Sony implements new policy censoring Japanese games for possible fanservice content

[I can't enter my old name]

This is exactly why Sony has gone off the deep end. The years of mental gymnastics to have nudity and sexual themes in their game have finally come back to bite them wholly in the ass now that other countries isn't having any of Japan's attempts to sidestep the issue. Either they can reform or there will be more impotent rage from these weebs who only cares if their fanservice games are being hit.

I don't get what you're trying to say. Senran Kagura has multiple releases without getting flagged for anything. It was rated by the ESRB below AO, and was approved for console release for many years. That touching thing was already on previous versions. The fact that Nintendo of all people are going to keep that touching minigame shows that Sony did so on their own volition.

What doesn't make sense is that Sony is now censoring adult girls in bikinis and shorts with magical beams. I don't know what kind of self-righteous prude you have to be to find bikini girls worth censoring, but it's happening. They are also requiring Japanese devs to abide with their dumb localization policy even if they are only releasing in Japan.

Regardless the bubble has burst for these bastards and I am happy to see that they finally paid the price for flooding the market with shovelware fanservice games and VNs.

You know I don't really get this quality control argument. It's just an argument to support the removal of content you find objectionable without arguing why such content should be banned. Arguing about "the children" makes you sound like an idiot, so this is the next logical approach. It's no coincidence why people who don't want porn games on Steam care so deeply about quality control.

You will not encounter asset flips en masse unless your job is to look at releases, hence why Jim Sterling has convinced a lot of people about this problem. Why? Well it makes his job harder.

For you, the consumer, you will never see that unless you are sorting by date released, and I would ask why? You have no difficulty in finding games worth playing. People don't buy asset flips either, and those that do have the refund option, making it a non-issue.

Similarly you will have no difficulty finding products worth buying on Amazon despite them having WAY more items for sale, and some of them are even breaking their rules.

If you don't want to see anime titty games, then don't go to the VN/anime section, or use the filter to hide it. It's that simple.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

Hyper purist...I like the sound of that haha.

It sounded to me like you're missing the point and hence can't actually like it because I think to anyone who does like it the fact that the fanservice in SK is entirely tongue-in-cheek is something obvious. I'm not sure if the comedic ecchi components somehow fail to work for you if the char is supposedly 15 (but looks fully grown and behaves similarly grown)

Almost all of these kids reference the fact that they're kids constantly, in the series about them growing up.

And if this is your idea of looking or acting "fully grown"

NSFW! https://youtu.be/q7ZAt33POhE

or what have you but if you claim to like it then I will expect you to be aware of the fact that most of these moments are so clearly super over the top to the point of absurdity that to treat them with any amount of seriousness is to inherently miss the point about them. It's like treating a joke about death seriously and commenting about how death isn't funny and how you have to cherish life and how we have to honor the dead. Yes, even if the humor is extracted from a 15 year old being groped by an octopus or something, it's still you missing the joke if you get all uppity about it and try to make a serious case against child grooming when the subject is actually a joke.

I'm well aware that it's absurd and a joke. I generally think they're funny.

It's also sexualizing minors to do it. That makes it less funny. I think it would be more funny if it did less of the child nudity and more of the slapstick absurdity. Or at least swap the child nudity for adult nudity.

It would also be a lot less "approaching the edge of illegality".

Just so we're clear am I now on a watch list for having clicked that youtube link? Because it sure as shit feels like it should be grounds for that.

If this is what people are trying to preserve then burn it all to the ground and they can try and put out the flames with their creepy creepy tears.

Game's officially and legally released everywhere in the free world so nope, you're on no list. That's kinda the best point here actually. If there was such an issue, companies that are naturally risk averse wouldn't risk being sued for releasing illegal content over a niche series that barely breaks 200k sales at best.

Oh and this is not what we're trying to preserve, because this stuff isn't going anywhere. What's actually being removed is the interactive dressing room mode basically. The game is still going to have the over the top to the point of absurdity sexual transformations and defeat sequences and so on. If they were gonna remove those too then it'd be easier to just not release the game at all in the first place.

Though again even if they were to burn this all like you describe, Steam now offers completely uncensored games (and Evenicle is designed by the Senran Kagura artist) which is superior to even the least censored thing on Sony systems so there's really no reason to be upset here lol.

 

[crypticracer]

Seriously, how is "multinational corporation gets antsy around sexualized minors" such an odd concept?

It's an odd concept because of how common the alternative is, really. The fact that this hasn't been raising many flags for the last 20-ish years is kind of weird.

I blame the eighties. They wanted teenage sex comedies so they hired thirty year olds to play teenagers... I remember, when I got to high school, being confounded at how young we all were. I think two generations have grown up with this image of teenagers being older seeming than they really are. I still hear kids are in high school and I'm like, "what? They look twelve."

 

[Sleepy Sol]

Can't bring myself to care that much about these kinds of features in games. It does encourage me to move to other platforms sometimes, but it's also definitely the kind of thing where I'd rather just watch porn. Plenty probably exists of characters in these games anyways. Not like the internet is lacking there.

It's definitely weird that now of all times is where Sony is choosing to do this, though. Weirder that they're supposedly making companies retroactively patch games that are deemed to be offending the policy (not sure how close to the truth that is, just been seeing a few conversations here and there).

Though again even if they were to burn this all like you describe, Steam now offers completely uncensored games (and Evenicle is designed by the Senran Kagura artist) which is superior to even the least censored thing on Sony systems so there's really no reason to be upset here lol.

Which is exactly where everyone who cares about this stuff should be going. PC best platform and all that. Can't imagine many of these games really require all that much to get running. Especially not VN stuff.

 

[Mothro]

Well I think they also be banning violence in their games. After all, isn't violence worse than nudity?

 

[Something Amyss]

Seriously, how is "multinational corporation gets antsy around sexualized minors" such an odd concept?

It's an odd concept because of how common the alternative is, really. The fact that this hasn't been raising many flags for the last 20-ish years is kind of weird.

I blame the eighties. They wanted teenage sex comedies so they hired thirty year olds to play teenagers... I remember, when I got to high school, being confounded at how young we all were. I think two generations have grown up with this image of teenagers being older seeming than they really are. I still hear kids are in high school and I'm like, "what? They look twelve."

I'm not sure "I wanted to force myself on a teenager, it just turned out she was 12" is much better. Then again, it's been about 20 years since I last had interest in high schoolers, so maybe I'm just too old to get it.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

Well I think they also be banning violence in their games. After all, isn't violence worse than nudity?

Depends on the culture. Japanese localizations tend to ramp down the US's hyper-violence, excessive gore, and/or manipulation of dead bodies.

 

[Something Amyss]

Well I think they also be banning violence in their games. After all, isn't violence worse than nudity?

Depends on the culture. Japanese localizations tend to ramp down the US's hyper-violence, excessive gore, and/or manipulation of dead bodies.

Didn't the Saints Row crew have to edit their dildo bst to look less penis-like, too? It's not just violence. Peen is still somewhat limited.

 

[crypticracer]

Seriously, how is "multinational corporation gets antsy around sexualized minors" such an odd concept?

It's an odd concept because of how common the alternative is, really. The fact that this hasn't been raising many flags for the last 20-ish years is kind of weird.

I blame the eighties. They wanted teenage sex comedies so they hired thirty year olds to play teenagers... I remember, when I got to high school, being confounded at how young we all were. I think two generations have grown up with this image of teenagers being older seeming than they really are. I still hear kids are in high school and I'm like, "what? They look twelve."

I'm not sure "I wanted to force myself on a teenager, it just turned out she was 12" is much better. Then again, it's been about 20 years since I last had interest in high schoolers, so maybe I'm just too old to get it.

I think I said that wrong. I meant that the eighties and continuing into the nineties, put this image in people heads of teenagers being these fully grown sexual beings. It's like Cordelia in Buffy. She a highschooler, but the actress is like thirty. It creates a dissonance I'm not even sure people know is there. We had more than two decades of media telling people teenagers were hot and horny and we have only begun to show that, no, that's not really the case.

TLDR - Highschoolers are children, but movies and tv don't present them that way, and thus neither do vidya games. I'm not sure interactive fanservice was the problem, but then it could just be a pr-emptive move for VR.

 

[Something Amyss]

Seriously, how is "multinational corporation gets antsy around sexualized minors" such an odd concept?

It's an odd concept because of how common the alternative is, really. The fact that this hasn't been raising many flags for the last 20-ish years is kind of weird.

I blame the eighties. They wanted teenage sex comedies so they hired thirty year olds to play teenagers... I remember, when I got to high school, being confounded at how young we all were. I think two generations have grown up with this image of teenagers being older seeming than they really are. I still hear kids are in high school and I'm like, "what? They look twelve."

I'm not sure "I wanted to force myself on a teenager, it just turned out she was 12" is much better. Then again, it's been about 20 years since I last had interest in high schoolers, so maybe I'm just too old to get it.

I think I said that wrong. I meant that the eighties and continuing into the nineties, put this image in people heads of teenagers being these fully grown sexual beings. It's like Cordelia in Buffy. She a highschooler, but the actress is like thirty. It creates a dissonance I'm not even sure people know is there. We had more than two decades of media telling people teenagers were hot and horny and we have only begun to show that, no, that's not really the case.

TLDR - Highschoolers are children, but movies and tv don't present them that way, and thus neither do vidya games. I'm not sure interactive fanservice was the problem, but then it could just be a pr-emptive move for VR.

That should still shift the ages lower. When we think of high schoolers, we should think of fully-developed adults. Vidyua games have "fan-service" with girls who don't even look pubescent. And, I mean, that's what "gamers" have been losing their shit over all these years. children or barely pubescent tweens being edited out of video games. being made less skimpy. 90210 and Power Rangers shouldn't be responsible for wanting to touch children, period. Rather, we should be looking at 19 year olds and thinking they're clearly too young.

At the same time, teens actually are sexual beings and we need to recognise them as such. Part of why it's so easy to prey on teens sexully is that we try and pretend that they're not and it won't be an issue. Humans start getting sexual impulses at puberty. Some even before that. We can accept that and understand it without preying on them. I get skeeved by this supposed fan-service, knowing it's fantasy, because it's still kids. I'd probably feel at least a little better if instead of trying to age up clearly prepubescent kids they tried to age down adults.

'Basically, it's easier for me to swallow people being attracted ot Cordelia because Charisma Carpenter is ten years older than me, and thus was 25-26 when Buffy first dropped. Getting roused over a clearly fully adult woman is very, very different than getting aroused over someone who looks like a child.

But where we're at is different. We're at a place where people get angry that they might lose access to 'sexy" 14 year olds, when the response should be, as you already pointed out, to look at kids in high school and be surprised at how young they are. That should be the effect hollywood has had on us with their pornedies and sitcoms and dramas. We should be looking at 20 year olds and going "ew no, get that kiddie crap out of here!" not looking at 12 year olds and going "man, if they take away my ability to feel her up...I'ma be so mad!"

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

This topic is the gift that keeps on giving it seems.


Now there's leaks that Sony is preventing game developers from disclosing the fact that their games are being censored. Also it sounds like all games are subjected to a "western standard", even games which are not even intended for a western release, which is just odd. They're also scrapping ports of eroge for some reason. It's like they really want Steam to do well with its new allow everything policy haha.



https://archive.fo/gVI6K

 

[Something Amyss]

"leaks" which don't link directly to any specific content,seemingly to obfuscate the lack of any sort of verifiable or specific valid content. #purplemonkeydishwasher

 

[Marik2]

This isn't going to stop anything. It will just cause people to get a PC.

 

[gyrobot_v1legacy]

Back to the pit where it belongs. Say goodbye to those sweet limited edition sales on the PS4 though. A lot of VNs depend on limite editions to actually make money

 

[Specter Von Baren]

New news on this I saw on N4G.

https://www.psu.com/news/japanese-playstation-games-face-stricter-censorship-worldwide-report/

Apparently this is turning into a worldwide edict by Sony to do this for all consoles around the world. As in, the standards of American media is being enforced on games in other countries.

On the one hand this sucks, but on the other it could also mean these games could come to PC or Switch since Nintendo is being more relaxed with their policies at the moment.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

New news on this I saw on N4G.

https://www.psu.com/news/japanese-playstation-games-face-stricter-censorship-worldwide-report/

Apparently this is turning into a worldwide edict by Sony to do this for all consoles around the world. As in, the standards of American media is being enforced on games in other countries.

On the one hand this sucks, but on the other it could also mean these games could come to PC or Switch since Nintendo is being more relaxed with their policies at the moment.

Most of these games are also on steam at least (and some are on switch too) so yeah there's no issue. They tend to be pretty easy to run without needing an expensive pc either.

 

[gyrobot_v1legacy]

More impotent rage from Niche.

https://nichegamer.com/2018/12/01/senran-kagura-7even-producer-development-may-take-longer-due-to-new-restrictions-on-sexual-themes/
https://nichegamer.com/2018/12/02/sony-japan-president-new-censorship-policies-on-sexual-themes-are-to-meet-global-standards/

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

Well, the same impotent rage said again, at any rate.

Like, would it really extend development all that much to have slight alterations to some character models and have the gals going to ninja college? Seriously, why the bizarre fixation on providing near soft-core child porn? You can still have your game about people having to grow and mature if they could also get a drivers license in Japan. I know this because Miyabi's in the series and she's 21.

 

[Specter Von Baren]

Well, the same impotent rage said again, at any rate.

Like, would it really extend development all that much to have slight alterations to some character models and have the gals going to ninja college? Seriously, why the bizarre fixation on providing near soft-core child porn? You can still have your game about people having to grow and mature if they could also get a drivers license in Japan. I know this because Miyabi's in the series and she's 21.

The same train of logic for this can also be applied to a plethora of other things in media. Moreover, the problem isn't so much the censorship, but that it is being applied to ALL countries based on only American's ideas.