Why is this game allowed?

[Asvinia]

3 hours ago, MMDE said:

Tell that to all the women who gets turned on by those things, especially those into masculine bodies etc. I really don't think this point is moot. It's most definitely a double-standard.

 

I am yet to hear of a woman becoming physically sexually aroused by seeing a mans chest. It works differently for men and women. Women like to look sure, but they don't get physically aroused as a natural reaction to it. We're just built differently when it comes to seeing naked bodies I guess. Same as women at hen parties don't get aroused by the male strippers, they just like to look because it's fun. As a culture we see breasts as sexual, almost no one sees a mans chest as sexual. No matter how ripped he is, only a tiny handful of women might have a sexual reaction to it. Saying "I'd let him get all up in my guts" as a joke and then forgetting about it, isn't the same as popping a boner at a nip slip and adding it to the 'wank bank'.

Sure it might be a double standard but it's like that for a reason. I don't know if it's also worth pointing out that as far as video games go, women aren't the ones buying bare chested figures of characters because they're 'sexy'.

 

It's just.. different reactions I guess.. I don't think either reaction is good or bad and I'll never agree with censorship. If devs want to made jiggly boobies with tassles on for example, they should be able to.

[TheLakota]

1 hour ago, weavsxx said:

The current age is that of massive crybabies, the way I see it.

 

Sounds like we haven't boned up on our history much. It's okay, I got you fam:

 

Read up on Puritan influence on American values. Yes, I get it: crybabies bad. Mammaries good. 

 

Your gross oversimplification though can be avoided in future discussions by perhaps reading a book. 

[MMDE]

14 minutes ago, Asvinia said:

 

I am yet to hear of a woman becoming physically sexually aroused by seeing a mans chest. It works differently for men and women. Women like to look sure, but they don't get physically aroused as a natural reaction to it. We're just built differently when it comes to seeing naked bodies I guess. Same as women at hen parties don't get aroused by the male strippers, they just like to look because it's fun. As a culture we see breasts as sexual, almost no one sees a mans chest as sexual. No matter how ripped he is, only a tiny handful of women might have a sexual reaction to it. Saying "I'd let him get all up in my guts" as a joke and then forgetting about it, isn't the same as popping a boner at a nip slip and adding it to the 'wank bank'.

Sure it might be a double standard but it's like that for a reason. I don't know if it's also worth pointing out that as far as video games go, women aren't the ones buying bare chested figures of characters because they're 'sexy'.

 

It's just.. different reactions I guess.. I don't think either reaction is good or bad and I'll never agree with censorship. If devs want to made jiggly boobies with tassles on for example, they should be able to.

 

What kind of world is this? Women doesn't get aroused by masculine bodies etc? I've had enough women tell me they do, so this is just bs.

 

There's definitely a double standard regardless of if you believe they get turned on by a man's chest or not. It's the fact that they complain about women often being portrayed as very sexual attractive etc, meanwhile, most games do the exact same with men. The difference is that you just don't get turned on by it as a man. It definitely does push the same kind of unrealistic body images for men too, but nobody cares, which is fine IMO, but I don't like the double standard.

 

And then there's men who get turned on by other men, and there's definitely at least a certain person on this forum who will gladly talk about how much he likes Chris from Resident Evil's body.

 

Do you think the dudebros would buy some Call of Duty game with a wimp on the cover? I don't.

Edited April 18, 2019 by MMDE

[Asvinia]

4 minutes ago, MMDE said:

What kind of world is this? Women doesn't get aroused by masculine bodies etc? I've had enough women tell me they do, so this is just bs.

 

There's definitely a double standard regardless of if you believe they get turned on by a man's chest or not. It's the fact that they complain about women often being portrayed as very sexual attractive etc, meanwhile, most games do the exact same with men. The difference is that you just don't get turned on by it as a man. It definitely does push the same kind of unrealistic body images for men too, but nobody cares, which is fine IMO, but I don't like the double standard.

 

And then there's men who get turned on by other men, and there's definitely at least a certain person on this forum who will gladly talk about how much he likes Chris from Resident Evil's body.

 

Yeah, but they don't get sexually aroused by it is the thing. Being attracted to something and being sexually aroused are two completely different things. However your assumption that I am a man is also wrong and I would appreciate it if you could keep it civil.

I am attracted to masculine men, yes. But I am not sexually aroused by them until the time calls for it. As applies to most women. When was the last time you were told that a woman saw an attractive guy and then had to take herself to the bathroom to clean herself up before she ruined her underwear? I'm willing to bet never.

 

Attraction =/= arousal.

 

Though I'll agree that it pushes an unrealistic body expectation on men and that it's not fair.

[MMDE]

2 minutes ago, Asvinia said:

 

Yeah, but they don't get sexually aroused by it is the thing. Being attracted to something and being sexually aroused are two completely different things. However your assumption that I am a man is also wrong and I would appreciate it if you could keep it civil.

I am attracted to masculine men, yes. But I am not sexually aroused by them until the time calls for it. As applies to most women. When was the last time you were told that a woman saw an attractive guy and then had to take herself to the bathroom to clean herself up before she ruined her underwear? I'm willing to bet never.

 

Attraction =/= arousal.

 

Though I'll agree that it pushes an unrealistic body expectation on men and that it's not fair.

 

There's MANY people in this world who gets AROUSED by the male body. What makes you think this can only happen to women bodies?  

Edited April 18, 2019 by MMDE

[TheLakota]

5 minutes ago, MMDE said:

What makes you think this can only happen to women bodies?  

 

I'm going to invoke @grimydawg here.

 

*ahem*

 

Because titty. 

[Asvinia]

Just now, MMDE said:

There's MANY people in this world who gets AROUSED by the male body.

 

That's what the discussion got to huh? I guess it's over then. I mean, we could go into technicalities of who those people are, the location and other variables but that would most likely be too much. And then we could cite studies on attraction vs arousal and all that stuff. But it still ain't women masturbating to cartoon/video game characters.

 

"You saying that invalidates my experiences as a woman and I'm just feeling so attacked right now. You're literally mansplaining my sense of arousal to me and I literally can't handle this right now." /s

[GR1Mshadow]

10 minutes ago, TheLakota said:

Back on topic: I don't particularly feel violence and sex in video games is an apples to apples comparison

A fair point overall, but when it comes to Mortal Kombat specifically, I think we should take into account how strongly these elements are present. Going by MKX:

On the violence side, X-ray moves and fatalities revel in showing off how much effort was put into the gore system. Fighters regularly bounce back from having bones broken, vital organs impaled, and other over the top traumatic injuries, which are not only rendered in incredible detail, but zoomed in on in slow motion for good measure. 

On the sex side, we have... cleavage. Maybe some innuendos in dialogue; I don't recall any off the top of my head but I can't confidently say there are none. However, there are no depictions of characters outright getting it on, and the closest we come to seeing anybody's junk is the ball busting X-ray, which is a thousand times more violent than it is sexual.

So we have some pretty extreme violence vs mild sexuality. Way I see it, if someone's not mature enough to handle seeing half naked polygons, they sure as hell aren't mature enough to play a game like Mortal Kombat. I don't care for the over-saturation of sex in media, but if movies and TV shows can depict sex scenes acted out by real flesh and blood human beings, then videogames can have as many bikini ninja girls as they want. It's not the developer's fault when people buy M rated games for their kids then complain about it having M rated content.

[DaikichiKawachi]

I think Sony should think twice if this is the hill they want to die on.

 

Most of the money they make is from software sales and that is driven by 'gamers'. The people who own 400 games on their PS4 and another 200 games on their Vita. We choose Playstation because it is the best place to play games, not because of some blind brand loyalty. I bought an Xbox on release day. I bought an Xbox 360 on release day but I didn't buy an Xbox One because it was no longer the best place to play. Now I'm beginning to wonder as we start a new generation, where is the best place to play again? I don't want inferior versions of games available on other systems. I don't buy CDs at Wal-Mart because they are censored. This matters to people like us.

 

Censorship only appeals to casual gamers and sure that can drive system sales, the 3DS is a great example of that, but look at the attach rate for the 3DS. It's embarassing. You're pissing off your core audience to appeal to an audience that doesnt even buy games. If that's what they want to do then Microsoft is waiting in the wings to take the mantle and it will be like the early PS3 days again for Sony.

Edited April 18, 2019 by DaikichiKawachi

[KainDMD]

Protect the children is a joke that started with lootboxes. Now everyone says fuck the children lol

[ShadeSplit]

If you read the full article, you'll see that this isn't really an issue with "protecting the children". The only thing Sony is trying to protect is their own backside.

 

https://www.engadget.com/2019/04/16/sony-crackdown-on-sexually-explicit-ps4-content/

 

https://nichegamer.com/2019/04/16/sony-now-internally-regulates-sexual-content-in-video-games/

 

[Lance_87]

Protecting their own backside, but from who? Do they seriously think that "movements" give a damn about explicit content in videogames? Poor idiots.

[Wavergray]

All the talk about double standards and moral stuff in this thread is cool and all, but it's really just dancing around the simple answer to the question @weavsxx asked.
The answer is that MK games make so much money that Warner Brothers and Netherrealm Studios can tell Sony to fuck off. In other words neither Sony nor Netherrealm can risk missing out on the money MK11 will make on ps4, but Netherrealm holds more power in the conversation/agreement so Sony can't force their censorship stuff on MK11. This is because if MK11 was on Xbox, Switch, and PC, but not on PS4 people would know it was Sony's fault and that would hurt their reputation as the "best place to play" with the mainstream "gamers" aka the "gamers" that actually make Sony money. Now if Netherrealm wants to be more conservative with how they dress their characters that's their choice, but Sony doesn't have the power to force them to do so.

As for all the other games that are being "censored" it is the opposite situation. None of them make enough money to tell Sony to fuck off. All those games are for a small Niche audience, that makes up at most 10% of all of PS4 "gamers". If you read the full Wall Street Journal article, it pretty much spells it out that Sony is worried about their reputation with the mainstream. 

Let's not beat around the bush here, most of the games that are being "censored" are the weird Japanese games that are seen as creepy to like 80%-90% of the world (including most of the people in Japan). Like regardless of what age you stamp on the character in the game, if the game shows what looks like to be a teenage girl naked or sexualized you are going to get judged as being creepy or worse. With that in mind, think about it from Sony's perspective. These games that come from Sony's homeland could hurt their reputation as a worldwide company. These games that don't sell well (relative to other safer games) which in turn don't make a ton of money. At that point it becomes a cost-benefit analysis. Does the benefits that letting the games be uncensored outweigh the potential cost to reputation? The current answer to this seems to be no, so Sony's solution is simple. If a game series makes X amount of money it can tell Sony to fuck off, if the game series doesn't make that amount of money it has to deal with their censorship stuff.

Always remember Money=Power when it comes to stuff like this, and unfortunately niche audiences are super unreliable when it comes to making money. Because of this fact when companies like Sony try to appease to the niche markets/audiences it tends to blows up in their face and not make enough money to justify appeasing to them. If you don't believe me go look into the Gravity Rush 2 Fiasco. That game didn't even match the sales of Gravity Rush 1. A sequel to niche game, that was released on a console with a much higher install base, couldn't out sell the original game that was released on the handheld with a low install base. It doesn't matter what reason the niche audience had for not buying the game, All that matters to Sony is that the niche audience who kept telling them they wanted a sequel to the game, couldn't be bothered to buy the game. 

So if editing one or two picture in a game, removing something that doesn't effect gameplay, or other small things that could hurt Sony's reputation are enough to make niche audiences that makes up a small percentage of the overall "PlayStation Nation" not buy a game. Then from a cost-benefit analysis side of things, it's not worth it for Sony to deal with that niche audience. Which in turn only hurts the developers who makes those niche titles. For example, if a game that was projected to sell only 50,000 copies only sells 10,000-20,000 because the niche audience got upset over something, it doesn't really hurt Sony. The only party that is hurt is the developer of that game. Which is why in the end, the niche markets/audiences greatest enemy will always be itself.

So yeah, all of that is why MK11 is allowed to be sold untouched by Sony's new censorship stuff.

Edited April 18, 2019 by soultaker655

[Alantor32]

22 minutes ago, soultaker655 said:

All the talk about double standards and moral stuff in this thread is cool and all, but it's really just dancing around the simple answer to the question @weavsxx asked.
The answer is that MK games make so much money that Warner Brothers and Netherrealm Studios can tell Sony to fuck off. In other words neither Sony nor Netherrealm can risk missing out on the money MK11 will make on ps4, but Netherrealm holds more power in the conversation/agreement so Sony can't force their censorship stuff on MK11. This is because if MK11 was on Xbox, Switch, and PC, but not on PS4 people would know it was Sony's fault and that would hurt their reputation as the "best place to play" with the mainstream "gamers" aka the "gamers" that actually make Sony money. Now if Netherrealm wants to be more conservative with how they dress their characters that's their choice, but Sony doesn't have the power to force them to do so.

As for all the other games that are being "censored" it is the opposite situation. None of them make enough money to tell Sony to fuck off. All those games are for a small Niche audience, that makes up at most 10% of all of PS4 "gamers". If you read the full Wall Street Journal article, it pretty much spells it out that Sony is worried about their reputation with the mainstream. 

Let's not beat around the bush here, most of the games that are being "censored" are the weird Japanese games that are seen as creepy to like 80%-90% of the world (including most of the people in Japan). Like regardless of what age you stamp on the character in the game, if the game shows what looks like to be a teenage girl naked or sexualized you are going to get judged as being creepy or worse. With that in mind, think about it from Sony's perspective. These games that come from Sony's homeland could hurt their reputation as a worldwide company. These games that don't sell well (relative to other safer games) which in turn don't make a ton of money. At that point it becomes a cost-benefit analysis. Does the benefits that letting the games be uncensored outweigh the potential cost to reputation? The current answer to this seems to be no, so Sony's solution is simple. If a game series makes X amount of money it can tell Sony to fuck off, if the game series doesn't make that amount of money it has to deal with their censorship stuff.

Always remember Money=Power when it comes to stuff like this, and unfortunately niche audiences are super unreliable when it comes to making money. Because of this fact when companies like Sony try to appease to the niche markets/audiences it tends to blows up in their face and not make enough money to justify appeasing to them. If you don't believe me go look into the Gravity Rush 2 Fiasco. That game didn't even match the sales of Gravity Rush 1. A sequel to niche game, that was released on a console with a much higher install base, couldn't out sell the original game that was released on the handheld with a low install base. It doesn't matter what reason the niche audience had for not buying the game, All that matters to Sony is that the niche audience who kept telling them they wanted a sequel to the game, couldn't be bothered to buy the game. 

So if editing one or two picture in a game, removing something that doesn't effect gameplay, or other small things that could hurt Sony's reputation are enough to make niche audiences that makes up a small percentage of the overall "PlayStation Nation" not buy a game. Then from a cost-benefit analysis side of things, it's not worth it for Sony to deal with that niche audience. Which in turn only hurts the developers who makes those niche titles. For example, if a game that was projected to sell only 50,000 copies only sells 10,000-20,000 because the niche audience got upset over something it doesn't really hurt Sony, it only hurts a developer of that game. in the end the niche markets/audiences greatest enemy will always be itself.

So yeah, all of that is why MK11 is allowed to be sold untouched by Sony's new censorship stuff.

That is so much true. Finally, a more mature and level headed person.

[KUROJAIDEN]

42 minutes ago, soultaker655 said:

All the talk about double standards and moral stuff in this thread is cool and all, but it's really just dancing around the simple answer to the question @weavsxx asked.
The answer is that MK games make so much money that Warner Brothers and Netherrealm Studios can tell Sony to fuck off. In other words neither Sony nor Netherrealm can risk missing out on the money MK11 will make on ps4, but Netherrealm holds more power in the conversation/agreement so Sony can't force their censorship stuff on MK11. This is because if MK11 was on Xbox, Switch, and PC, but not on PS4 people would know it was Sony's fault and that would hurt their reputation as the "best place to play" with the mainstream "gamers" aka the "gamers" that actually make Sony money. Now if Netherrealm wants to be more conservative with how they dress their characters that's their choice, but Sony doesn't have the power to force them to do so.

As for all the other games that are being "censored" it is the opposite situation. None of them make enough money to tell Sony to fuck off. All those games are for a small Niche audience, that makes up at most 10% of all of PS4 "gamers". If you read the full Wall Street Journal article, it pretty much spells it out that Sony is worried about their reputation with the mainstream. 

Let's not beat around the bush here, most of the games that are being "censored" are the weird Japanese games that are seen as creepy to like 80%-90% of the world (including most of the people in Japan). Like regardless of what age you stamp on the character in the game, if the game shows what looks like to be a teenage girl naked or sexualized you are going to get judged as being creepy or worse. With that in mind, think about it from Sony's perspective. These games that come from Sony's homeland could hurt their reputation as a worldwide company. These games that don't sell well (relative to other safer games) which in turn don't make a ton of money. At that point it becomes a cost-benefit analysis. Does the benefits that letting the games be uncensored outweigh the potential cost to reputation? The current answer to this seems to be no, so Sony's solution is simple. If a game series makes X amount of money it can tell Sony to fuck off, if the game series doesn't make that amount of money it has to deal with their censorship stuff.

Always remember Money=Power when it comes to stuff like this, and unfortunately niche audiences are super unreliable when it comes to making money. Because of this fact when companies like Sony try to appease to the niche markets/audiences it tends to blows up in their face and not make enough money to justify appeasing to them. If you don't believe me go look into the Gravity Rush 2 Fiasco. That game didn't even match the sales of Gravity Rush 1. A sequel to niche game, that was released on a console with a much higher install base, couldn't out sell the original game that was released on the handheld with a low install base. It doesn't matter what reason the niche audience had for not buying the game, All that matters to Sony is that the niche audience who kept telling them they wanted a sequel to the game, couldn't be bothered to buy the game. 

So if editing one or two picture in a game, removing something that doesn't effect gameplay, or other small things that could hurt Sony's reputation are enough to make niche audiences that makes up a small percentage of the overall "PlayStation Nation" not buy a game. Then from a cost-benefit analysis side of things, it's not worth it for Sony to deal with that niche audience. Which in turn only hurts the developers who makes those niche titles. For example, if a game that was projected to sell only 50,000 copies only sells 10,000-20,000 because the niche audience got upset over something, it doesn't really hurt Sony. The only party that is hurt is the developer of that game. Which is why in the end, the niche markets/audiences greatest enemy will always be itself.

So yeah, all of that is why MK11 is allowed to be sold untouched by Sony's new censorship stuff.

But that still doesnt justify the pathetic excuse they are giving to censor stuff since if they care much about "mUh RePuTatioN AnD CorE VaLuEs" they wouldnt be allowing stuff like Mortal Kombat, also funny how you labeled those games as "creepy" while turning a blind eye at the far more questionable shit they sell on the store. Money aside still a very inconsistent and dumb idea, also funny how the #MeToo aka #guiltyuntilproveninnocent has not only ruined many innocent men lives but also entertainment. Beatiful timeline we are living lol

[TheLakota]

50 minutes ago, GR1Mshadow said:

Salient points I generally agree with. 

 

I agree on most of what you said, though the fact remains that we as a society still fall back on the Puritan mindset as it's ingrained in our social fabric. 

[Wavergray]

51 minutes ago, KUROJAIDEN said:

But that still doesnt justify the pathetic excuse they are giving to censor stuff since if they care much about "mUh RePuTatioN AnD CorE VaLuEs" they wouldnt be allowing stuff like Mortal Kombat, also funny how you labeled those games as "creepy" while turning a blind eye at the far more questionable shit they sell on the store. Money aside still a very inconsistent and dumb idea, also funny how the #MeToo aka #guiltyuntilproveninnocent has not only ruined many innocent men lives but also entertainment. Beatiful timeline we are living lol

What you consider to be a justification and what Sony considered to be a justification are two totally different things. For all you know reputation and core values are super important things to them. I thought that would be pretty understandable, but maybe you are one of those people who think if something doesn't align with how you feel about it, that makes it wrong?
What questionable things are you talking about? I didn't say anything about either MK11 or other games really being questionable content, but if you feel there are games on the store that shouldn't be on there what are they?

Kind of silly to put money aside when all this is really just about money, even the #MeToo stuff really just boiled down to being about reputations and money. Some people who hated other people use #MeToo to hurt certain people's reputation which in turn made it harder for all people involved to make money. But, that's what happens when you let stupid radical people take over a movement. It happened to Gamergate, Black/Blue/All lives matter, Occupy Wall Street, and many other movements. However, that's besides the point of this conversation.

Edit:
Also yeah, things like intimacy mode in Senran Kagura are creepy. The whole point of the mode is to grope the girls with your control sticks. That's all it does, it has nothing to do with the story of the games or the major gameplay of any of the games. I honestly don't see how anyone would spend more than like 2 minutes in that mode for the trophies. That mode has no impact on whether I would buy a senran kagura game though so it doesn't matter to me whether the mode is in the game or not. You could give me a Senran Kagura game with no exploding clothes and I wouldn't care because I play those games for the gameplay and the story.

If those are the things Sony wants to remove from a game I have no problem with it, because it really doesn't affect anything. Now they turned around and said senran kagura can exist at all because of X reasons then it would be a actual censorship problem I could get behind.

Unfortunately, as someone who like niche things I have to deal with the niche market/audience full of people who say things like "I'd rather have nothing" because some steam or lens flares were added to one scene or picture in a game. Like fuck off with that noise you stupid weebs.

Edited April 18, 2019 by soultaker655
More stuff.

[Walt the Dog]

1 hour ago, soultaker655 said:

Unfortunately, as someone who like niche things I have to deal with the niche market/audience full of people who say things like "I'd rather have nothing" because some steam or lens flares were added to one scene or picture in a game. Like fuck off with that noise you stupid weebs.

 

Even as someone who generally doesn't like censorship even for minor shit like that, this is a particular strain of logic that I just cannot understand. Like, because a game got censored a bit, they would rather have it censored even more by just not coming over and/or existing at all? It's a self-defeating prophecy that just plays directly into Sony's hands. Sure, if you buy the games anyway, you let Sony know that the censorship is forgivable, but in not buying the games, since these games have a very small audience relative to the total install base of the Playstation brand, Sony just takes that as a victory when these niche games just stop coming on the console due to low sales and they don't have to deal with the headache of censoring everything to begin with. The only console where such a strategy could even remotely work is the Vita due to its more niche install base and we all know how much Sony cares about that in 2019.

[TheLakota]

They were merely making a fapping pun when they said things could get out of hand. No harm no foul. 

[panikooooos]

7 hours ago, weavsxx said:

Could you provide a credible source? I refuse to believe seeing a naked body is more destructive to your brain than being exposed to violence.

That's just not how nature works.

Second, there is no porn in video games on the PS4 and that's also not the root of the problem.

The current age is that of massive crybabies, the way I see it.

Sure I got tons of them, I don't want to overwhelm you so I'll just post a few which I think prove my point

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1753-6405.12678

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23167900

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4394849/

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13178-018-0345-x

https://limo.libis.be/primo-explore/fulldisplay?docid=LIRIAS480337&context=L&vid=Lirias&search_scope=Lirias&tab=default_tab&lang=en_US&fromSitemap=1

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28891676

And obviously if you witness a violent event during adolescence you'll probably develop some mental trauma but we're talking about movies and videogame violence here. Obviously it's not gonna have that much of an impact since the kid knows it's all an act, fake blood etc. Porn is porn whether you see two people fucking in the street or two anime girls playing with themselves I don't believe there's a big difference, when you're young that is, obviously. And sure I agree with you on the last part

[AJ_Radio]

13 hours ago, Undead Wolf said:

Out of all the console manufacturers, I never expected that Sony would be the ones to cave in to these radical feminists/SJW types. Sony talking about doing this to "protect the children" is nothing more than an excuse used to deflect people away from the real reason which is that they're scared of any potential backlash. We already have rating boards and parental controls, so if a kid gets their hands on one of these games without their parents consent, it's their own damn fault. Besides, what harm is an anime game with fanservice going to do? More than something like GTA or Mortal Kombat? Give me a break... 

 

11 hours ago, Durandal said:

And I thought the 80s and 90s were bad here in Germany. We had games with robots replacing corpses and blood colored green because of the children! The biggest joke was the German version of Half Life. When you shot any of the scientist they would just get on their knees and holding their hands up instead of falling on the floor like any decent corpse would do. Of course it was all a fart in the wind. Because it is all gone nowadays, even swastikas are allowed in games now. That was the biggest issue for a long time when it comes to censorship. Even games that couldn't be bought back then because of our rating system are legal now, like Mortal Kombat games or the original Doom.

 

That’s because these people who made these decisions to begin with happen to be older folks who are out of touch with reality. 

 

Censorship groups are on more than one account, out for their interests. They don’t care about me, they don’t care about you, they care about their interests. 

 

If that means removing a popular movie on Blu-Ray from the shelves because there is a scene where some slut women have their clothes off while the guys are having a boner with them, because some five year old kid who doesn’t know anything might see it, then the censorship groups will sure as shit do everything they can to take that movie away. 

 

You screw everybody by doing things like that. 

 

None of this was new. Overly strict parents and parent - teacher associations tried to put a warning label on music albums back in the 1980s because some kid might listen to the explicit lyrics, particularly rock lyrics which had a lot of adult innuendo. It was all a big waste of time, but from that point forward music albums with explicit lyrics had to have a warning label on them. 

 

I didn’t learn about this until I bought some cheap Tupac Skakur rap albums around a decade ago. 

 

Joe Lieberman never cared about video games. He probably still doesn’t. Yet he was one of the men in the spotlight who openly spoke against Mortal Kombat and DOOM in the 90s because video game violence was all the rage back then. Then the ESRB ratings were founded, much like the Parental Advisory label that was slapped on music cd albums. 

 

It has almost always been people of authority and status making censorship rules whom were never interested in the mediums to begin with. 

 

“Protecting the Children” is something that has been done for generations. Yet it always ends up in a big debate.

Edited April 19, 2019 by Spaz

[Vampirehunter145]

16 hours ago, DrBloodmoney said:

 

See, here’s the real crux of why this all became a problem.

 

the issue isn’t the ‘snowflakes’ or the parents calling and complaining etc - that’s just people getting offended by things - which they have the right to do - and exercising their own freedom of speech - which they also have a right to do.

 

I have absolutely no issue with people getting offended by whatever they get offended by, or with them basing their purchasing power on those issues, or telling whoever they want to tell just how offended they are.

 

the problem, is that we, as a society, seem to have decided that when people are offended by something, they have a right to expect something to be done about it.

 

When someone says “I’m offended by that” the answer should be *shug* “okay, sucks to be you I guess.”

 

instead, now the answer seems to have become “oh, well, let me remove it. You’re offence is more important than the artistic intention of the originator.”

 

that’s the kind of logic that, had it existed for the past two thousand years, would have resulted in there being nothing but bland, boring, uninteresting or religious art, and nothing else.

 

Let people be offended. Let them be however they are. But please, people, companies, artists, publishers - stop trying to make them happy.

Ex-fucking-actly. I find absurd and hillarious this insane collective desire of pleasing EVERYONE in society. I mean: ?Why do we have to do that? ?Why, as a society, we are pursuing this crazy goal of pleasing each and every individual? Is an utopia, is impossible and is a waste of time.

[Durandal]

12 hours ago, Vampirehunter145 said:

Why do we have to do that? ?Why, as a society, we are pursuing this crazy goal of pleasing each and every individual? Is an utopia, is impossible and is a waste of time.

@Spaz

 

Well it's mostly because we as a society are still afraid of the unknown. That's why we invented god(s) in the first place. To explain why the world turned dark at night and other things but also why we do what we do. Today we invent new hysteria, diseases and psychological disorders to convince ourselves that too much porn or video games or whatever is bad for our sanity/health. And it is always the voice that cries out the loudest who got the most attention. So when a group of people is shouting from the rooftops that a naked girl/guy on a cover is bad for whatever reason, they are attracting the self righteous advocates who think they know what's best. And there you have your recipe for control and censorship.

 

Although we need to address this somehow because otherwise it will never stop. We need some kind of forum where we could debate these issues in a "civilized" way. Of course the problem with this is that nobody has time for that, they just want everything that offends them gone, without even trying to understand the thing that is offending them. Which is essentially a problem as old as our civilization. Although I am not so sure if this would even change anything. Old civilizations like the Greeks and a lot others tried this. Philosophy. But it's more or less dead nowadays, except in those circles where these questions still matter. Our civilization is essentially controlled by an unwillingness to understand the unknown.

 

I remember the fallout of a shooting here in Germany when a 19 year guy killed a bunch of people. They found some shooter games on his computer and voila paranoia took over. People went on and conducted a good old book burning, eh sorry video game burning in the streets! I kid you not! They too used something they didn't understand to blame the next best thing, something that's always been a thorn in our generation, video games. Luckily nobody really attended to this insanity, just a few people and it ended up as a laughing stock. If they had instead focused their attention on the real problem they could have understood why he did it. Turned out he was severely harassed all his life and he also couldn't handle all the stress that school and his family put on him. In the end he just snapped.

 

So this whole disaster could have avoided if we had listened to him or anyone who is in a similar situation. We still don't! And that's why we still get these horrible incidents sometimes. And we still blame the unknown for it. Sure there are lots of people who want to figure out what went wrong but the joke here is that nobody really cares anyway. They just want to vent their frustration somehow. And when the steam is out of their system they simply move on until the next shit hits the fan. Really sad, isn't it?

 

This hysteria is so fucked up nowadays that every slight against whoever explodes somehow. But instead of talking about it or even understanding it, companies like Sony try to avoid the iceberg by placing these ridiculous rules upon themselves. But of course the problem itself can't be avoided like this, because nobody wants to understand what's offending them in the first place. Or why people actually enjoy this or that. Has anyone actually ever listened to someone why he/she likes these games that Sony is so hard to censor these days? Probably not! They go against that poor guy in full force just to vent some frustration or whatever. Of course the reality is that you can't get rid of it anyway. There is always a way to satisfy your need somehow. I mean porn and drugs still exist, right? This right there should be a clear message that you can't sweep something under the rug because it offends someone or even fight it with all your might. The war against drug is lost. What we need is to educate people properly, why this or that might have some bad consequences, whatever they may be. But we don't even to that properly. I digress, sorry. But there is an undeniable  similarity here. We just need to stop and look at it!

 

But this has always been the case. Gutenberg was blamed because he actually gave people a chance to educate themselves when he invented the book print. Elvis probably got a lot of blame just because he danced in a rather sexual style. Rock music in the 60s was condemned as the source of something evil. TVs too and a lot of other things. And these days it's video games and everything that is different from the mainstream. Ironically Gutenberg is a hero these days, we all love rock music and TV is the greatest invention of all times. Hilarious, and I am sure in a few decades video games are completely accepted somehow because all the naysayers are gone and dead by then. But they too will have their fair share of this stupidity to carry, we just need to invent it first. It's probably going to be advanced computer algorithms and artificial intelligence.

 

And the really sad part is that all the groups that seemed to be the cause for so much distress in our society finally had enough and they lash out. But instead of doing it in a civilized way like talking to each other they use the same pitchfork as the other guys. That's why social whatever warriors exist in the first place and all these other groups. Ironically they too seem not to care in the slightest to solve the problem they are pointing at. They just bash against everyone who doesn't understand their point of view. And so the circle is complete. It's always the unknown that causes the most distress in our society. And the unwillingness to understand it.

Edited April 19, 2019 by Durandal

[that_dude_cam_ps]

Seriously, I was already baffled by the changes Ubisoft made to the last 2 AC entries and WD2 smh. Nudity and relationships in games are being censored, but violence and gore is ok?! WTF

[Vergil]

Honestly the protect the children argument is just silly. How many kids below 10 years of age these days don't have a smartphone. They have access to much more than a simple booty on a game. And here in Sweden they teach about sex very early in schools.