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[Abriael_GN]

Just in case anyone is wondering, I can confirm the patch does remove the lens flare from the North American PS4 version. Besides updating the scene in the game's gallery, in the interest of being thorough, I also ran through the affected level and it is free of obscured buttocks.

Plot twist: Devil May Cry 5's censorship ONLY on the North American version. Euro PS4 version is still censored.

 

[JunkerWoland]

Plot twist: Devil May Cry 5's censorship ONLY on the North American version. Euro PS4 version is still censored.

I was already noticing some EU people mentioning this last night, which is why I specified North American PS4 version. Eurogamer has since posted a related article.

 

[Abriael_GN]

I was already noticing some EU people mentioning this last night, which is why I specified North American PS4 version. Eurogamer has since posted a related article.

Ew. Terrible source to link about anything related to censorship.

 

[JunkerWoland]

Ew. Terrible source to link about anything related to censorship.

I'm not bothered by it. The site purports to have tested it with their own copy, which merely provides further credence that the censorship remains in the EU version.

 

[Pot Meet Kettle]

I'm not bothered by it. The site purports to have tested it with their own copy, which merely provides further credence that the censorship remains in the EU version.

I think the point was that Eurogamer actually denied some cases of censorship in the past (including textual cuts) or Denuvo performance impacts happened at all, despite evidence to the contrary, and actually is one of the parties demanding censorship, not only cuts of "problematic content", but for some games to be banned altogether (Leisure Suit Larry is the latest example, but there were other cases before). Just today they were tweeting about enjoying rage clicks from this kind of articles.

In my humble opinion, the above really not only destroy any shreds of credibility they have on the matter (you might as well read resetera and the official sony blog's takes on game censorship) but engaging with their content empowers this kind of censorship since they like to feed on this drama.

 

[JunkerWoland]

I think the point was that Eurogamer...

I understood what was being insinuated; and as I wrote, it doesn't bother me. Regardless of any criticisms I might hold, I'm still willing to engage with Eurogamer's content.

The article in question is a European media outlet verifying altered content still remains in their region's release of DMC5. If people want to avoid the site, whether due to mistrust or other issues, that's perfectly fine.

 

[Pot Meet Kettle]

Resetera is now going after the fan-translation team of Dai Gyakuten Saiban, now that it's finally out.

Back when the usual suspects were on neogaf, they tried inflitrating the translation team as "editors" by introducing themselves as people "from the renowed neogaf forum" and demanding the translation team add them as "localization editors" in charge of dictating the tone of the translation: three aspects in particular - a "free-style" "localization" with lots of self-inserts, rewriting the game to be in America including name changes, and most importantly the removal of "offensive content".

Indeed, without giving away too much, the game is set one century before the events of the main Ace Attorney series. The main protagonist is Naruhodo Ryunosuke, the ancestor of Naruhodo Ryuuchi - localized as Phoenix Wright because the localization team for AA1 wanted to preserve Japanese puns in criminal names that often included hints for their cases, and to their credit they did a pretty good job at that aspect.

The setting is Meiji era Japan, then the main cast travels to England and meet Sherlock Holmes, and Watson's daughter (which didn't fail to garner accusations she was a "loli" Watson, despite evidence to the contrary). This also meant that the Japanese characters encountered a lot of xenophobic sentiments from Victorian british people. Anyone familiar with the main series will notice a parallel with how the modern day Phoenix Wright was treated like a butt monkey, stemming from modern day Japanese disrespect for the lawyer profession (a social phenomenon satirized in the series).

It is thought that, despite Capcom USA staff involvement in the Japanese release (much like the localized versions of Ace Attorney 5 and 6 were concurrently developed alongside the Japanese version and released only three months after), this storytelling device in "current times" were a main reason why the localization never happened, even though Capcom only cited "various circumstances". Whenever game journalists theorize about why this miniseries was skipped, the Sherlock Holmes copyright estate is brought up, though it never discouraged name-swapped releases.

The translation team at the time pushed back against neogaf's attack, then retreated to private conversation channels to get shit done.

However, now that the translation is out, there's accusations that the fan translation team overstepped their boundaries and "injected racism" into the game, on the virtue of not purging the negative attitudes (major plot points behind at least two cases, and explaining a lot of the smaller interactions going on and their motives)

 

[Dr. Claus]

Resetera is now going after the fan-translation team of Dai Gyakuten Saiban, now that it's finally out.

Back when the usual suspects were on neogaf, they tried inflitrating the translation team as "editors" by introducing themselves as people "from the renowed neogaf forum" and demanding the translation team add them as "localization editors" in charge of dictating the tone of the translation: three aspects in particular - a "free-style" "localization" with lots of self-inserts, rewriting the game to be in America including name changes, and most importantly the removal of "offensive content".

Indeed, without giving away too much, the game is set one century before the events of the main Ace Attorney series. The main protagonist is Naruhodo Ryunosuke, the ancestor of Naruhodo Ryuuchi - localized as Phoenix Wright because the localization team for AA1 wanted to preserve Japanese puns in criminal names that often included hints for their cases, and to their credit they did a pretty good job at that aspect.

The setting is Meiji era Japan, then the main cast travels to England and meet Sherlock Holmes, and Watson's daughter (which didn't fail to garner accusations she was a "loli" Watson, despite evidence to the contrary). This also meant that the Japanese characters encountered a lot of xenophobic sentiments from Victorian british people. Anyone familiar with the main series will notice a parallel with how the modern day Phoenix Wright was treated like a butt monkey, stemming from modern day Japanese disrespect for the lawyer profession (a social phenomenon satirized in the series).

It is thought that, despite Capcom USA staff involvement in the Japanese release (much like the localized versions of Ace Attorney 5 and 6 were concurrently developed alongside the Japanese version and released only three months after), this storytelling device in "current times" were a main reason why the localization never happened, even though Capcom only cited "various circumstances". Whenever game journalists theorize about why this miniseries was skipped, the Sherlock Holmes copyright estate is brought up, though it never discouraged name-swapped releases.

The translation team at the time pushed back against neogaf's attack, then retreated to private conversation channels to get shit done.

However, now that the translation is out, there's accusations that the fan translation team overstepped their boundaries and "injected racism" into the game, on the virtue of not purging the negative attitudes (major plot points behind at least two cases, and explaining a lot of the smaller interactions going on and their motives)

Damn, did not know about this. Thanks for the heads up! Definitely going to try out the fan translation once I get a physical copy imported.

 

[JunkerWoland]

In the other forum's defense, it at least took them several days and pages, before someone decided to be upset, and even then, it currently isn't too bad. I do, however, love the assertion racial slurs shouldn't be used to represent racism, even though in the modern climate, a free fan-translation is the perfect place to try and provide a more honest linguistic take. But whatever, video games need to be everyone 's safe space, everywhere, and at all times...

 

[brap]

Resetera is now going after the fan-translation team of Dai Gyakuten Saiban, now that it's finally out.

Back when the usual suspects were on neogaf, they tried inflitrating the translation team as "editors" by introducing themselves as people "from the renowed neogaf forum" and demanding the translation team add them as "localization editors" in charge of dictating the tone of the translation: three aspects in particular - a "free-style" "localization" with lots of self-inserts, rewriting the game to be in America including name changes, and most importantly the removal of "offensive content".

Indeed, without giving away too much, the game is set one century before the events of the main Ace Attorney series. The main protagonist is Naruhodo Ryunosuke, the ancestor of Naruhodo Ryuuchi - localized as Phoenix Wright because the localization team for AA1 wanted to preserve Japanese puns in criminal names that often included hints for their cases, and to their credit they did a pretty good job at that aspect.

The setting is Meiji era Japan, then the main cast travels to England and meet Sherlock Holmes, and Watson's daughter (which didn't fail to garner accusations she was a "loli" Watson, despite evidence to the contrary). This also meant that the Japanese characters encountered a lot of xenophobic sentiments from Victorian british people. Anyone familiar with the main series will notice a parallel with how the modern day Phoenix Wright was treated like a butt monkey, stemming from modern day Japanese disrespect for the lawyer profession (a social phenomenon satirized in the series).

It is thought that, despite Capcom USA staff involvement in the Japanese release (much like the localized versions of Ace Attorney 5 and 6 were concurrently developed alongside the Japanese version and released only three months after), this storytelling device in "current times" were a main reason why the localization never happened, even though Capcom only cited "various circumstances". Whenever game journalists theorize about why this miniseries was skipped, the Sherlock Holmes copyright estate is brought up, though it never discouraged name-swapped releases.

The translation team at the time pushed back against neogaf's attack, then retreated to private conversation channels to get shit done.

However, now that the translation is out, there's accusations that the fan translation team overstepped their boundaries and "injected racism" into the game, on the virtue of not purging the negative attitudes (major plot points behind at least two cases, and explaining a lot of the smaller interactions going on and their motives)

Well now I guess I gotta get a copy of the translation and save it for when I'm gonna play just in case they change anything.

 

[Vaelka]

I think the point was that Eurogamer actually denied some cases of censorship in the past (including textual cuts) or Denuvo performance impacts happened at all, despite evidence to the contrary, and actually is one of the parties demanding censorship, not only cuts of "problematic content", but for some games to be banned altogether (Leisure Suit Larry is the latest example, but there were other cases before). Just today they were tweeting about enjoying rage clicks from this kind of articles.

In my humble opinion, the above really not only destroy any shreds of credibility they have on the matter (you might as well read resetera and the official sony blog's takes on game censorship) but engaging with their content empowers this kind of censorship since they like to feed on this drama.

The funny yet sad and quite telling thing about Eurogamer is that their entire staff except for one person is men ( and she's like part of the video team or something ).
They actually even acknowledged at one point that they're one of if not the worst publication when it comes to diversity in their staff.
It's all a bunch of white men sitting around mansplaining to women how they think and feel.

 

[Vaelka]

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/the-eurogamer-staff

 

[brap]

It's all a bunch of white men sitting around mansplaining to women how they think and feel.

It always is. Men are always trying to tell women what to do, think and feel especially these 'male feminists'.

 

[Vaelka]

It always is. Men are always trying to tell women what to do, think and feel especially these 'male feminists'.

That guy who did the so called '' review '' for DoA6 on Eurogamer has been doing this for a long time, he's the same guy who took what the director for Skullgirls said out of context back when that game was being attacked and made it sound like he used the '' our animator is female '' defense when he didn't...
This guy has a LONG history of doing this crap and going after sexualized content in particular, even in very disingenuous ways where he's straight up lying about what people are saying.
He's probably responsible for most of the '' wtf Eurogamer '' shenanigans.

What's even worse is that they haven't even done anything after they acknowledged that their entire staff except for one person is a bunch of white guys.
They just acknowledged it and gave some fake speech about how they'd do better but nothing happened.

 

[brap]

That guy who did the so called '' review '' for DoA6 on Eurogamer has been doing this for a long time, he's the same guy who took what the director for Skullgirls said out of context back when that game was being attacked and made it sound like he used the '' our animator is female '' defense when he didn't...
This guy has a LONG history of doing this crap and going after sexualized content in particular, even in very disingenuous ways where he's straight up lying about what people are saying.
He's probably responsible for most of the '' wtf Eurogamer '' shenanigans.

What's even worse is that they haven't even done anything after they acknowledged that their entire staff except for one person is a bunch of white guys.
They just acknowledged it and gave some fake speech about how they'd do better but nothing happened.

>my face when some guy on neogaf finds out I'm a lying piece of shit

 

[The Cartographer]

That ''Sherlock Holmes copyright'' bullshit excuse was both sad and hilarious at the same time.
Anyone familiar with Ace Attorney would laugh at the notion of Capcom not being able to localize the game for overseas markets because of copyrights issues.

 

[Dr. Claus]

Apparently I am a pedophile for not wanting to play Zanki Zero now that it has been censored.

 

[h3ad0rZ]

Apparently I am a pedophile for not wanting to play Zanki Zero now that it has been censored.

Why would you? Imo, CGs in Visual Novel-like story presentation are basically like cutscenes. Imagine in a normal game that many cutscenes were cut. Also., CGs in Japan are pretty expensive to draw, they are big part of the budget of this small niche games, so they should reduce price of the game by the proportional amount, but of course they are gonna sell it for full intended price. So, dunno why would you pay for like 1/3 of the game. People are ignorant and just don't know what they are talking about so dw.

 

[Senhua]

Apparently I am a pedophile for not wanting to play Zanki Zero now that it has been censored.

Because according to them, talking with this little girl will considered same as do something sexual with it (just wondering which one have the real pedo imagination here ).

 

[The Mad Draklor]

Because according to them, talking with this little girl will considered same as do something sexual with it (just wondering which one have the real pedo imagination here ).

Not to mention that people drawn in the anime style aren't drawn with realistic proportions and the characters are voiced by adults.

 

[Isa]

As much as the censorship of games can bum me out from time to time, its nice to see that Capcom went and nixed the lens flare. At least one anyway. So rare to see a Dev/Publisher un-censor something these days. Now I can play it woohoo!

 

[Barakov]

Resetera is now going after the fan-translation team of Dai Gyakuten Saiban, now that it's finally out.

Back when the usual suspects were on neogaf, they tried inflitrating the translation team as "editors" by introducing themselves as people "from the renowed neogaf forum" and demanding the translation team add them as "localization editors" in charge of dictating the tone of the translation: three aspects in particular - a "free-style" "localization" with lots of self-inserts, rewriting the game to be in America including name changes, and most importantly the removal of "offensive content".

Indeed, without giving away too much, the game is set one century before the events of the main Ace Attorney series. The main protagonist is Naruhodo Ryunosuke, the ancestor of Naruhodo Ryuuchi - localized as Phoenix Wright because the localization team for AA1 wanted to preserve Japanese puns in criminal names that often included hints for their cases, and to their credit they did a pretty good job at that aspect.

The setting is Meiji era Japan, then the main cast travels to England and meet Sherlock Holmes, and Watson's daughter (which didn't fail to garner accusations she was a "loli" Watson, despite evidence to the contrary). This also meant that the Japanese characters encountered a lot of xenophobic sentiments from Victorian british people. Anyone familiar with the main series will notice a parallel with how the modern day Phoenix Wright was treated like a butt monkey, stemming from modern day Japanese disrespect for the lawyer profession (a social phenomenon satirized in the series).

It is thought that, despite Capcom USA staff involvement in the Japanese release (much like the localized versions of Ace Attorney 5 and 6 were concurrently developed alongside the Japanese version and released only three months after), this storytelling device in "current times" were a main reason why the localization never happened, even though Capcom only cited "various circumstances". Whenever game journalists theorize about why this miniseries was skipped, the Sherlock Holmes copyright estate is brought up, though it never discouraged name-swapped releases.

The translation team at the time pushed back against neogaf's attack, then retreated to private conversation channels to get shit done.

However, now that the translation is out, there's accusations that the fan translation team overstepped their boundaries and "injected racism" into the game, on the virtue of not purging the negative attitudes (major plot points behind at least two cases, and explaining a lot of the smaller interactions going on and their motives)

Sheesh. These people are such parasites.

 

[Pot Meet Kettle]

So Xenogears has had lots of backlash from some Squaresoft USA staff members who deemed some of the religious content too scary, but Sony was also directly involved in censoring it. There were some discarded "naked" 2D sprites (how erotic can field sprites in RPGs get, anyways) from a certain sexual encounter, but a recent interview covered more stuff, this time from the anime cutscenes. Featuring last minute manual video edits, and Sony not even allowing silhouettes of a single naked female body. For a game suffering from major content cuts already due to its huge scope and Square's draconian deadlines, this didn't exactly help matters.

Interviewer: Were there any memorable scenes for you?

Tanaka: Yes, the ending. The industry was very strict at the time, and a nude woman was considered a no-go for the PlayStation. They wouldn’t even allow a silhouette… We had already drawn Elly, but we couldn’t be able to release it the way it was, so I personally trimmed it as to not show her breast. As a fun fact, I gave the original animation to Takahashi-kun on a special disc. I hope he’s still holding on to it. (laughs)

One telling comment about how well the Overton window fares for the game as a whole:

Some of the depictions and story in the game are quite dangerous; it’s probably not a game we could make today. (laughs)

Sony has been known to demand retroactive censorship in older games like with Policenauts as it was about to be released on the PS3's PSN. How well this fares for the likes of Yakuza remasters, Final Fantasy 7, and so on, remains to be seen, but it's grim.

 

[cormack12]

Thought this belonged here as well

.....although wtf have they done to Zoya?

It looks ridiculous. It'e literally like they want the acclaim of the iconic costume she has wore for the previous games, but suddenly thought 'shit we need to cover her thigh up. Just stick a pair of black leather pants on her'. No effort at all and it looks stupid now. If you're going to do a redesign, do a redesign properly, not some disastrous effort that's clearly getting in on the act. If you're going to shit on an iconic design then at least have the chops to change the entire thing that's at least half decent like the thieves guild or something.......


Zoya Trine 1

Zoya Trine 2

Zoya Trine 3

Zoya Trine 4

In gameplay

 

[brap]

Thought this belonged here as well

.....although wtf have they done to Zoya?

It looks ridiculous. It'e literally like they want the acclaim of the iconic costume she has wore for the previous games, but suddenly thought 'shit we need to cover her thigh up. Just stick a pair of black leather pants on her'. No effort at all and it looks stupid now. If you're going to do a redesign, do a redesign properly, not some disastrous effort that's clearly getting in on the act. If you're going to shit on an iconic design then at least have the chops to change the entire thing that's at least half decent like the thieves guild or something.......


Zoya Trine 1

Zoya Trine 2

Zoya Trine 3

Zoya Trine 4

In gameplay

Ugh that fucking art
>i am le smrt quirky le stronk womyn

 

[ph33rknot]

Only if it's a third party game. We'll see going forward if Sony cracks down on any first party games with nudity or sexual content.

ive said this before third party games made sony

 

[Sqorin Hammerfarf]

https://gematsu.com/2019/04/super-neptunia-rpg-for-ps4-switch-delayed-to-summer-in-the-west

Super Neptunia RPG will have two CGs censored on the PS4.

 

[CatCouch]

Can't say I have interest in Trine anymore. I liked 2 but the art in 4 is unappealing to me.

On a related note, I really dislike the shift in this industry now. I moved into games because of the art but it may be the most censored, restricted medium to work in now. For me, someone who loves pin-up art, romance and grew up with Japanese games, the negativity and hate towards anything sexy or even feminine is suffocating.

I have a hard time handling the amount of insulting coming from the game industry (gaming sites that attack gamers, developer interviews and some of their social media comments that look down on gamers) and even the communities (gaming forums that thrive on hostility and trolling).

it's so... immature. There's not a lot of industries where someone like Randy Pitchford could publicly insult fans and have that considered normal. What other industries could survive on years of insults towards the audience?

Hopefully this need to control and restrict gaming will let up soon. Quite a few AAA games have hit rough patches recently so something will likely change. I hope one of the first things to change is the censorship. I'll leave gaming if the art becomes too homogeneous and the creativity stagnates.

 

[brap]

https://gematsu.com/2019/04/super-neptunia-rpg-for-ps4-switch-delayed-to-summer-in-the-west

Super Neptunia RPG will have two CGs censored on the PS4.

The switch pro can't come out soon enough.

 

[JunkerWoland]

Keeping in mind Super Neptunia RPG was only released on PS4 in Japan, I'm curious to see whether the Western PS4 release will actually be the same as its Japanese counterpart. Two of the images in the Japanese release were also featured on physical preorder items, which in comparison showed the pictures had been slightly altered in-game. Since the West is also getting the game on PC & Switch, our PS4 version might not be seeing "slightly modified" content, so much as our PC & Switch are getting newly restored materials.

 

[Enygger_Tzu]

Keeping in mind Super Neptunia RPG was only released on PS4 in Japan, I'm curious to see whether the Western PS4 release will actually be the same as its Japanese counterpart. Two of the images in the Japanese release were also featured on physical preorder items, which in comparison showed the pictures had been slightly altered in-game. Since the West is also getting the game on PC & Switch, our PS4 version might not be seeing "slightly modified" content, so much as our PC & Switch are getting newly restored materials.

https://www.oneangrygamer.net/2019/...ncensored-on-switch-for-summer-release/81976/
Censored in PS4, uncensored in Switch.

 

[DunDunDunpachi]

I don't expect PS5 to be a good place for lesser-known shmups, which sometimes have PG-13-tier titillation. Would stuff like Caladrius Blaze still be tolerated? Probably not.

 

[Helios]

Ugh that fucking art
>i am le smrt quirky le stronk womyn

but wait, there's more

 

[JunkerWoland]

https://www.oneangrygamer.net/2019/...ncensored-on-switch-for-summer-release/81976/
Censored in PS4, uncensored in Switch.

Yes, I realize they're saying the PS4 version will have two "slightly modified" images. The Japanese version, which so far has only been released on the PS4, is essentially known to also have had two "slightly modified" images. What I was attempting to convey is the notion that the Western & Japanese PS4 versions may be the same content-wise, meaning our PS4 release won't see additional alterations over what was released in Japan.

 

[petran79]

For pnc adventure game fans I found also this list

https://adventuregamers.com/forums/viewthread/8369

GOG has some censored games for nudity too like Amerzone (English version) , Gobliins, Overclocked (English)
Monkey Island special editions had all sam and max references removed

Shady Brook ios and android versions were edited too

 

[Pot Meet Kettle]

Some more anti game mods action from the resetera forum, after they went after Dai Gyakuten Saiban.

The recent DGS mini controversy was an incident with many highlights including some posters there admitting to their attempts to infiltrate the translation team and censor all traces of anti-Japanese prejudice (which they claim is insulting to the Japanese, despite being made by the Japanese to tell a story of the Japanese -back then an economic colony- being discriminated against in the Victorian era), a practice they intrerestingly refer to as "localization".

Gotta say, I was aware of this project early on, and I spoke with the people who made it a lot during a certain period. From the start I was against their decision to do a "literal" translation but I have to admit, even though that grievance passed eventually, seeing the finished result I can't help but wonder if there's bias in this text and one defense of going literal I kept being told was "The original game has a lot of racism in it, we're not localizing it because we want to respect the author's intent".

And even still, I question if the racism was this fierce on an idiomatic level in the original.

Yet, the fan translation patch is localized indeed. Jokes and speech mannerisms are adapted, honorifics and weird speech patterns are reworded and even a few names changed to get their meaning across instead of leaving them in Japanese with translation notes. However, it seems resetera is using localization as shorthand for censorship, content cuts, and self-insert politics that have nothing to do with the setting or the game's plot premise or character personalities as intended by the authorial intent their theory of "death to of the author" seems to despise so much.

DGS' translation team moved away from gbatemp where they got multiple unsollicited applications for "localization editor" roles by new members who introduce themselves as hailing from neogaf, to organize in private channels. It's not hard to see why.

In the same thread at resetera, they also obsessively scour youtube videos for literal dictionary translations of Japanese word fragments (going to lengths not even their "weaboo" enemies reach) hoping to find evidence of the fan translators "adding racism". More sophistry like "We're totally not calling for [cut], we are just want the [editors] to do [sub-actions that together result in the cut with zero tolerated compromise from our demands]"

Some recent fan projects indulged in cuts of various "problematic content", like "fat shaming" in Ni no Kuni, or the cancellation of an infiltrated Fire Emblem Fates retranslation and attempts to enforce in fan retranslations of early games Treehouse interpretations of names and events (Treehouse notably rewrote a character to commit suicide in Fire Emblem Blazing Sword despite being alive and kicking in the next game chronologically), so it seems this failed effort wasn't an isolated incident.

Finally, Shadow of The Tomb Raider, which had its developers explicitly refuse to feature her original costume over ideological concerns, has resetera vultures making sure no nude mods (a staple of the franchise) or original costume mods are tolerated even as user generated content. The mod and the author both got purged from nexusmods under very suspicious circumstances right after the resetera raids (and as it turns out they're no strangers to discord raids and personal doxing organized by the entire administration team)

 

[Pot Meet Kettle]

Now for some more "gaming journalism" attempts to make censorship happen:

• The Hollywood Report: Games May Be Toning Down Sexual Content, But Not Violence.

Deplores gore and violence still being a huge appeal of mature rated games (which exist, the horror), despite "good signs" developers "understand changing norms" [sic] and are actively removing sexualized content (but not that nasty DoA6 director who got cold feet and backtracked from that initial position, which we "have reached to for comment"). Kingdom Hearts 3 is presented as a best seller, and mature to adult only games as a failing endeavor.

It really seems the only thing wrong with Jack Thompson was that he came just twenty years early on the wrong team... and wasn't extreme enough since he was tolerating the existence of mature games, if only beyond curtains but still at all compared to those clowns.

• Daniel Ahmad, aka Zhuge, a videogame analyst banned from neogaf who came back as an admin at resetera, made very angry tweets about the commercial success of Sekiro (2 millions), implying this is somehow exclusionary and insulting to the "remaining 1.99 billion not true gamers".

Resetera and many game journalists are angry at Sekiro's existence as a challenging gameplay experience, like they don't make any more since the PS2 days. This feud is still ongoing ever since From Soft's Dark Souls was a commercial success.
Dark Souls, Bloodborne and Sekiro use their high difficulty (relatively to recent AAA games, at least) to complement a general atmosphere of dread and hopelesness as part of the game design philosophy ever since their lesser known PS2 horror action projects.

Some people think high difficulty of any kind is, on the virtue of being antithetical to mobile game design (which would make the gaming medium "less sexist" in some people's weird logical process) is bad. Indeed, resetera has had frequent threads why the one single hard level in otherwise very easy Mario levels that can be cheesed in multiple ways, should not exist in its current challenging form. Others, like game journalists who suck at actually playing the games and are more interested in the "political commentary", want games that play themselves, and in the case of Sekiro wrote a guide educating players how to beat it and be as good as the writer (from pcgamer -1), right as he admits to using multiple mods and cheats to even progress through the game.

The game was smeared in many ways, with its right to exist in the way it was designed questioned and contested. Manufactured memes like the "You only cheated yourself" that was made by one of the supporters for the "easy mode" addition, and more unethically claiming challenging games are ableist and insult and exclude disabled persons (actual disabled fans of Sekiro and Dark Souls were irate about this infantilizing insulting coopting of game accessibilty options to serve a crusade against gameplay challenge). Different from "accessibilty options" that offer alternate color schemes to colorblind people and less button mashing, these "accessibility options" advocated for by the likes of resetera, Frank Cifaldi and others are the kind that make the game "play itself". Some laws in the US recently mandate accessibility options in games, but only for aspects like game chat and communication between players online of any sort (explaining some last minute cuts from Anthem, and Nintendo moving online chat to mobile apps) ... for now. More laws are planned, and It won't be surprising to see Sony enforce the SECOND meaning of "accessibility options", the one that serves game journalists more than actual disabled players, as part of "freedom of speech is meaningless whenever a company is involved" that much is for sure...

Spoiler: About PC Gamer

There's an amusing trivia from last year about PC Gamer that's too interesting not to share here. Won't link the article here since it's a character assassination hitpiece that also doxed the subject.

PC Gamer is a notorious SJW game journalist outlet, famous among other things, for going after a game preservationist tracking down a lost DOS PC game that was a porn game -among many, many other PC-DOS games he's collecting-, and tried to present him as a crazy weirdo just two medications away from committing sexual assault or robbing the Library of Congress, the reason behind this character assassination being them thinking this game was porn, porn was bad, their magazine reviewed it years ago (1994) and said it was shit, thus no one should ever dare find it or else they will suffer their wrath. Really embracing their censor persona and putting the L on Lost Media.

Sony's console word filter also started to get game names censored, the offensive word was "School girls" and the game a Japanese shooter. They made Capcom apologize for the DMCV censorship they mandated: "an incorrect title update was applied to the PS4 version of DMC5 at launch for North and South America." The PS5 will be a riot.

 

[Dr. Claus]

Fantastic posts as always, mate. You do a better job at journalism that most game journalists today.

 

[Pot Meet Kettle]

Last but not least, Epic Games, who at one point attacked Valve's Steam for not doing a good enough censorship effort, are getting their own battle royale genre banned under the excuse that "depictions of violence in videogames cause violence in real life", and this time the ban is at government level in many countries. This is but a sample of the future The Hollywood Report, Resetera and other similar parties want to bring about.

Many incidents of governments calling for game bans (if not enforcing them) are now happening at an alarming rate.

India: Some states enforce the PUBG bans actively and arrests were made for players who still played the game after the ban.

A petition calling for the ban of the PlayersUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) game in India has got support from the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR), with the Commission seeking a report on the action taken against the game from the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.
The Hyderabad-based Forum Against Corruption, founded by anti-corruption and consumer rights activist Vijay Gopal, is trying to get the game disallowed across India. Gopal wrote to the NCPCR and the MoE&IT seeking a ban on the game in January this year. The NCPCR took up the issue after a Hyderabad-based Class 9 student had to be given medication by a psychiatrist for PUBG addiction. The game, for now, has only be banned in Gujarat, the state's police have also initiated a crackdown and have arrested 15 youth found playing the game.
In India, there have been various reports about youths needing medical attention due to their addition to PUBG. According to a survey conducted by free internet provider Jana on its mCent browser app for QUARTZ, out of 1,047 respondents, 62% said they played the game.
It will not going to ban every where in India. The game is banned in the college wifi servers in Maharashtra because the students play PUBG in between their lectures instead of studying.
So, the servers of the game is banned in the colleges of Maharashtra but not whole Maharashtra. You may find fake news that PUBG is banned in Maharashtra.
Currently PUBG is banned in Gujarat.
According to a notification issued by Rajkot Police Commissioner Manoj Agrawal, the new ban has been implemented from March 9 till April 30. It mentioned that anyone could report an instance of someone playing PUBG and the latter may face prosecution under the Central Government Act under Section 188.
The Rajkot Special Operations Group arrested three young men near the police headquarters. “Our team caught these youths red-handed. They were taken into custody after they were found playing the PUBG game. We have registered two cases against them under IPC Section 188 for violating the notification issued by Police Commissioner and under Section 35 of the Rajkot police arrests 10 for playing PUBG despite ban Gujarat Police Act. This game is highly addictive and the accused were so engrossed in playing them that they could not even notice our team approaching them,” said police inspector Rohit Raval.

Nepal: Country-wide ban. ISPs are required to block streaming for PUBG.

Nepal yesterday moved to ban the online game PlayerUnkown's Battlegrounds, citing negative impact of the game on children and their development. Citing violent content and its effect as the primordial reason for the ban, Sandip Adhikari, deputy director at Nepal Telecommunications Authority (NTA), the nation's telecoms regulator, told Reuters that ""We have ordered the ban on PUBG because it is addictive to children and teenagers."

As part of the ban, all internet service providers, mobile operators and network service providers were instructed to block streaming of the game. Gamers might find ways to circumvent this limitation in order to still be able to play the game; or they'll simply migrate to one of the other Battle Royale games on offer, such as Fortnite or Apex Legends, instead. It's interesting to wonder whether the government of Nepal will keep on chasing the next online game fad one by one or if actual studies on the negative impact of these games are fielded by the Nepalese government.

Irak: Planned draft that encompasses not only PUBG (one of the main reasons behind it) but multiple online multiplayer games as well. It's blamed for a surge of suicides and divorces. Some religious clerics close to the governments also started claiming wasting time on the game is against religion.

Iraq is considering blocking online multiplayer computer games due to an increasing obsession that has triggered fears of violence, crime and a decline in society.

The cultural parliamentary committee submitted on Saturday a draft law that seeks to ban electronic games, in particular PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) and the Blue Whale that was reported to be an online “suicide game”.
“The committee is concerned about the obsession over these electronic games that ignite violence among children and youth. Its influence has spread rapidly among Iraq’s society,” the head of the committee, Sameaa Gullab, said during a press conference in Baghdad.
The request was submitted based on Article 59 of the constitution, she said.
Iraq’s 2005 constitution enshrines freedom of press and publication unless they “violate public order or morality.”
“We are proposing to parliament to block and ban all games that threaten social security, morality, education and all segments of Iraqi society,” Ms Gullab said.

Iraqi media reported incidents of suicide and divorce related to the games during the last year. In depth reporting by local media on the craze has announced it has led to nearly 40,000 divorces worldwide and more than 20 cases in Iraq.

“This issue requires immediate action by the authorities to ban this negative phenomenon through passing this draft legislation,” she said.
The draft law will now be revised by parliamentary speaker Mohammed Al Halbousi.

UAE: Parent associations are calling for bans for PUBG and an official comitee said they're opening public consultations to assess the "dangers" of the game and how to best address them.

United Kingdom: Prince Harry called for a ban on Fortnite, this time by Epic. "This game shouldn't be allowed to exist".

 

[CatCouch]

The Hollywood Reporter article is interesting. I feel like the writer skipped over games with M ratings that sell a lot to come to the conclusion that E and T games sell more due to the lack of controversial content. Using Anthem and Kingdom Hearts 3 as sales examples while sort of downplaying Red Dead Redemption 2 seems weird to me.

There's a lot of good quotes in the article, though. Sex and violence are pretty normal things people identify with in entertainment and story telling.

It seems the writer disagrees with the ESRB and Steam with allowing consumers to pick the content they like and would instead like all games to have mass appeal because sexy outfits is alienating. Isn't toning down popular content and deeming it "inappropriate" alienating itself?

Jen MacLean, the former executive director of the International Game Developers Association states that "The player base for modern video games is all genders and really it's all ages, If you rely on scantily-clad women as a primary hook you might attract a few players but you’re also alienating a really important segment that has demonstrated that they make purchases and they play and they matter."

Why are people who don't like sexual content being considered "an important segment" of the consumer base but people who do like it are being written off as "a few players"?

The quotes from the ESRB also state they reflect the social norms of the region. Doesn't that mean that sexy outfits and sexual content is considered normal? It sure was with the Witcher 3 and the Grand Theft Auto series. Why is it suddenly unacceptable to certain game devs and journalists? This doesn't seem like a natural "changing norm".

I just know that these "changing norms" will hit more and more things until there is a big problem in this industry. People used to love the romance in games like Dragon Age and Mass Effect. Why is that so wrong now? If you can't have sexual content in games and violence is starting to be scrutinized again, what will games be? I don't want all games to be safe, watered down "mass appeal" games-as-a-service.

I feel like there is some deeply misplaced priorities here. Is drawing a topless women being considered more taboo and offensive than killing men and women in the most brutal ways imaginable in a game now?

 

[petran79]

Jen MacLean, the former executive director of the International Game Developers Association states that "The player base for modern video games is all genders and really it's all ages, If you rely on scantily-clad women as a primary hook you might attract a few players but you’re also alienating a really important segment that has demonstrated that they make purchases and they play and they matter."

Why are people who don't like sexual content being considered "an important segment" of the consumer base but people who do like it are being written off as "a few players"?

In the end all those people and their companies made their carreers and fortunes exactly because of those few players picking action and fantasy games with scantily clad women.
They should be grateful instead

 

[Enygger_Tzu]

In the end all those people and their companies made their carreers and fortunes exactly because of those few players picking action and fantasy games with scantily clad women.
They should be grateful instead

And they call gamers "incels" the irony...

 

[petran79]

And they call gamers "incels" the irony...

Rockstar definitely thinks about all that important segment that feels alienated and wants to be represented, without scantily clad women. This is how GTA earned billions all those years and Rockstar even pays those journalists to excuse it as "satire"

 

[spandexmonkey]

Scantily clad women are the canary in the coal mine of entertainment. Yesterday was chain mail bikinis, today it's difficult games. Mortal Kombat can ride it's core values of respect until their grotesque violence is up next. Even the argument, "if you want to see whores so bad, just jerk off to porn" is just a smoke screen until they come for that too. All these efforts to add inclusion are actually just power grabs. Don't make your game, make OUR game. Follow OUR rules.

 

[The Mad Draklor]

And they call gamers "incels" the irony...

From what I've observed, every time I see someone cry "incel!", the term is misused. And the only reason why they use that word is because MSM suddenly pushed the term.

 

[kunonabi]

Sony Cracks Down on Sexually Explicit Content in Games

Sony is cracking down on sexual content in PlayStation 4 videogames globally, reflecting concerns in the U.S. about the depiction of women in games but irritating some software developers.

www.wsj.com

Yeah, no PS5 for me.

 

[Endless Fluff]

There you have your answer why it's mostly affecting japanese devs. It IS targeting japanese games and they're the reason this new policy exists. Fuck Sony and their new American ways.

Some quotes

Sony officials said executives at the company have grown concerned that its global reputation could take a hit from sexually explicit content sold only in a few markets. One of their biggest concerns is software sold in the company’s home market of Japan, which traditionally has had more tolerance for near-nudity and images of young women who might appear underage.
Two factors last year combined to turn that unease into action, these Sony officials say. One was the rise of the #MeToo movement in the U.S., which pointed to the dangers of being associated with content that some might see as demeaning to women. The second was the emergence of channels on sites like YouTube and Amazon.com Inc.’s Twitch where gamers play in front of a camera and are watched by fans online. That means games meeting Japan’s laxer standards can get world-wide exposure.

“Sony is concerned the company could become a target of legal and social action,” a Sony official in the U.S. said.

I'm pretty sure they're more afraid of the social outcry than legal action... because they've never had a game on their platform that wasn't approved by the ESRB etc.

Executives and developers at game makers that make sexually explicit games say Sony used to praise them as an important part of the PlayStation business strategy because their offerings added to the variety of PlayStation games. But they don’t get much attention from Sony anymore, they said, and were told to go find other platforms if they want to keep making such games.
“What they’re saying to us is basically go find a niche somewhere else,” said a top executive at a Japanese software company that makes sexually explicit games.

I hope this bites them in the ass.

Other software executives object to the lack of written guidelines from Sony.
“You don’t know what they will say until you complete the work and submit it for review,” said the chief executive of a small game developer in Japan. “And if they are not happy, even if they allowed the same degree of sexuality a few days before, we need to take it back and ask our staff to make adjustments. That’s very costly.”
Industry consultant Hisakazu Hirabayashi said smaller companies had little power to argue on behalf of their creations. “This is representative of the recent trend of players with a big voice trying to set up the world the way they like under the name of political correctness, fairness or human rights,” he said.

The Sony official in the U.S. said he was aware of what outside developers were saying, but that he hoped they would accept how the world has changed.
“We don’t have criteria in written guidelines or that sort of thing because the policy was introduced kind of suddenly in the wake of the #MeToo movement,” the official said.

The world has not changed. The USofA is not the world! Fucking assholes.

 

[CatCouch]

Yeah, that cements in my decision not to buy a PS5.

“And if they are not happy, even if they allowed the same degree of sexuality a few days before, we need to take it back and ask our staff to make adjustments. That’s very costly.”

That's absolutely horrible.

Saying the world changed to not allow sexual art is quite literally a threat to me and the art I create. Sony was a big part of inspiring me to create art. They are basically trying to strong arm the art love out of existence.

I say with great confidence that this is a big mistake for Sony. The #metoo movement is not about suppressing art. Do they even talk to women before making these decisions?

 

[Dr. Claus]

Time to start buying everything on the Switch/Xbox One and double down on my studying of the JPN language for imports. Fuck Sony and fuck people who defend this shit.

 

[OrochiJR]

Time to start buying everything on the Switch/Xbox One and double down on my studying of the JPN language for imports. Fuck Sony and fuck people who defend this shit.

This. Although studying Japanese won't help as the censorship hits all versions of the affected games if I am not mistaken.

Something about this really rubs me the wrong way - I will be wary of which games I buy for which platform in the future.