What's keeping the West from making DOAX style games?

[JUMBO PALACE]

When you say, "The West", it sounds every bit as ignorant as someone looking at the entire world from the Middle East, through India, China, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Japan and making some sweeping statement about "Asians". In Australia for example (part of "The West" by most estimations) the government does sometimes outright BAN games. In the US that would be unconstitutional. In Canada this time of year brings out the loveliest young women with cut-off shorts showing their bare asscheeks. If you really think that the monolithic "West" is somehow epitomized by WASPs, you need to get out more.

Or you could have just read the thread before you posted, whatever works for you.

It was a poor choice of words and I had no intention to offend you or anyone else. I didn't even say anything inflammatory, so I'm not sure why you felt the need to jump down my throat and call me ignorant. I know this is the internet but if you wanted to disagree with something I said you could have skipped the hostility.

 

[Einspanner]

The fact that almost no one really enjoys a "DOAX" experience

Citation needed.

Sorry, find another playmate.

I'm not interested in you, "mate".

Good, then prove it by leaving me alone.

When you say, "The West", it sounds every bit as ignorant as someone looking at the entire world from the Middle East, through India, China, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Japan and making some sweeping statement about "Asians". In Australia for example (part of "The West" by most estimations) the government does sometimes outright BAN games. In the US that would be unconstitutional. In Canada this time of year brings out the loveliest young women with cut-off shorts showing their bare asscheeks. If you really think that the monolithic "West" is somehow epitomized by WASPs, you need to get out more.

Or you could have just read the thread before you posted, whatever works for you.

It was a poor choice of words and I had no intention to offend you or anyone else. I didn't even say anything inflammatory, so I'm not sure why you felt the need to jump down my throat and call me ignorant. I know this is the internet but if you wanted to disagree with something I said you could have skipped the hostility.

I wasn't trying to single you out, but if you see this thread, it's five pages of people bitching about "The West" in a totally unironic way.

 

[EternallyBored]

Okie dokie. The United States then.

It is interesting to hear that some Japanese people view the USA as open about sexuality. I think the assumption that Japan is so open about sex comes from the few nuggets that get latched on to by American culture. When you learn about lolis, hentai, tentacle porn, etc. I would imagine it would be hard to suspect anything other than a culture that's very open about sex and nudity.

The way you describe things, it sounds like the US is sexualized and vanilla while Japan is repressed and kinky.

Thank you for being understanding about the distinction, it's just a little odd to hear about the West as if the United States is the only country there.

As for views, it's a simplistic way of putting it, but you have hit on some of the difference.

For Japan, there's a sort of acceptable, almost humorous sort of perversion in fiction that would generally be portrayed as creepy and wrong in US entertainment. Teasing and skimpy outfits are also common in Japanese fiction but generally unacceptable outside of cosplay. On the flip side though, the American penchant for dressing skimpy even in day to day life, bikinis on the beach front, and skimpy shorts, is seen as overly sexual by a lot of Japanese society, mimicking that kind of American clothing is seen as rebellious and socially deviant a Japanese person walking down the street in short jeans and a thong is seen as obscene in a lot of areas. There's also a massive difference in what's acceptable in downtown Tokyo versus the smaller cities and rural areas.

Talking about sex is probably where you are closest with your comparison, from my experience, America is much more open in discussing the act of sex and sexual relationships, while being reluctant to discuss sexual deviancy, whereas Japan is much more reserved, you aren't going to get guys going to the bar to talk to women about casual one night stands as often or as easily, but deviancy is more open, even if not quite accepted, for example, gay relationships are more common in fiction, but outside the fetishishization Japanese society sees homosexuality as a passing phase that is acceptable as a teenager but should be discarded in favor of heterosexual marriage as an adult.

On mobile so can't type more, the subject is interesting though, in some ways Japan is open, and in others very closed, its hard to compare to Western countries on a scale of being more or less prudish than the other.

 

[Metalix Knightmare]

"What's keeping the West from making DOAX style games?"

Good taste.

Now THAT is hi-freaking-larious considering we're getting a game called "The Fractured, But Whole" soon. Not to mention the recent Doom game where blood, guts, and mayhem are practically punctuation marks in the game's script. Then you have Dragon Age Origins which sold itself on sex and violence.

While I agree with the other two, I'm pretty sure DA:O sold itself on being Baldur's Gate with the serial numbers filed off.

On that note, I don't even have to look at games to prove that "good taste" isn't even CLOSE to the reason DOAX type games aren't big in the states. George Carlin showed off our lack of good taste in our freaking FOOD!

Americans love to eat. They are fatally attracted to the slow-death of fast food. Hot dogs, corn dogs, triple bacon cheeseburgers, deep-fried butter dipped in pork fat and cheese-whiz, mayonnaise-soaked barbecue, mozzarella patty melts. Americans will eat anything. Anything. ANYTHING. Sh*t, if you were selling fried raccoons a**holes on a stick, Americans would buy them and eat them! Especially if you were to dip them in butter and put a little salsa on them!

Delicious indeed, but Deep Fried Beer (Yes, it's a thing. It was made in Texas because of course it was.) is not exactly what one would think of when it comes to the subject of good taste.

 

[Fox12]

There's good controversy (anything not about sex or nudity or sexy nudity) and then bad controversy (anything regarding sex or nudity or sexy nudity).

Basically suits in the west seem to piss their pants at the idea of failing to be perceived as puritanical and having soccer moms send angry letters about their kids being "excited" by the characters in the games they funded.

As if every kid with a smartphone isn't on fucking pornhub anyway nowadays.

Edit: DOAX is a really low bar to aim for though. I know you said "in the style of" but if western devs did try to make games in that market I'd hope they produced something of significantly higher quality.

Indeed. EA was so scared, they paid fake protesters to pretend like they were religious people protesting their new game, Dante's Inferno, in order to drum up false controversy. They also created an entire add campaign centered around how "your mom will hate it." Copious amounts of violence and nudity were added for good measure.

Those western business men sure are terrified of soccer moms and religion!

 

[Metalix Knightmare]

The fact that almost no one really enjoys a "DOAX" experience

Citation needed.

Sorry, find another playmate.

You don't make a claim like that and then refuse to back it up dude. A lot of people DO in fact enjoy the DOAX experience and the fanservice it offers. They wouldn't have made three of the frigging games if they didn't.

Heck, the Hooters restaurant chain still remaining open kind of proves you really don't have a point there.

 

[gyrobot_v1legacy]

[HEADING=2]Mod Voice[/HEADING]

I'll make one final request in this thread for people to behave, please. I like to think it's possible to have a debate about something without having to resort to telling each other to "find another playmate" and all this other back-and-forth nonsense which is only serving to derail the thread.

I think it's always worth remembering the following from the code of conduct whenever you write any replies.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but no one is entitled to attack others for that opinion. If you can't communicate without using combative, aggressive, or passive aggressive responses, then consider that these may not be the forums for you. Focus your response on your disagreement with a person's opinion, not on the person.

If you can't do that, I will lock the thread.

Thanks.

P.S. Please don't re-report posts prior to this one, this warning covers everyone before this post. Clean slate now. Thanks guys.

 

[Gamerpalooza]

The fact that I mentioned HOTS multiple times

Yeah i skimmed and ignored it because you mention budget and finance like it's the deciding factor. You still do in this point and it ain't. There's a lot more factors in play than just money.

 

[EternallyBored]

The fact that I mentioned HOTS multiple times

Yeah i skimmed and ignored it because you mention budget and finance like it's the deciding factor. You still do in this point and it ain't. There's a lot more factors in play than just money.

And there's more factors in play than just culture and PR, which is my whole point, that even if there was 0 stigma attached, and hell, even if blizzard's corporate culture changed, DOAX is not the kind of game Blizzard would chose to make. Blizzard makes big budget high visibility games with serious mainstream marketing, the acceptability of sexualization does not change the fact that Blizzard does not make, at best, simple minigame collections hung around a premise like, "overwatch girls are now all on a beach for some reason". Even HOTS has more than that surrounding it.

If Blizzard totally changed their beliefs and stance on the subject, what we would get wouldn't be DOAX, it's too small time, what we would get would be a ramped up WoW with costumes like TERA online, or sexy Addons to existing properties like a swimsuit pack for Overwatch. We would get big budget games or Addons to existing stuff so Blizzard can hit mainstream and fan service markets at the same time, not a B level spinoff, because that is the entire point of what I've been saying. Blizzard doesn't do half assed spinoffs like DOAX, that is just a collection of mediocre minigames, or the first game which has a functional but overly simple beach valleyball mechanic.

 

[someguy1231]

Sex appeal alone can't sell a game. Why pay $60 for a game full of girls in bikinis when you have limitless amounts of free porn online? And even then, you can always watch someone's "Let's Play" of that game in question if you just want some eye candy.

Then again, I think anything other than fun gameplay can't sell a game alone. A game could have the best story I've ever seen, but if it's not fun to play, I won't buy it.

 

[deadish]

I guess it's because publishers don't want the endless complain letters and Walmart freaking out, pulling it from the shelves - i.e. they don't want a moral panic.

KT can get away with it because they have a relative stable audience in the Japanese market and no moral panic to worry about there.

DOAX is a spin-off of the DOA fighting game. The jiggling boobs was probably just a gag the developers included which sort of became the game's trademark. LOL

Japan also already has a (mostly underground and low budget) erotic game market in the Dating Sim and Visual Novel genre - although not all of them are "erotic games" though. This market probably existed since the 80s.

So doing a fanservice spin-off of DOA isn't that huge of a leap for them - there is already a market that they could target and potentially tap into.

 

[Estarc]

Indeed. EA was so scared, they paid fake protesters to pretend like they were religious people protesting their new game, Dante's Inferno, in order to drum up false controversy. They also created an entire add campaign centered around how "your mom will hate it." Copious amounts of violence and nudity were added for good measure.

Those western business men sure are terrified of soccer moms and religion!

Funny. That was in 2010. The political landscape has shifted drastically since then as I'm sure you know, since you picked such an old game for an example.

Plus pretending a game is more controversial than it is is wildly different from making a game that is ACTUALLY controversial.

 

[Fox12]

Indeed. EA was so scared, they paid fake protesters to pretend like they were religious people protesting their new game, Dante's Inferno, in order to drum up false controversy. They also created an entire add campaign centered around how "your mom will hate it." Copious amounts of violence and nudity were added for good measure.

Those western business men sure are terrified of soccer moms and religion!

Funny. That was in 2010. The political landscape has shifted drastically since then as I'm sure you know, since you picked such an old game for an example.

Plus pretending a game is more controversial than it is is wildly different from making a game that is ACTUALLY controversial.

2010? One year before the issue of video game violence would be brought before the Supreme Court, possibly leading to real video game censorship? As opposed to the fake censorship everyone's talking about now? The landscape may be different, but it was no less controversial. The stakes were much higher then. The idea that suits are more scared now then they were then is silly. If they were terrified of soccer moms and religion then they wouldn't have built their entire campaign around trying to tick those people off. Which is actually kind of funny, because neither the Christians nor the soccer moms seemed to care.

Furthermore, I thought that the argument was that we have a history of religious prudishness, and that that explains why certain games don't sale? Because now you're telling me that this is a recent development, since so much has changed since 2010. Which is it?

 

[Estarc]

2010? One year before the issue of video game violence would be brought before the Supreme Court, possibly leading to real video game censorship? As opposed to the fake censorship everyone's talking about now? The landscape may be different, but it was no less controversial. The stakes were much higher then. The idea that suits are more scared now then they were then is silly. If they were terrified of soccer moms and religion then they wouldn't have built their entire campaign around trying to tick those people off. Which is actually kind of funny, because neither the Christians nor the soccer moms seemed to care.

Furthermore, I thought that the argument was that we have a history of religious prudishness, and that that explains why certain games don't sale? Because now you're telling me that this is a recent development, since so much has changed since 2010. Which is it?

When I say the political landscape has shifted, I am referring to the fact that we've moved away from violence being the focus of controversy to sexual themes and imagery being the focus. I definitely agree the word censorship is being thrown around outside its definition nowadays, but that's because the English language doesn't have a word that fits any better. You're correct the stakes are very different. Currently the arguments and debates going on are between people interested in games and debating the merits of certain types of content. However I believe the reason we are seeing, for example, Japanese publishers cover up female characters in games they bring to the West is because no one wants negative attention from outside the gaming industry focused on them.

I mean come on. Have you played Bravely Default or Bravely Second? They are JRPGs on the Nintendo 3DS with little chibi characters. Nintendo felt the need to make some of the characters costumes less revealing when they released the games here. They have an M rating (15+, not sure US equivalent) so it isn't like they are aimed at children.

There's also a kickback against sexual imagery in games from within the industry itself of course. There's been a push for more female leading roles in games and better representation of female characters in recent years (which is good) but it has been accompanied by condemnation of sexy female characters at the same time (which is bad in my opinion). I think it is great to convey a message that it is okay for devs to make female characters that aren't models, that aren't young hot girls if they want to, that it still has an audience. I think it is bad to criticise any dev that chooses to make a young hot model as their female lead anyway. Is this push from within our industry a greater concern for publishers than the idea of attracting negative attention from outside the industry again? I don't know.

Anyway, end of the day, my first comment was a throwaway one, I didn't expect to actually be debating this issue. I like to drop into a thread, comment once and leave. I don't actually expect angry soccer moms are campaigning or have ever campaigned against adult themes in video games in any organised movement or great numbers. Thanks for ruining my jam. I do think that publishers are hesitant to develop or localise games with sexual themes as a primary focus though, and it isn't because they don't have a market.

 

[Secondhand Revenant]

Lol, maybe nothing's stopping them and they don't care to? I mean, I think genearly companies try to focus on game play to some degree to sell their games.

 

[Metalix Knightmare]

Sex appeal alone can't sell a game. Why pay $60 for a game full of girls in bikinis when you have limitless amounts of free porn online? And even then, you can always watch someone's "Let's Play" of that game in question if you just want some eye candy.

You ARE aware that the Hooters Restaurant chain is still a thing yes? As are Bikini bars?

People like teasing sight just as much as they like open titillation dude. Fact of life.

 

[Avnger]

Sex appeal alone can't sell a game. Why pay $60 for a game full of girls in bikinis when you have limitless amounts of free porn online? And even then, you can always watch someone's "Let's Play" of that game in question if you just want some eye candy.

You ARE aware that the Hooters Restaurant chain is still a thing yes? As are Bikini bars?

People like teasing sight just as much as they like open titillation dude. Fact of life.

Hooters/bars also serve pretty good food and drinks.

Me thinks he's trying to say that there are plenty of ways to get said "titillation" without having to do it through a crappy game that offers barely anything else. Why would a developer spend time and money to make a mediocre game that is primarily aimed at a niche audience and will likely turn off a bunch of regular customers who don't appreciate the titillation and not great gameplay? It doesn't make business sense to do so (at least in the West). Rockstar (for example) is better off pumping out another GTA or something which essentially prints money for them.

EDIT: If these games are your thing, that's great and cool for you. Expecting every gaming niche to go mainstream, however, is naive and likely to never happen.

 

[Ragsnstitches]

Anyway, end of the day, my first comment was a throwaway one, I didn't expect to actually be debating this issue. I like to drop into a thread, comment once and leave. I don't actually expect angry soccer moms are campaigning or have ever campaigned against adult themes in video games in any organised movement or great numbers. Thanks for ruining my jam. I do think that publishers are hesitant to develop or localise games with sexual themes as a primary focus though, and it isn't because they don't have a market.

It's because explicit sexual content can and likely will lead to an AO rating, which can result in limited avenues of sale as certain popular retailers don't supply adult only content (regardless of medium). This can literally kill some games if the popular avenues of sale are cut off.

http://kotaku.com/atlus-making-four-cuts-in-upcoming-game-to-avoid-an-adu-1699956742

The fear is not from people getting their knickers in a knot on twitter or tumblr (if anyone says it is they are just gas lighting for the sake of raising a product profile). It's from a loss of sale potential. It's easier to get graphic violence under an adults only rating then nipples which is why it's easier to find violent media then anything sexual in more conventional retailers... this has been the case for decades and is not a new development.

http://www.polygon.com/2014/2/10/5397680/the-cold-war-on-the-ao-rating-must-stop-if-gaming-is-to-grow-up

"The problem is that the Adults Only rating kills games. This isn?t an exaggeration; most retailers refuse to carry AO games, and no console will allow them on the platform. This isn?t the fault of the ratings board, the existence of an NC-17 equivalent is a healthy rating, this is the fault of the retailers and platform holders falling for the fallacy that video games are still for children."

Things are changing slowly. Valve has started letting erotic games/VNs appear on their service though I believe they are censored to some degree from their original release (could be wrong, I don't play them). Sony and Microsoft are still in a weird spot but they seem to budging and Nintendo is still stuck in 90's mode in almost every form of modernity.

But countries still need to revamp how restrictive age ratings have become. As mentioned in the above Polygon article, age ratings were meant to broaden the types of games that could be made, not shrink them. An AO should just be a classification for consumer awareness, not a malady.

 

[DementedSheep]

Why would you need to buy a separate titty game when you have mountains of free porn and have softcore wank bait shoved into everything anyway?

Because there's something to be said for being teased by the content to make you want to see more.

Because western media doesn't do teasing? did you miss the fact that I wasn't only talking about full on porn?

 

[Metalix Knightmare]

Why would you need to buy a separate titty game when you have mountains of free porn and have softcore wank bait shoved into everything anyway?

Because there's something to be said for being teased by the content to make you want to see more.

Because western media doesn't do teasing? did you miss the fact that I wasn't only talking about full on porn?

Because you weren't talking about anything but full on porn? And Western Media doesn't do teasing? Yeah, Jessica Rabbit says hi.


Western media does PLENTY of teasing.

Edit: Actually, I didn't even need to bring up Jessica. Women's Lingerie has been proving my point for YEARS now! Sexy, scanty, but never fully nude, always teasing.

Hooters/bars also serve pretty good food and drinks.

That they do. It's also not why people started going in there, nor is it what they're famous for.

Me thinks he's trying to say that there are plenty of ways to get said "titillation" without having to do it through a crappy game that offers barely anything else.

Lots of websites are based around just that dude. Heck, DLSite basically serves asa porn game version of Steam.

Why would a developer spend time and money to make a mediocre game that is primarily aimed at a niche audience and will likely turn off a bunch of regular customers who don't appreciate the titillation and not great gameplay?

Why would the regular customers be turned off because the publisher made a game that doesn't interest them? They'd just not buy it and buy the games the publisher makes that DOES interest them. I didn't like Manhunt, but that never stopped me from buying other Rockstar games. I just wasn't part of the Manhunt market.

Not to mention just because something is niche doesn't mean it's unprofitable. Dark Souls is pretty darn niche, or at least it was, but it's still profitable.

As for why a dev would make a game like that? Sex sells. Standard of Marketing since Marketing was a thing dude. Added bonus in that the design standards of these types of games are so low that you don't need to invest much reasources into them and don't need to sell a bunch of them to make bank.

It doesn't make business sense to do so (at least in the West). Rockstar (for example) is better off pumping out another GTA or something which essentially prints money for them.

Makes plenty of sense actually. GTA isn't going to be popular forever. Eventually it WILL drop off, and if Rockstar has nothing else to sell, they're in DEEP Shiza.

EDIT: If these games are your thing, that's great and cool for you. Expecting every gaming niche to go mainstream, however, is naive and likely to never happen.

No one's asking for mainstream, they're asking for products PERIOD.