe and North America.

Couldn't help but notice that almost no company ever provides "reasons" for why they don't release their games, movies, music albums or what have you in different regions. The very obvious reason is that localization is expensive and the DoA series ain't exactly a big seller or even a medium seller in the west. In fact, he DoA series sells like shit in the West and gets almost universally scathing reviews from western reviewers, which is probably reasons enough not to waste hundreds of thousands of dollars on localization when you are unlikely to even make your localization costs back.

 

[Elfgore]

I'm surprised they ever clarified. This was one of the easiest gravy trains they could get. All it took was one guy mentioning politics as the cause of not releasing in the west and we have dozens of people who are now buying it just to spite "SJWs". Now they don't have to spend a single cent bringing it to the west and still make a profit off it. Not to mention I guy offered them a million dollars to publish it for them over here.

I doubt Play-Asia is excited this news came forward as well. If this would have continued until release, they would have made a shit-ton of money on over-priced imports.

 

[Dragonlayer]

Hang on a minute.

So the "issue" of this latest of the stupid, vaguely gender war related nontroversies was that Play Asia was too cowed by the merciless oppression of the Social Justice Stasi to bring this game over to the West right? But there's going to be English language import versions anyway. Soooo....

What exactly were people having a hissy-fit over?

The problem was that Koei Tecmo wasn't going to localize that game for Western Audiences with the CM vaguely stating that recent debates of women in gaming being a factor. (Which was just debunked by the company)
Play-Asia just rode the wave of outrage to promote itself and the projects it would sell as being "The Stuff """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""SJWs"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" don't want you to buy!"

So basically, you can still import an English verison of the game, Tecmo just aren't going to sell it retail in Western Markets.

So regardless of one's opinions on women in gaming, Dead or Alive was always going to be accessible to everyone anyway?

 

[Diablo1099_v1legacy]

Hang on a minute.

So the "issue" of this latest of the stupid, vaguely gender war related nontroversies was that Play Asia was too cowed by the merciless oppression of the Social Justice Stasi to bring this game over to the West right? But there's going to be English language import versions anyway. Soooo....

What exactly were people having a hissy-fit over?

The problem was that Koei Tecmo wasn't going to localize that game for Western Audiences with the CM vaguely stating that recent debates of women in gaming being a factor. (Which was just debunked by the company)
Play-Asia just rode the wave of outrage to promote itself and the projects it would sell as being "The Stuff """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""SJWs"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" don't want you to buy!"

So basically, you can still import an English verison of the game, Tecmo just aren't going to sell it retail in Western Markets.

So regardless of one's opinions on women in gaming, Dead or Alive was always going to be accessible to everyone anyway?

Basically, they just saved some money by making the customer pay for the boats delivering the game to them rather then them having to pay to get the game cleared for Western Release and sent to Gamestop.

Play-Asia stirred the shit in order to get more business and ad revenue and the CM is most likely fired now.

Snip

See above.

 

[Diablo1099_v1legacy]

I'm surprised they ever clarified. This was one of the easiest gravy trains they could get. All it took was one guy mentioning politics as the cause of not releasing in the west and we have dozens of people who are now buying it just to spite "SJWs". Now they don't have to spend a single cent bringing it to the west and still make a profit off it. Not to mention I guy offered them a million dollars to publish it for them over here.

I doubt Play-Asia is excited this news came forward as well. If this would have continued until release, they would have made a shit-ton of money on over-priced imports.

While it does seem like a gravy train for Koei Tecmo, I could see some of their directors being a bit uncomfortable with manufactured outrage like this and the possible ramifications of it, such as someone getting hurt because of the shit fest and blaming them for it.
That mightn't go down so well at the next shareholder meeting...

 

[NiPah]

I'm surprised they ever clarified. This was one of the easiest gravy trains they could get. All it took was one guy mentioning politics as the cause of not releasing in the west and we have dozens of people who are now buying it just to spite "SJWs". Now they don't have to spend a single cent bringing it to the west and still make a profit off it. Not to mention I guy offered them a million dollars to publish it for them over here.

I doubt Play-Asia is excited this news came forward as well. If this would have continued until release, they would have made a shit-ton of money on over-priced imports.

I don't know, they're not exactly clarifying anything here, just the standard "the views and opinions of this individual do not reflect those of the company" PR fluff that you get almost anywhere, doesn't really play against the narrative that's been established.

 

[Scarim Coral]

So they ain't taking up that Huniepop offer afterall.

Still I guess this shows how much shit the whole female videogame depiction has gotten far given there was no controversial when the last two games were released, well a major shitstorm of it.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Nice job moral guardians. Thanks for policing what i can buy as entertainment.

The "moral guardians" had nothing to do with this. Koei alone decided to not even try. This is entirely on them.

 

[Amur El Bey]

This whole thing reeked of manufactured controversy. Even if Koei Tecmo were in fact no localizing the game to Western market because of debate surrounding representation of women in gaming, it still wouldn't justify the "SJWs taking away our video games!" narrative that certain YouTubers and websites are pushing.

For one, SJW's didn't even boycott the game or push legislation that banned it from the country. They simply said that they thought the game was trash. It's no different then Fox not making a Fantastic Four sequel because of the negative reviews the first movie received or Valve taking down paid mods because of the public backlash from the modding community. If a company decides that they don't like the negative publicity and decide not to go forward with their plans, then that's on THEM. Nobody is putting a gun to their head and forcing them do what they want. However a lot of the anti-SJW types were literally comparing this controversy to armed robbery and extortion.

It goes to show you that many of these people spout how much they value free speech, but not if the people expressing their freedom of speech are from a political ideology they appose. They would sooner defend a racist's right to spout hate speech against minorities then they would to defend a reviewer's right to criticize a game for it's portrayal of women.

 

[Izanagi009_v1legacy]

I'm surprised they ever clarified. This was one of the easiest gravy trains they could get. All it took was one guy mentioning politics as the cause of not releasing in the west and we have dozens of people who are now buying it just to spite "SJWs". Now they don't have to spend a single cent bringing it to the west and still make a profit off it. Not to mention I guy offered them a million dollars to publish it for them over here.

I doubt Play-Asia is excited this news came forward as well. If this would have continued until release, they would have made a shit-ton of money on over-priced imports.

i've been on the sidelines of this whole thing until now so I might as well say my piece.

While I admit that the girls are attractive enough to warrant something like then in bikinis (Mila is a favorite of mine), I find the notion of developing this game odd. The internet is full of so much rule 34 of this material that it makes little sense to pay 60 dollars for just ecchi with some ineffectual minigames. In addition, I believe that the so called "spite" that people want to do will ultimately end up being pointless as the game was probably never going to come even without the CM's comment.

Which brings me to the big question, why was the CM able to make such a comment? I don't think Koei Techno are stupid, they would want to control the media exposure of their own games. Why would they allow a CM to make a comment like this if it was opposite or unrelated to their interests. I think that Techno wanted this to happen so that they would get sales.

Quite frankly, this is cynical marketing on the level of the "controversy" surrounding Hatred.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Who exactly was making a stink over this, besides Koei themselves!?

I don't know what the real reason is, but risk of feminist backlash has never harmed a game's sales, and I'm sure Koei knows this. So either this is them playing the victim, because they simply can't be bothered to localize, or they have genuinely suffered massive head trauma.

Good luck with your Xbone exclussive in Japan though, Koei. I'm sure it'll be a hit.

 

[Pyrian]

"The comments recently made by an employee regarding Dead or Alive Xtreme 3 on the official Dead or Alive Facebook page only reflect that individual's opinion and not the opinion or business strategy of Koei Tecmo Games," the statement reads. "We remain focused on delivering the best in fighting entertainment to our fans around the world, while consciously respecting and strategizing to support the different global audiences the Dead or Alive franchise lends itself to."

Translation: "Koei Tecmo confirms that what he said was 100% correct but was stated indelicately. Here, have a 'consciously respecting and strategizing to support the different global audiences'. That's respectful, right?"

 

[Worgen]

I wouldn't be surprised if they were trying to market this like hatred was marketed. Building up the outrage hype machine then suddenly they will release it and rake in those "fuck the pc crowd" dollars for a little bit before vanishing and no one remembering it existed.