Video Game Censorship: Discussion Thread

[SnowxSakura]

8 hours ago, Undead Wolf said:

 

He literally said in the post you quoted that Sony DO NOT have a monopoly, but a dominant position. A true statement. They have a large influence on the games industry.

Maybe, maybe not. Even with sales numbers, it's impossible to tell who actually games on them, uses them for just movies or other media, how many are sitting on shelves, how many are broken in dumpsters, repair shops etc. Same can be said for the other companies too.

[VoidVictorious]

24 minutes ago, SnowxSakura said:

Maybe, maybe not. Even with sales numbers, it's impossible to tell who actually games on them, uses them for just movies or other media, how many are sitting on shelves, how many are broken in dumpsters, repair shops etc. Same can be said for the other companies too.

A monopoly is a legal term to define a company so large that it is free from ANY competition in its given market. Sony definitely doesn’t fit that bill.

[majob]

9 hours ago, bladesoframen said:

 

 

Probably not the only reason, but you can definitely list censorship as one of the big reasons developers are looking for ways to release their games on other platforms as well like Compile Hearts with Mary Skelter 2 (and many of their other games since they probably run on the same engine).

 

Admittedly these are small names, but have gotten a lot of additional press because of the censorship news. However, these small companies are also the ones that seemed to be bullied the most by Sony.

 

Compile Heart and Mary Skelter 2 is why I take issue with the policy because I'm now missing out on games that could have been made available to me. I don't see the press having the affect I wish it would though since SIE apparently is sticking to their guns right now.

[thefourfoldroot]

17 hours ago, SnowxSakura said:

Having around 100 million sales doesn't make it a monopoly. The only time there ever was a monopoly on the home console market was with the NES and the sega master system, where nintendo would straight up refuse cartridges to any developer that wanted to release their games on the master system too. They got straight up sued over that and lost

Did I even use that term first? Anyway, doesn't matter, they are the largest market so games will be made to their standards. Why are seeing this happen now with franchises that where previously much more liberal restricting themselves 

[thefourfoldroot]

4 hours ago, majob said:

Compile Heart and Mary Skelter 2 is why I take issue with the policy because I'm now missing out on games that could have been made available to me. I don't see the press having the affect I wish it would though since SIE apparently is sticking to their guns right now.

This and many other games for me. I could buy another system, but I feel like I've been sold a PS4 under false pretences as the Japanese games and developers Sony once nurtured have been shit on from a great height and are now either not releasing on Sony platforms or having to gut their games.

[DaivRules]

On 7/8/2019 at 6:45 PM, DaivRules said:

Sony isn’t forcing artists to censor what they release, the artists are free to release it through other distribution. Your argument only works if Sony holds a de facto monopoly on distribution, which they don’t, in any way, shape, or form.

 

20 hours ago, thefourfoldroot said:

Except their market dominance means they do.

 

44 minutes ago, thefourfoldroot said:

Did I even use that term first? Anyway, doesn't matter, they are the largest market so games will be made to their standards.

 

Yeah, you went there first.

 

So developers need to decide between being greedy and changing their content to appease the largest market owner or being less greedy and not altering their content and going to all the other markets.

[bladesoframen]

9 hours ago, majob said:

Compile Heart and Mary Skelter 2 is why I take issue with the policy because I'm now missing out on games that could have been made available to me. I don't see the press having the affect I wish it would though since SIE apparently is sticking to their guns right now.

 

In my opinion, the current press for SIE is very neutral because you can look at the censoring on both a negative and positive light. You can definitely argue that the censoring will create a better image of them in areas that were not as open to the subject, so I don't believe Sony has done anything truly negative to their image.

 

What the press can do though is give spotlight to a game and increase its sales outside of Sony's environment. If a game sells outside of Sony's environment, that means less money for Sony, and in turn hurt Sony's bottom line. Admittedly mostly only small games are being targeted, so the effect will be minimum either way. However, if these small games cause more gamers to decide to buy their multiplatform game on another platform, you might see things snowball a bit.

Edited July 10, 2019 by bladesoframen

[thefourfoldroot]

17 hours ago, DaivRules said:

 

 

 

Yeah, you went there first.

 

So developers need to decide between being greedy and changing their content to appease the largest market owner or being less greedy and not altering their content and going to all the other markets.

Oh, right, this was just because you don't understand what "de facto" means - "de facto describes practices that exist in reality, even if not officially recognized by laws". I wasn't saying it is a monopoly legally speaking, but that it operates as one in practice for the purposes of this subject due to their market dominance and fact developers and publishers especially do not want to spend resources making multiple versions of games if they don't need to. We have seen initially this was required as devs were just censoring multiplatform versions for PlayStation, now they are just cutting out material at the planning stage of development rather than when a game has gone gold.

[Nelson_]

On 10/15/2021 at 6:24 PM, Jigsy1 said:

 

That's an ESRB thing. Some stupid rule about how cleavage isn't allowed on a cover.

 

Anyway, another one for the list.

 

Blue Reflection: Second Light seems to have been developed with "American standards" in mind.

 

 

 

https://www.thegamer.com/mel-kishida-interview-blue-reflection/

 

What can we expect from CensorStation ~_~ looking forward to what the future have yet to show us with woke cali sony.

[RoastedPeanut]

On 10/13/2021 at 0:16 AM, ShadeSplit said:

A game called 20 Ladies is releasing on November 19, as shown at around 12:02 in the following video. PlayStation is limited to a "family friendly" version called 20 Bunnies.

 

 

Is Sony being run by the Flanders family or something these days?

 

What a shame we won't be getting Booble Hentai...game looks like a masterpiece!

[Sinastran]

Gotta love the logic of Twitter mob-appeasing developers.

 

Drive out into the wilderness with a hooker, get a blowjob, pay her and then stab her to death and take back your money - good

A beautiful flag and a pin-up poster - bad

 

When you censor "harmful" symbols and remove "objectifying" posters from a game that is also named after a fucking crime, it's time for a reality check.

 

You've changed, Rockstar.

[acasser]

I've never understood why companies and corporations kowtow to the social media mobs.  Because it's a "no win" proposition.

 

These online mobs are bullies at heart.  They're looking for victims who will cower before them and make whatever changes are demanded of them.  Even though those mobs are seldom consumers of the product/service in question, and they're not likely to become one even if those changes are made.  They're simply looking to get themselves another scalp, as if they measure their success and their reach/exposure by how many companies they get to change things at their whim and how prominent those companies are.  And as soon as they get what they want, they're on to their next potential victim and probably forget the one they just maimed very quickly.

 

And like bullies, they only go after targets that they believe will back down and in places where the "popular media" is usually going to be on their side.  Go after Netflix because of the whole Dave Chapelle thing?  Sure.  But they stay very quiet about countries around the world where women have little-to-no rights, where homosexuality is a death penalty offense, where autocratic regimes with complete control of the media won't give them an amplifying echo chamber to accomplish their aims.

 

I guess Western companies and corporations give in because that's easier than fighting back against a very loud, very angry minority.  And frequently a very small minority at that.  So I guess I do understand the rationale in spite of what I said at the top of this post.  But I don't think it's right.  And I don't think it's good business because those companies are likely to lose more money on account of the current fans and consumers they anger by making the changes than they'll ever make from the small fraction of those social media mobs who might start consuming.

 

It's just that this never ends.  Every time the mob gets what it wants, it aims for the next hill.  The next company in line, the next micro-aggression.  It started with nudity and sexuality in video games, now it's things like posters in the background.  And if they got rid of all of those, it would probably be representation of various demographic "minorities".  Or something else stupid like that.

 

Whatever happened to allowing each person to decide what they like and allowing companies to cater to those niches?

[TheMutilatingOne]

Edit: this was meant for UndeadWolf's Censored Game List so I'm removing and posting in the proper channels.

Edited November 23, 2021 by TheMutilatingOne

[bayabug]

On 16.12.2021 at 0:04 PM, bayabug said:

Game: Postal Redux

Change: Replaced ending level (School shooting)

Region: Worldwide

Alternative: Original Postal game

Source: https://postal.fandom.com/wiki/POSTAL_Redux#Changes_from_the_Original

 

Devs said its because "it has lost its schock value due too school shootings being more common now".

 

 

In my opinion, which im hopefully entitled to on this forum, there might be the slight possibilty of this not being the real reason. 

[DaivRules]

54 minutes ago, bayabug said:

In my opinion, which im hopefully entitled to on this forum, there might be the slight possibilty of this not being the real reason. 

Your personal commentary on censorship belongs in this thread, as the first post in the other thread indicates. The other thread should be for information only and not delve into personal tales, which will be considered Off Topic.

 

[Danyy___85]

6 hours ago, Lance_87 said:

 

Apparently in Martha is Dead you rip a face of a body of a dead underage girl or something, in MK you rip off the skin from living adults lol.

 

Sony should do like the COD MW remastered on the Scene of the Airport. Where they warn you it's a brutal scene with multiple murder sequence and terrorism. You have the option to skip it, or to play it. It's up to you if you want to go through it. That should be the most plausible action in this case! Not removing and not giving the consumer the option. Why are there ESRB ratings then?

 

Xbox also has policies and they don't allow anime underage girls to be shown panties and gropping mechanics, now Sony does the same, but they still allowed this normaly on Xbox. It's the original creators vision! Like the scene on Visage, also censored on PS5... If i was a dev, i would CANCEL the PS release. But there is much money involved, investors and many PS active users to skip the profit. So they are really forced to change their original vision. 

 

People should not support this! At all! Again, don't buy the PS copy. Get it somewhere else if you want to play this game! Or Watch it on Youtube. 

 

 

[Lance_87]

2 hours ago, Danyy___85 said:

 

Sony should do like the COD MW remastered on the Scene of the Airport. Where they warn you it's a brutal scene with multiple murder sequence and terrorism. You have the option to skip it, or to play it. It's up to you if you want to go through it. That should be the most plausible action in this case! Not removing and not giving the consumer the option. Why are there ESRB ratings then?

 

Xbox also has policies and they don't allow anime underage girls to be shown panties and gropping mechanics, now Sony does the same, but they still allowed this normaly on Xbox. It's the original creators vision! Like the scene on Visage, also censored on PS5... If i was a dev, i would CANCEL the PS release. But there is much money involved, investors and many PS active users to skip the profit. So they are really forced to change their original vision. 

 

People should not support this! At all! Again, don't buy the PS copy. Get it somewhere else if you want to play this game! Or Watch it on Youtube. 

 

 

 

The game DOES warn about the scenes though. Sony just does not care!

[Dauersack]

Sony applies double standards yet again, nothing new. They have games like Manhunt, Postal, Resident Evil, Prototype and the Outlast games on their platform, you get to do unspeakable things, see people get mutilated, massacred, turned into liquid, tortured, cannibalized, most things in rather explicit detail, and now its suddenly not okay. Reminds me of Sony adding extra clothes to cover more of the THIGHS from some developers games, while other developers are allowed to show full on naked doggy style fucking in their games. Not sure if its political bs at work behind the scenes or if some developers pay Sony more money so they do not have to follow these idiotic and arbitrary censorship rules that change all the time and are not written down anywhere, but I have yet to witness anyone making a single decent point in favor of this bs. Not really much of a problem for me, I simply won't give Sony any money for this censored game and get it on PC instead if I want it, easy as that.

[ShadeSplit]

Ah, I see a game I have absolutely no interest in is being censored. Hold on, allow me to check the script to see what the proper protocol is. Mm hmm, mm hmm. All right, apparently since this "has no effect" on me, my job is to rationalize and defend the decision, and mock those that are interested in this game/bothered by the censorship. What a world we live in.

[Lord_Raiden]

23 hours ago, Nighcisama said:

Sony applies double standards yet again, nothing new. They have games like Manhunt, Postal, Resident Evil, Prototype and the Outlast games on their platform, you get to do unspeakable things, see people get mutilated, massacred, turned into liquid, tortured, cannibalized, most things in rather explicit detail, and now its suddenly not okay. Reminds me of Sony adding extra clothes to cover more of the THIGHS from some developers games, while other developers are allowed to show full on naked doggy style fucking in their games. Not sure if its political bs at work behind the scenes or if some developers pay Sony more money so they do not have to follow these idiotic and arbitrary censorship rules that change all the time and are not written down anywhere, but I have yet to witness anyone making a single decent point in favor of this bs. Not really much of a problem for me, I simply won't give Sony any money for this censored game and get it on PC instead if I want it, easy as that.

 

ok? 
 

again…. .. Sony can run their business as they see fit 

[Dark_Overlord]

11 minutes ago, Lord_Raiden said:

 

ok? 
 

again…. .. Sony can run their business as they see fit 

 

and again, people can choose to not support Sony.  It works both ways

[Undead Wolf]

Fanboys make me laugh. They're completely unwilling to accept that maybe, just maybe, the company they pledge their allegiance to can make bad decisions. Like @Nighcisama said, there isn't a good argument in favour of censorship like this. If the content of the game makes them uncomfortable, they're free to not buy/play it. It's stupid to tone the game down for everyone. 

[Lord_Raiden]

22 minutes ago, Dark_Overlord said:

 

and again, people can choose to not support Sony.  It works both ways

 

and the quote was from someone Thst is still buying Sony games, just not the ones that don’t have the “content” (a.k.a. Nudity / skimpy attire) I’m it 

[MidnightDragon]

Wonder how long until this thread gets shut down, too.

[Infected Elite]

Should be no censorship. Oh wow a game shows a theme of suicide. Who cares. Nipples or sexual images? who cares. "Bad words" ? who, fucking cares.

 

I wish the world wasn't so damn soft and parents didnt shelter their kids.