Video Game Censorship: Discussion Thread

[Wavergray]

Staff Note: For some reason, there is a recurring problem of name-calling, which devolves into petty arguments, which vastly derails the thread - over, and over, and over again. We will ironically remove any posts (yes in a thread about censorship) that include name-calling because we are sure that you are all certainly able to talk to each other maturely about this topic - this is not a Modern Warfare 2 pre-game lobby. If someone calls you a name, just report their post instead of replying to them by calling them a name as well. Thanks  

 

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Video game censorship seems to be quite a big talking point among some people on this site lately, however in a thread where most assume you could talk about censorship in a civilized manner (or as civilized as you can get on the internet) people's posts have been getting reported as off topic. So in a strange twist of fate the thread about censorship was having post "censored" ?

Anyway let's just use this thread as a place on the site for any and all talks about censorship in video games moving forward.

 

The other thread compiling a list of "censored" games can be found here: 

 

Edited July 10, 2019 by BlindMango
Added topic guidelines and expectations

[DARKB1KE]

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFItIX8SIs4zqhJCHpbeV1A/videos

That'll keep you busy.  

Edited June 22, 2019 by DARKB1KE

[AJ_-_808]

Was another thread on this really necessary?

 

The other thread wasnt censored, it was moderated because people went off topic. I hope you understand the difference between the two.

 

Some forms of censorship are deemed necessary by Sony, whether or not you agree with it. If you don't like it, vote with your wallet? That's the only realististic chance you have at changing it.

[Tosmasta00]

My stance on all of this is they should stop to censor stuff which wasn't an issue to anyone until a loud minority decided what can and can't be shown in games.

[Gibbo_0113]

14 minutes ago, Tosmasta00 said:

My stance on all of this is they should stop to censor stuff which wasn't an issue to anyone until a loud minority decided what can and can't be shown in games.

You realise the people complaining about the censorship are also a loud minority. The majority really dont care or even notice.

[MMDE]

48 minutes ago, Gibbo_0113 said:

You realise the people complaining about the censorship are also a loud minority. The majority really dont care or even notice.

 

Until it's something they care about...

[Lonemankane]

I think it is pointless and dum to censor things in games where we have blood and gore and so on but the moment abit of a woman's breast is shown boom out cry happens. Cry me a river is what I say. But yeah am the kind of guy who finds it pointless and plan stupid. I care less and less with each time as games as of late have been going down in terms of going for a way to pander to people that don't play games in the first place.

 

I hope it will end soon this censorship along with the pandering as it is like poison to games. 

Edited December 30, 2022 by Lonemankane

[RevengeancePrime]

I think it's unnecessary especially with some of the censorship we've seen occur (DMC5 for example). Now Microsoft is going to censor what you can say on Xbox live, which is absolutely ridiculous. There's a mute button for a reason, but it seems like Microsoft now feels the need to step in and tell people what is acceptable. This is going to be especially problematic today with how fragile some people are.

[Srassy]

Somehow Sony have ended up being more censorious than my own parents and I moved out of home for that.  Looks like I'm moving to the Switch.

[pinkrobot_pb]

1 hour ago, KANERKB said:

I think it is pointless and dum to censor things in games where we have blood and gore and so on but the moment abit of a woman's breast is shown boom out cry happens.

 

This has been the case in the USA for a very long time. And that is where most of the latest self-censorship by Sony seems to originate from. A lot of people seem to think that it's about #MeToo or whatever. The thing is, that's a very recent development, but censorship of nudity and sex has always been present in American society. A good example would be Nipplegate. A single female nipple shown on television and the whole country was up in arms for weeks. "Won't somebody please think of the children!" was already all the rage back then too. So when Bill Cosby was still happily drugging and groping women, sex and nudity was already a 'bad' thing. It would be a good idea to investigate why that could be. I have my own ideas, but I am just a European outsider looking in (and I hesitate to drag religion into a discussion on a gaming website).

Edited June 22, 2019 by pinkrobot_pb

[Fr_0zt]

i think its dumb and shouldnt happen.  SHOW ME THE BOOBIES!

 

 

Edit: ?

Edited June 22, 2019 by Fr_0zt

[pinkrobot_pb]

4 minutes ago, Fr_0zt said:

SHOW ME THE BOBBIES!

 

Here you go bro, enjoy!

 

[Fr_0zt]

Just now, pinkrobot_pb said:

 

Here you go bro, enjoy!

 

 

Ah fuk, I see what I did there. ??

[Gibbo_0113]

12 hours ago, MMDE said:

 

Until it's something they care about...

It is going to have to be something drastic for that to happen. Right now its only affecting small fan service games. Country based censorship is worse than Sony's IMO.

[SixyLove]

Too many people here are saying that censorship is bad. I feel like defending censorship now because think of all the good things it has done for the good of mankind.

Censorship is a good thing because... (Insert good reasons here after I think of some)

 

16 hours ago, Tosmasta00 said:

My stance on all of this is they should stop to censor stuff which wasn't an issue to anyone until a loud minority decided what can and can't be shown in games.

 

16 hours ago, Gibbo_0113 said:

You realise the people complaining about the censorship are also a loud minority. The majority really dont care or even notice.

This is a case of Sony listening to the wrong minority. The minority that wants games censored was never going to buy the games that get censored. I don't think there is a single person out there who will buy Super Neptunia RPG because there is more steam in one scene and you can't see Vert's panties anymore. Sony is only losing money with their censorship and angering their hardcore fans.

 

14 hours ago, ObliviousSenpai said:

Now Microsoft is going to censor what you can say on Xbox live, which is absolutely ridiculous. There's a mute button for a reason, but it seems like Microsoft now feels the need to step in and tell people what is acceptable. This is going to be especially problematic today with how fragile some people are.

That's really dumb. People can decide what they want to hear on their own. The mute button and party chat are effective means of weeding out undesirables; It's been years since I was forced to listen a lobby DJ, really "salty" players and the cacophony that is a child playing a game in the family room with their siblings being annoying as possible while the parents are getting divorced in the background. Microsoft doesn't need to spend money to censore, we already do it ourselves when given the proper tools.

 

14 hours ago, pinkrobot_pb said:

The thing is, that's a very recent development, but censorship of nudity and sex has always been present in American society. A good example would be Nipplegate. A single female nipple shown on television and the whole country was up in arms for weeks. "Won't somebody please think of the children!" was already all the rage back then too. So when Bill Cosby was still happily drugging and groping women, sex and nudity was already a 'bad' thing. It would be a good idea to investigate why that could be. I have my own ideas, but I am just a European outsider looking in (and I hesitate to drag religion into a discussion on a gaming website).

I've never understood why Americans are so sensitive to nudity and sex. I think America use to be run by a lot of religious groups back in the day but I think that's over now. I think the sexual repression from the old days has become part of the "America's culture" to an extent. There is still plenty of sexy stuff to be found in America; it's just a lot harder to find. 

 

3 hours ago, Gibbo_0113 said:

It is going to have to be something drastic for that to happen. Right now its only affecting small fan service games. Country based censorship is worse than Sony's IMO.

Country censorship is a lot worse then Sony's. At least the games Sony censors get released (in most cases). Not being able to play something at all because your country banned sucks. There are ways around the system but it's a pain and can be very expensive.

[Glowbugg]

Sooo.. I kinda thought there was extra censorship in the US because to American eyes a lot of Japanese art makes the characters look really young? Like it was more of a censorship of what they considered child pornography? I've only been skimming this big argument everyone seems to be having but I haven't seen anyone else bring this up. I'm not saying that the characters are actually all underage just that to the untrained eye (suits who don't watch anime or whatever) that it could look that way. Am i misinformed? 

[damon8r351]

You know what? ^Yeah. Everything outta Japan that's just a teensy bit risque nearly always involves a high school aged schoolgirl, and it's to be honest a little skeevy. No wait. It's all kinds of skeevy.

 

And I get it, it's Japan. Their culture's different, their morals are different, etc. But chances are you're not Japanese, and no matter how many Japanese language classes you take, no matter how much buttered corn flavor pocky you consume, no matter how long ago you moved to downtown Tokyo and married a Japanese national, will ever change that. You will always (always always) be to your Japanese friends that one foreigner they know.

 

Oooh. Weird soapbox.

Edited June 23, 2019 by damon8r351

[MMDE]

I have nothing against illegal content being cut. Sexual references or sexual depiction of what looks like underage girls is usually illegal, but the age of what is considered underage differs. There's also laws in some countries that takes into consideration what they look like, and not their "age". This makes it difficult to release an edgy game from Japan in the west without at least cutting something.

 

For example, I don't mind what they did in Rune Factory Oceans, where you no longer could date an underage girl, or in Agarest 2 where you could give bathroom rubs to an underage character with a move controller that reminded me of jacking off while hearing her making sounds and losing clothing. In fact, releasing it uncut would be illegal, and the company would be able to be sued over it. That's where the limit should go IMO.

 

The difficulty is that there's so many countries and they have different laws. They want to release the game in all countries with as little special tweak as possible, and so they often cut to the point where they don't break the laws in any of the countries they want.

 

I don't think this is what people are talking about when it comes to censoring. It's all the extra stuff they do, the stuff that no law require them to cut, but they cut to please some activists.

Edited June 23, 2019 by MMDE

[AJ_Radio]

If it means anything to you guys, Germany finally lifted the swastika ban a while back where any video game that had the Nazi Swastika was to be censored. That is no longer the case.

 

What I mostly see here is people listing a number of Anime and Hentai games that Sony for some reason has decided to heavily censor. I guess because titties and strong sexual appeal is too much.

 

The censoring in my experience is done by people who have no real knowledge of video games and no experience with them. There was a time back in the day where the mention of 'God' was censored because censorship groups thought it was referring to Jesus, the Lord of Christianity. But by the time God of War was shipped to stores in early 2005 the word was no longer being censored.

 

In my country (USA), they still censor things with high sex appeal, but it doesn't matter how much violence and blood and gore there is, even if somebody shoots a shotgun at somebody's head point blank in a live action show.

 

Maybe a decade from now we may finally get to see titties and sex being performed in a video game. Much like that 'Hot Coffee' controversy in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas that had everybody freaking out which was going to force a change in the ESRB ratings from Mature to Adults Only.

 

Currently, Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo do not allow games with a ESRB rating to Adults Only. Whether they will change in the next few years, only time will tell.

Edited June 23, 2019 by Spaz

[MMDE]

2 hours ago, Spaz said:

The censoring in my experience is done by people who have no real knowledge of video games and no experience with them. There was a time back in the day where the mention of 'God' was censored because censorship groups thought it was referring to Jesus, the Lord of Christianity. But by the time God of War was shipped to stores in early 2005 the word was no longer being censored.

 

Yeah, there's plenty of examples of Nintendo games that got this treatment.

Edited June 23, 2019 by MMDE

[AJ_Radio]

10 hours ago, MMDE said:

 

Yeah, there's plenty of examples of Nintendo games that got this treatment.

 

Nintendo was never geared for Mature rated games. Only a small handful, notably Conker’s Bad Fur Day and others that were Nintendo exclusives were M rated. 

 

Mortal Kombat II is probably my favorite all time fighting game, noted for its blood and gore and sense of humor. The first game was censored to hell and back during a time when video game violence was being contested in the US Congress, which eventually led to the creation of the ESRB ratings. 

 

Today it doesn’t matter how much blood and gore is seen as long as it doesn’t stray into insanity (ex. killing cops for the hell of it isn’t allowed). I’ve seen so much of this in shows like The Walking Dead and Boardwalk Empire and in video games that it doesn’t affect me much at all anymore. 

 

But once there are titties, short female skirts and overly revealing body parts, nope, can’t have that. Got to censor that to hell and back. 

[BLKChaosDragon]

Hmm, Before I begin my point I wanna address a point or so here.

 

On 6/23/2019 at 5:35 AM, Spaz said:

Maybe a decade from now we may finally get to see titties and sex being performed in a video game. Much like that 'Hot Coffee' controversy in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas that had everybody freaking out which was going to force a change in the ESRB ratings from Mature to Adults Only.

 

Currently, Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo do not allow games with a ESRB rating to Adults Only. Whether they will change in the next few years, only time will tell.

 

Perhaps so, but I hope they never do. My own reason being gambling which falls under AO and seeing the games industry abuse a lite version of that...lootboxes ...gatcha ect..I don't want to see my games become further bastardized than they already have. As for Porn games, PC has you covered if you ever need them, I honestly find no value in them but if others do you know where to go to get them.

Edited July 2, 2019 by DaivRules
discuss another site in a separate thread so It can be locked three messages in

[Eremoto]

To me it's a very easy issue: imagine going to a bar to have some cofee, and you specially want to have your cofee with a big greasy donut. It may be bad for your health but you aren't hurting anyone else, yet the bar that used to sell you a cofee and a donut refuses to serve you your daily meal because they are no longer selling it as they deem it "bad food" and instead you are forced to have a cup of tea and a soggy slab of tofu. Thing with censorship is, that unless regulated and with companies who don't censor, that proverbial cup of cofee and donut will no longer be sold and any bar, restaurant or food service in your area and you'll probably have to resort to the black market and illegal methods to get the meal you want.

 

And we'll have another prohibition era stunt in our hands, because suddenly stopping people from buying a product they love in a certain state that has been sold beforewithout issues, you are opening the gates of hell for your business. Europe faced the same thing with tobacco being less openly sold at stores and at higher prices to artificially lower the amout of smokers. You can argue the "health" point all you want but still to do this day, people who wanna smoke still smoke, they just pay more for it and in some places they may be shunned for doing so.

 

Just look back at all those old products that people used to love but are no longer being manufactured. It wasn't censorship in most cases, the companies just went bankrupt and the product became non-existent and unavailabe to be sold, to the dismay of loyal fans of said product. In my country we had our own brand of chewing gum with only one factory in the country but a few years earlier, the factory closed as the company died, and now all of us who grew up with that chewing gum brand can no longer purchase it. To an extent, censorship it's just like that: denying customers acces to your product (or at least said product in it's true, original state). But this time, it's not because of economic reasons that are outside of the companie's hands, no, it's just a morality stance by the company who deem something "too [insert addjective here]" for the public, and nobody enjoys having their products policed, specially if there's no health issue attached to it, so this isn't something like "Burger King will stop selling burgers made from horse paste meat and instead will start using actual pigs from a barn because horse paste meat causes heart dissease" and it's more of a "Burger King will no longer provide ketchup with their meals because it looks like blood and that is bad, so all you get now is mustard, we at BK don't endorse violence so no more ketchup for you, sir."

 

And the same goes for localisation of products: it's okay, we understand that Japan exists, no need to change all the riceballs with donuts or any mention of Raijin to Zeus or Thor just so we understand it. Keep it the way it is, maybe then people will get interested and learn from japanese culture and history instead of having everything transformed into an easy-to-swallow americanization or europeization of japanese media or any foreign media for that matter.

[Sofa King]

Unless the censorship changes the game in some dramatic way, I don't have a problem with it. There're better ways to indulge your pervy impulses than digi-titties.

[DaivRules]

Keep it on topic. If you want to make a separate thread in Off Topic about the difference in “gaming” sites, do that. Don’t bring it here and don’t attack each other personally.