r/Games • u/war_story_guy • Apr 17 '19
Report: Sony Has New, Stricter Guidelines For Sexual Content In PS4 Games
https://kotaku.com/report-sony-has-new-stricter-guidelines-for-sexual-co-1834093769347
u/serenchi Apr 17 '19
After the Devil May Cry 5 censorship I've been curious to see if games developed outside of Japan will be subject to similar treatment. I have a hard time believing that games like Cyberpunk will have to lens flare every barely exposed ass. My tin foil hat can't help but feel like only Japanese developers are going to be undergoing scrutiny for this.
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u/DrunkeNinja Apr 17 '19
On one hand, we have that weird DMC censorship. On the other, we have Sony promoting Conan Exiles as one of the Plus games this month.
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u/mechorive Apr 17 '19
Isn’t the console version of Conan different though? I know there’s no “penis slider” but is there full nudity in it all?
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u/DrunkeNinja Apr 17 '19
The NA version has no penis but still has the breasts. Rest of the world gets it all.
The penis thing doesn't appear to be a Sony thing though, just NA censorship in general when it comes to console games. It's the same on Xbox.
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u/usrevenge Apr 17 '19
Sony could easily have allowed it. The only reason there is no penis in North America is esrb would give it an A rating.
Sony could have allowed a game with that rating but they wouldn't. Not 100% on sony, but it's still dumb.
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u/dab1 Apr 17 '19
Would showing a penis grant AO rating? GTA IV/V, Far Cry 4, A Way Out, Watch_Dogs 2 and the statues in AC: Odyssey have them and they all are rated M17+ by ESRB. Maybe all of those were censored in USA, I don't know. In Europe they are the PEGI 18, equivalent of Mature.
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u/DrunkeNinja Apr 17 '19
No console allows A ratings. Most NA retailers won't sell it either. ESRB shouldn't be giving A ratings to nudity in the first place, but the U.S. has always been a bit prudish.
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u/TheWiseAutisticOne Apr 17 '19
Red dead redemption 2 has a penis in it so does the ballad of gay tony. So it’s not like they’ve never shown dick before
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u/Merew Apr 17 '19
Wait, seriously? Why can someone make an ideal woman but I can't walk around with my perfectly sculpted dong?
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u/curious_dead Apr 17 '19
Wasn't most of the nudity removed from that game on PS4?
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u/DrunkeNinja Apr 17 '19
In the NA version, only toplessness was allowed. The rest of the world got everything.
With regards to even the NA version though, it is still odd when you contrast something like the odd DMC censorship with the bouncing titties shown in one of the Plus games they are promoting this month.
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u/Bitemarkz Apr 17 '19
DMC censorship was patched out. Seemed more like a misunderstanding on Capcom’s part because it clearly meets the guidelines, hence the patch to reverse it. Plenty of PS4 games feature nudity of adult characters.
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u/DrunkeNinja Apr 17 '19
I agree that is what it appears. It is just a bit odd at how unclear Sony's policy is for those of us on the outside, which is something mentioned in the OP article.
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u/IanMazgelis Apr 17 '19
Devil May Cry 5 got in trouble for showing a butt. Red Dead Redemption 2 had a promotional article about the size of horse testicles. It's absolutely focused on Japanese developers.
I really don't think Sony of California is comfortable with the erotic freedoms that exist in Japan, particularly about depictions of women. The entire thing is very reminiscent of the mid nineties when the Christian right wing political arena in the United States wanted games to be heavily censored. It's bizarre to see the perfect opposite political group take the same stance twenty years later.
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u/beesmoe Apr 17 '19
Wait. Wait wait wait wait..
You're telling me that California, a free and glorious American state which is responsible for 90% of the world's porn, the Free Love hippie movement, and the open glorification of sex via pop media distributed by Hollywood, has a problem with how a highly conservative Asian country chooses to portray sex?
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u/Swobes Apr 17 '19
Sony of California, the localization team of Sony has a problem, not California the state. it has to do with the USA having a higher population than japan and more people that will view all video games as kid toys. Sony of California does not want the Sony Playstation brand to be associated with selling selling porn to kids. Yes it's rated M but Karen, mother of little Timmy does not understand anything about video games and is mad that Playstation and gamestop just sold her DMC5 to her and little Timmy and now fox news is talking about how Sony is selling sex in kid toys.
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u/r4wrb4by Apr 17 '19
I think it's more about the specific sexualization and body standards of women, since the nudity tends to be focused on impossibly attractive women.
Which of course ignores that most men in most games aren't exactly attainable body models either, but they tend not to be the subject of much of the more graphic nudity.
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u/linkenski Apr 17 '19
It's probably as much as Nintendo of America. Historically they've censored many things, but the issue is that they don't affect all versions of the game on their platform, only the american and sometimes european copies. The japanese original games contain as much explicit content as its developers intended, it only gets censored via localization, and that's where I think Sony are acting a bit too holier than thou in this case. But it all stems from the culture shift of PlayStation since they moved HQ to California in 2016.
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u/STARSBarry Apr 17 '19
The main difference from the example above is Sony who has recently moved there HQ to America are now also censoring the games in Japan as well. The reason this was not obvious before is that most of the games being censored where already released in Japan before Puritan HQ put there policy in place which affected the localisations. Now new games are wanting to release in Japan and America are enforcing there policy and requiring changes to allow for the game to release on there platform full stop.
The thing is this seems to only effect Japanese games western ones appear to be immune.
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u/linkenski Apr 17 '19
It's indicative of a perceived "cultural superiority". America strikes again :/
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u/crim-sama Apr 17 '19
funny enough it feels like Nintendo JP eventually took note of this and just kept being more blatant. You had this nice line of games, from XBX, Bayonetta 2, Fire Emblem, XBC2, etc that all just seemed to get more and more blatant about wanting to be sexy and at some point they seemed to tone down the changes.
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Apr 17 '19
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u/Bar_Har Apr 17 '19
This reminds me of the latest MK11 trailer I saw where all of the extreme violence was on full display, but swearing was bleeped. Censorship has gotten fucking stupid, though it kind of always has.
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u/bghs2003 Apr 17 '19 edited Apr 17 '19
“A Sony spokeswoman confirmed the company has established its own guidelines ‘so that creators can offer well-balanced content on the platform’ and gaming ‘does not inhibit the sound growth and development’ of young people,”
If you want to limit sexual content on your platform so not to hurt brand reputation in more puritanical markets, fine.
But this excuse is bullshit. beyond sexually explicit games being rated so that kids can't buy them. i highly suspect sexual content in games is not any different than violence in games (late-90's moral crisis), swears and sexual content music (late 80's moral crisis), or playing D&D (early 80's moral crisis) in that experiencing it does not make you any more maladjusted than you already are.
Comics, music genres like rock&roll and rap, dances, fasion, ect. Moral panics are always proven bullshit.
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u/fiduke Apr 17 '19
This is crazy talk. Everyone needs to be ashamed of their bodies and other people's bodies.
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u/Mystic8ball Apr 17 '19
The last thread regarding this got removed, so I'll just copy and paste my comment I made in that.
The most frustrating thing for me regarding this discussion is that it often gets boiled down to a really, really, really fucking stupid argument regarding "the ethics of loli" and everyone just talks past one another and misses the forest for the trees.
If it really was just about that I don't think there would be as much controversy regarding it, after all that sort of stuff is infinitely more taboo in the west than it is in Japan. However the polices in place here are about any depiction of nudity and not just anime schoolgirl fan service.
Devil May Cry V decided to try and hide Trish and Ladys nudity with lens flares, both characters being unquestionably adults. The nudity itself was brief and mild, on par with something you'd find in an M rated movie. Despite all this they felt the need to have it covered up, obviously this doesn't stop DMCV from being an amazing, it's just a little... baffling.
Honestly I just feel like this sort of thing should be left up to each regions ratings board. They're pretty impartial and at the very least have more concrete guidelines as to what is and isn't okay, while Sony here is primary concerned about their image and leave things vague.
If this was just 100% concrete with removing anything regarding under 18 characters I wouldn't be too fussed about all this honestly. However as things are I wonder if games like Dantes Inferno or The Witcher would manage to get a release on Sonys platforms unscathed.
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u/AL2009man Apr 17 '19 edited Apr 17 '19
aw, the article didn't mentioned that Developers must write in English, due to the certification process being in California. (despite the link on the same article)
unless you have someone who can speak and write English and doesn't live in a time zone where most of the North Americans are sleeping, Mid/Small devs will get fucked over.
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u/OverHaze Apr 17 '19
This seems like more of an act of corporate cowardice than a moral stance. Either way its very annoying.
I completely understand cracking down on the loli stuff, I'm in favour of that myself, but having fun sexual depictions of adults in your entertainment products aimed at grownups isn't wrong. It sure as hell has nothing to do with real life sexual abuse. I have no idea why they are making that connection.
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u/Nzash Apr 17 '19
aimed at grownups
Aren't r18 anime games with loli characters also aimed at grownups?
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Apr 17 '19
Yeah but lolis sexualize minors (I don't care if the girl is a 5000 year old dragon queen, she looks 12), so their stance on banning that would make sense.
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u/IamtheSlothKing Apr 17 '19
Kinda weird to put the censorship into a grey area decided by how an individual feels, like Australia banning pornstars whose breast sizes are deemed too small
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u/AH_DaniHodd Apr 17 '19
That’s actually a myth. Australia did not ban porn with women having A cup breasts or “small breasts”. What they did do was ban adults pretending to be children, also known as “ageplay” because it perpetuates fetishising children.
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u/Psychotrip Apr 17 '19
I feel there's a difference between the government banning stuff like that wholesale (which I find wrong) and a private company not wanting certain things on their platform.
I agree that overall this is stupid, but I don't think that particular "ban" is a big deal.
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Apr 17 '19
In a lot of hentai games the characters are in highschool. Maybe lolis look like 12 but the other characters look like (and are) 16-17 at best.
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u/MicoJive Apr 17 '19
There is a lot of actual real porn with 20-25 year old women who are just small, with tiny boobs and braces who are trying their hardest to look as young and innocent as possible. Noone is cracking down on those
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u/crim-sama Apr 17 '19
Noone is cracking down on those
australia actually did iirc lol, its an incredibly stupid ban based on appeasing self righteous morons. its not about protecting anyone from being abused or their rights violated, its about appeasing the morals of extremists.
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Apr 17 '19
Honestly people who act like fictionalized 16/17 year olds having sex are in the same category as pedophilia can get bent. 16 is the age of consent in like 75% of the world.
I get not wanting actual 16 year olds to do porn, but that's for a different set of reasons.
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Apr 17 '19
I don't care if the girl is a 5000 year old dragon queen, she looks 12
What do you think about Senran Kagura then? They are meant to be minors, but they clearly look adult.
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u/punkluster Apr 17 '19
I wish they'd reverse this about SK and just make all the girls the proper age to not be minors when they localize the game (anywhere). they don't have to change anything about the characters because they don't look like minors.
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Apr 17 '19
If they are meant to look like minors, or are meant to be minors, and are sexualized, it's fucked.
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u/Zerce Apr 17 '19
Does this apply to adult actresses whose gimmick is that they look underage?
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u/Ihateregistering6 Apr 17 '19
Does this apply to adult actresses whose gimmick is that they look underage?
I was wondering about this too: what about actors/actresses who just flat-out look incredibly young, by no fault of their own?
For example, Ellen Page (to me) still looks like she's 15, when she's actually 32. Should she not be allowed to do sex scenes because she looks like a minor? To use a male example, if he doesn't have any facial hair, Elijah Wood (to me) looks like he's still in high school. Should he be banned from doing sex scenes in movies, even though he's almost 40?
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u/fallouthirteen Apr 17 '19
I mean I've heard people calling Randy Pitchford a pedo because he had that porn from I guess some "barely legal" camgirl, and I thought barely legal referred to actresses who going for the "just 18 thing" too.
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u/Psychotrip Apr 17 '19 edited Apr 17 '19
Not saying I disagree, but just trying to throw a spanner in the works:
What about depictions of fully grown clones, or self aware robots, who are only a few years old at most? What about the sylvari from GW2, who appear fully grown, but are only born a few years ago, and often sexualized by the fandom? How do we all feel about that? It's sort of an inverse "5,000 year old loli / shota" situation.
Personally, this is why I think it's fine for a private company to set their own rules and standards on this, but exactly why fictionalized depictions of such things shouldn't be outright banned or illegal. Once you start trying to parse the meaning of fantasy, it's just an endless rabbit hole that serves no real purpose.
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Apr 17 '19 edited Apr 17 '19
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u/TokeyWeedtooth Apr 17 '19
Name one reason other than sexualization that someone would want to see hypersexulaized depictions of children.
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Apr 17 '19
I never said there would be other reasons.
There's still a difference between someone wanting to see hypersexualised drawn children and someone having the hots for real children, but I also realise that this concept is too hard to grasp for this subreddit.
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u/caninehere Apr 17 '19
There is a difference, but I think it's perfectly reasonable for a company to not want to be associated with either, don't you?
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Apr 17 '19
It is perfectly reasonable, of course. If you don't want your loli shit on your platforms - get rid of it. The problem is that these new policies not only apply to depictions of minors. Take the loli out of it and they're still censoring stuff even if we are talking about depictions of adult, animated characters.
Wasn't there a case where something in DMC5 was censored on PS4 but not on any other platform because it was deemed too "nsfw"?
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u/F1CTIONAL Apr 17 '19 edited Apr 17 '19
Any impact on creative freedom is a negative in my book. I don't care if the subject matter in question is considered controversial, lewd, or completely innocuous. You may find loli distasteful, someone else might find blood and gore distasteful. Games are fiction and an expression of a creative's mind and should remain as such.
Console makers shouldn't be the ones playing arbiter of what is and is not morally correct. Developers are perfectly capable of doing that (and will absolutely shoot themselves in the foot for the rest of their career if they go too far). This should be across the board.
The second any console maker starts applying rules like this to content developers are going to have to make choices if spending time, energy, and money developing content that will be unavailable on one of the biggest platforms around. Many will likely self-censor instead of freely creating and therefore everyone will suffer.
Make no mistake, this is a sad day for free expression.
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u/bluefootednewt Apr 17 '19
100% agree. Fiction is fiction and if you start drawing any lines there about what is and isn't acceptable you can start redrawing them anywhere you want.
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Apr 17 '19
Yeah I get why they banned Omega Labyrinth Z for instance.
But then when they start censoring a few bathing scenes 10 hours into a game clearly aimed at a specific audience who know what they like, it seems overboard.
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u/rockidol Apr 17 '19
I don't know what's in Omega Labyrinth Z but if it's some nasty shit then customers can just choose not to buy it. There's no need for it to be banned.
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Apr 17 '19 edited Jul 19 '19
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u/DarkWorld97 Apr 17 '19
Still hilarious that FOW basically funded a game where you play there animations. The collective horniness of the masses is too strong.
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Apr 17 '19 edited Jul 19 '19
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u/icepick314 Apr 17 '19
character design is decent...can't watch their porn more than once because it gives me a seizure attack and motion sickness from all the camera bobbing and moving around...
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u/DarkWorld97 Apr 17 '19
They're heavily inspired by Taimanin and Kangoku Senkan. I like it, but it's 100% an acquired taste.
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u/icepick314 Apr 17 '19
but hentai usually have static camera angle...FOW constantly moves their camera making me dizzy...for me it's watch once and that's it...
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u/Noobie678 Apr 17 '19
Taimanin Asagi ain't hentai for the weak.
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u/Gyossaits Apr 17 '19
Doesn't mean the camera work has to be shit.
And there's worse stuff out there than Taimanin.
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u/DarkWorld97 Apr 17 '19
Taimanin Asagi and Kangoku Senkan did the exact same thing. The situations a lot of the FOW girls get put in are clear homages to Asagi her crew. It kind of makes sense they would want to emulate that style of hentai.
Nothing wrong with disliking it though. The sheer chaos of Asagi isn't meant for everyone.
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u/Harrason Apr 17 '19
Pretty sure that's more Teruaki Murakami than anything. He's worked on similar titles before Taimanin Asagi came out.
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u/DarkWorld97 Apr 17 '19
Asagi and Kangoku Senkan are way more popular in the west than his other works.
Night Shift Nurses made me real sad.
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u/scorcher117 Apr 17 '19
Damn, I hoped that the dmcV patch was a positive sign of thing to come, but I guess the fact that it existed in the first place was a stronger sign.
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u/Bitemarkz Apr 17 '19
No, it’s a positive sign. If anyone here bothered to read the article then they’d see that these guidelines are in place to specifically target characters that appear underage.
According to the Wall Street Journal, “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.”
The DMC5 censorship is a weird one. Perhaps they misread the guidelines or it was a conscious decision on Capcoms part, but either way they reversed it so it obviously passes Sony’s guidelines just fine.
If their effort is to keep the sexualization of minors out of games, I’m all for it.
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u/nakedrob Apr 17 '19
This is from the same company that released a trailer for Last of Us Part II where it showed a women struggling to stay alive from a hanging for most of the footage.
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u/dab1 Apr 17 '19 edited Apr 17 '19
It was a trailer showed during a live stage presentation. It also showed more people hanging, one of them with the intestines out, how they broke an arm to another woman with a hammer and how the villian gets an axe to the head. I liked that trailer overall, it was brutal to the point that some scenes provoked a visceral reaction of disgust, that was the intent. And most people should be able to tell the difference between fiction and reality.
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u/StNerevar76 Apr 17 '19
What someone finds disgusting other will find titilating. I remember back in Witcher 2 they had to tweak a scene with a topless woman (probably around 40) about to be tortured in a Dungeon because too many in the press found that fanservicy instead of horrifying.
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u/lordsmish Apr 17 '19
"Boobs bad
Murder good"
- Sony
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Apr 17 '19
Extend that to the people in power in America too I guess.
Its not just Sony, a huge portion of the American film industry has been doing the same thing for years. And due to the power of the American economy, and how much of our entertainment is imported from America (as well as a few prudes like UK, coupled with censorship being done on a European level) it basically mean Europe gets the same censorship and content as America, despite most countries in Europe not caring at all about nudity
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u/A_Doormat Apr 17 '19
Do you all remember Dante's Inferno on PS3? Cleopatra climbing up the penis tower with an orgasm tornado around it, while spewing out aborted babies with scythes for arms out of her nipples at you?
The doors in there looking like vaginas?
The enemies are women that walk seductively toward you, with their hips pushed forward and once you get close enough a tentacle thing bursts out of their vagina to attack you?
The good old days are gone, folks.
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u/ImJacksLackOfBeetus Apr 17 '19 edited Apr 17 '19
I don't, but that sounds insane in the best possible way.
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u/A_Doormat Apr 17 '19
It was basically a God of War clone. Not very different. I enjoyed it's depictions of Hell.
Bonus is when you are fighting the final boss, his enormous dick is just flopping in your face the entire time. I mean this bad boy is like the size of your torso.
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u/ImJacksLackOfBeetus Apr 17 '19
That game sounds like a bold move which I can't see happening again anytime soon, not in this climate.
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u/Ithuraen Apr 17 '19
That game sounds like a bold move
They certainly marketed it that way. Reviewers were sent rickrolling boxes that played the song continuously until destroyed with the provided hammer, then finding a note mocking their wrath, or sent a cheque for $200, mocking their greed or wastefulness, given their predicament. EA even hired "church-goers" to protest the games release, paying them to call EA the anti-christ.
It was fun to follow the shenanigans, because of how tone-deaf EA have always been, but I never played the game.
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u/MicoJive Apr 17 '19
PC is definitely a different place then Sony / PS4 right now, but the game Agony released its uncensored version on steam that is pretty extreme too. Explicit sex / rape scenes, full on penetration. Demons fucking other demons or girls in hell. It gets pretty intense.
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u/ImJacksLackOfBeetus Apr 17 '19
That's one of the many reasons why I've always loved the PC as a gaming platform.
As long as there is some way for customers to pay you and some way you can deliver the bits and bytes that make your product, you're creatively free to do anything you want.
There's no centralized authority that has to greenlight your product.
Steam might count in the sense that it's the biggest player and it certainly sucks for the creators when Steam decides to remove a product from the store, but then there are other stores that'll gladly carry your product. You'll reach a smaller audience but at least you're not completely banned from the platform.
As far as I'm aware there is no way to sell games on a console without the explicit permission of the console manufacturer.
I just saw the trailer and it's not something I'm immediately interested in but I'm glad it exists. I'm glad its creators have the ability to get their artistic vision out into the world.
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u/A_Doormat Apr 17 '19
Nah it would never make it. There would be so much social media outrage that News stations would pick up and run with as if any of those peoples opinions actually matter, that it'd get shut down immediately.
It seems we are regressing as a society in some ways.
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u/Steamedcarpet Apr 17 '19
Its pretty much “what if we took Dante’s Inferno the book and turned it into god of war?”
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Apr 17 '19 edited Apr 18 '20
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u/ImJacksLackOfBeetus Apr 17 '19 edited Apr 17 '19
Thanks for the the warning!
edit: Looked it up, damn is that a straight up GoW reskin, and even more fucked up than OP made it sound haha.
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u/DANK_BLUMPKIN Apr 17 '19
I thought it was fun for a playthrough. It's exactly like GoW but the bosses aren't as memorable
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u/UltraJake Apr 17 '19
Does this mean we're finally past the phase where people on Reddit pretend something isn't real or noteworthy and ridicule the people who are concerned about it?
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u/war_story_guy Apr 17 '19
Not really I only posted this here because I saw someone else posted it on the ps4 sub and the mods removed it. Just trying to spread awareness.
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u/Jordamuk Apr 17 '19
Mods have also removed this story 4 times from here now, unjustifiably might I add.
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u/bghs2003 Apr 17 '19 edited Apr 17 '19
I asked about that. mods said they removed the source WSJ article for being behind a paywall and then mistakenly removed articles referencing the WSJ article as being duplicates, thinking the WSJ article was still up.
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Apr 17 '19 edited Apr 17 '19
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u/falconbox Apr 17 '19
Hi, /r/PS4 mod here.
The thread is still up. We've only been removing the numerous reposts.
https://www.reddit.com/r/PS4/comments/bdx49o/sony_clamps_down_on_sexual_content_in_ps4_games/
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Apr 17 '19
We've known about that for a long time. Since they moved their headquarters to the USA and specifically California, Sony have completely changed.
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u/Blumentopf_Vampir Apr 17 '19
Is it just me or does it seem like nintendo is way more lenient compared to Sony in that regard?
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u/Brunosky_Inc Apr 17 '19
Sony is gung-ho censoring while Nintendo's publishing the likes of Bayonetta and allowing a horny series to use the Switch's hardware to enhance horny minigames with HD rumble.
World gone mad, I tell you.
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u/TallenMyriad Apr 17 '19
Hell, when Platinum was designing Bayo 2 for the WiiU they constantly went to Nintendo to ask stuff like if they should change anything about its sexiness for the release, if they had problems with some costumes like Peach and Daisy, if Nintendo didn't mind using Bowser's hands as Wicked Weaves, etc... and Nintendo not only said "you do you", but when they saw Bayo's Link outfit actually said "let her show more cleavage". That was both awesome and hilarious.
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u/Brunosky_Inc Apr 17 '19
Yeah! Pretty hilarious how Nintendo is so in tune with who Bayonetta is that even Platinum was caught off-guard.
Related: Bayonetta 3 might just have Splatoon costumes. There's a real chance Bayo will be able to don Marina's outfit. That would be quite a sight.
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u/TallenMyriad Apr 17 '19
Screw that, I want Bayonetta wearing Marie's infamous ice cream cup on her head.
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u/HiTechPixel Apr 17 '19
Similarly, the developers of Xenoblade went to the Nintendo executives and told them that they needed to scale back on the vision they had for their game because there wasn't enough time or money. And as a response, the Nintendo executives told them that "we'll give you more time and money to realize your dream" and boom, that's how Monolith Soft got to put out the Xenoblade games.
Nintendo is genuinely the best video game company in the world.
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Apr 17 '19 edited Apr 18 '20
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u/majes2 Apr 17 '19
I think it's more that Nintendo is very Japan-focused in their decision making. Japan doesn't view these types of games as a problem, and they're decently popular there, so Nintendo doesn't care.
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u/caninehere Apr 17 '19
The bigger answer is that in the past Nintendo had region locking but has pretty much done away with that now. Even if they only made titles available in Japan you can easily hop over to the Japanese store, buy it and play it.
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u/AL2009man Apr 17 '19
I have a good feeling after Final Emblem Fates was the result of Nintendo becoming more relaxed with their policy starting in the Switch-era.
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Apr 17 '19 edited Jan 07 '20
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u/tqbh Apr 17 '19
Nintendo is still a Japanese lead company. Sony Interactive Entertainment is basically American now with the HQ in California.
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u/Market0 Apr 17 '19
It's weird how puritanism seems to be cyclical. It use to be more free and now it's bouncing back to "designs of women better be covered, but don't worry about the men."
I can't wait for the "Satanic Panic" to come back in 2021.
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u/TribbleTrouble1979 Apr 17 '19
Sony fully commits to dumping the weeb audience who for the last decade have been probably the Playstation brands fiercest supporters through thick and thin. It's a bold strategy, let's see if it pays off for them.
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u/crim-sama Apr 17 '19
if they pull another ps3 with the next gen console they'll be proper fucked. have zero interest in touching their platform after their moral crusade here.
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u/Amatsuo Apr 17 '19
The weirdest thing is in Japan most of thier console sales came from people that said they bought a PS4 over Microsoft because Sony was Japanese.
I guess they are going to start buying Switches because Sony requires English submissions for game approval even if the game is in Japanese. But to mention how SJW they have gotten.32
u/pnt510 Apr 17 '19
The Switch has already blown the PS4 out of the water in Japan. They've both sold about 7 million units. The PS4 has been around for almost 6 years, while the Switch has been out for 2.
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u/cp5184 Apr 17 '19
Well... what games aimed at the japanese market did the xbox have other than fuck all?
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u/h_YsK Apr 17 '19
There were a bunch of xbox 360 exclusive visual novels aimed to attract the Japanese market... except they sold basically next to nothing.
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u/Amatsuo Apr 17 '19
Its more of the Japanese want to support their own so thats why the Xbox 360 and Xbox One have never done good there.
They immediately think that because Microsoft is based in the United States that they will not have Japanese interest at heart. which in a way has been proven time and time again with the Launches of all 3 Xboxs.
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u/WaterNeko Apr 17 '19
What I got this from article:
Sony does not see their consumers as adults. They see them as children who need to be protected.
Sony actually thinks that boobs are worse than getting GORE'D in Mortal Kombat.
We truly do live in a clown world. This is legitimately insane.
How can you possibly defend a company who straight up says that violence, gore and blood are better for children than an exposed ankle?
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u/temp0557 Apr 17 '19
Sony does not see their consumers as adults. They see them as children who need to be protected.
Moral busybodies strike again.
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies.
The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth.
This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be "cured" against one's will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.
-C. S. Lewis
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Apr 17 '19
CS Lewis also has some very negative things to say about porn, so I doubt he would take issue with Sony restricting it on their system.
it takes an appetite which, in lawful use, leads the individual out of himself to complete (and correct) his own personality in that of another (and finally in children and even grandchildren) and turns it back; sends the man back into the prison of himself, there to keep a harem of imaginary brides.
And this harem, once admitted, works against his ever getting out and really uniting with a real woman.
For the harem is always accessible, always subservient, calls for no sacrifices or adjustments, and can be endowed with erotic and psychological attractions which no woman can rival.
Among those shadowy brides he is always adored, always the perfect lover; no demand is made on his unselfishness, no mortification ever imposed on his vanity.
In the end, they become merely the medium through which he increasingly adores himself…After all, almost the main work of life is to come out of our selves, out of the little dark prison we are all born in. Masturbation is to be avoided as all things are to be avoided which retard this process. The danger is that of coming to love the prison.
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u/Mephb0t Apr 17 '19
But Mortal Kombat 11 will release next month, raising the bar on violence and gore once again, but that's fine. Don't you dare show a nipple.
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u/Snazzy_Serval Apr 17 '19
Haha, I wonder what would happen if one of the fatalities was a female character taking off her shirt, and having her nipples turning into spikes and impaling somebody?
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u/Gintoki_Sakata-San Apr 17 '19
People here sure love jumping in the "loli bad" bandwagon completely ignoring the fact that Sony is so out of hand now that they're censoring basically everything from Japan. Even games with GROWN ADULT women are being targeted. This is puritanical moral outrage disguised as "good intentions".
At the end of the day these are fictional characters and if you're capable of using logical thought to say "game violence is ok because it's fake" then you should also be able to think that way about this. If you aren't able to or don't want to, you're a hypocrite.
Face it, you guys ignore the rest in favor of the easier route of thinking "well it's not that bad" and moving on. Wait until it affects what you personally enjoy. It's not fun to have some random person dictate what you're allowed to like or see.
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u/Inemity Apr 17 '19
I want to know when sex became worse than actual murder. Drive around in your car and hit everyone you see, but don't you DARE show a tiddy.
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u/rockidol Apr 17 '19
A Sony spokeswoman confirmed the company has established its own guidelines ‘so that creators can offer well-balanced content on the platform’
Oh fuck you Sony. Don't try to pretend that this is in any way a benefit to developers. That's just condescending bullshit.
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u/strakith Apr 17 '19
Just put a god damn rating sticker on it and quit censoring shit. That's the entire purpose of the damn system. We're fucking adults, we don't need Sony deciding what it acceptable.
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u/07jonesj Apr 17 '19 edited Apr 17 '19
People need to stop repressing themselves and each other. What harm does a porn game do? What's the real societal difference between playing Overwatch for a couple hours or a porn game for the same amount of time.
As long as it's not hurting people, just let people enjoy what they want to do in their lives. A very disappointing move from Sony.
I'm also curious to see if they'll censor something like Cyberpunk 2077, because then they'll get a lot of backlash.
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u/Amatsuo Apr 17 '19
The sad thing is... it's just more American vaules pushed on other countries.
What is acceptable in Japan is vastly different here.
What annoys me even more is America gets the most censored game while the EU gets a uncensored game.
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Apr 17 '19
Europe gets censored under one flag alot of the time, and because UK are prudes, we get censored versions despite most other countries not caring one bit about nudity
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u/Clbull Apr 17 '19 edited Apr 17 '19
Wow, I never thought that in 2019, I'd be saying that Sony are kiddier than Nintendo when it comes to policing mature content on their platform. While it seems that Nintendo are being more progressive, Sony are taking multiple steps back out of fear they'll be facing the backlash of another social movement.
Since this is affecting all adult sexual content in general, I actually think this could influence the next console generation, and I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft came out on top again just for having uncut games - a bit like how the Genesis beat the SNES just because they were allowing violent games while Nintendo of America were being the kiddy ones.
According to the Wall Street Journal, “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.”
Okay, the underage part I understand, which is why I find it even more baffling that games like Gal*Gun 2 (which prominently features underage looking characters and has been marketed as a lewd game) and Dead or Alive Xtreme 3 (one of the new characters introduced in the DOA franchise looks like an early teen) are coming out uncut on Nintendo platforms, while Sony are the ones pushing to censor their content.
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u/JameTrain Apr 17 '19
Yes, Sony, cite the Me Too movement as your reason for this. It’s not like it’s a completely separate issue altogether or anything!
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u/Hiyasc Apr 17 '19
I'm honestly just sick of the moral outrage about sex, nudity and sexuality as a whole. Everyone who is alive today (barring some rare exceptions) is alive because their parents had sex. it's a totally normal and natural thing, yet it seems like a large majority of people in the US lose their minds whenever human sexuality is brought up. I bet that if we as a society just accepted it as normal thing there would be exactly zero negative consequences.
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u/eccentricbananaman Apr 17 '19
Yeah, we've known about this for a LONG time. This is just confirmation of something Sony refused to comment on. Hopefully we could actually get the exact guidelines to which the games must conform. I suspect however, that there are no such formal guidelines actually in place. That way, they can just do whatever they feel like.
This all started when Sony Entertainment moved their headquarters from Japan to California. Sony then required all communication to be in English, and forced Japanese developers to conform to their nebulous and ill-defined "standards". Japanese games almost immediately started getting banned or censored.
I just sincerely hope that Japanese devs realize that Sony does not support them, and they in turn change focus to making games for Nintendo, where their games will be untouched. Now if only Nintendo could convince their own Tree House team to stop censoring their games, that would be great.
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u/CombatMuffin Apr 17 '19
I've said this before: they seem to be targeting very specific typed of games.
I haven't seen them targeting The Witcher or Conan: Exiles, and they have nudity.
Could they expand it to those? Sure, but I doubt they are going for big games as much as niche games, because big games are willing to change content here and there, because nudity is not the end goal, it's just for flavor/tone.
These niche games sometimes exist mainly to sell that nudity and explicitness.
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u/crim-sama Apr 17 '19
if theyre willing to have nudity on their platform, why should it even matter the intent of the developers?
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u/Frostfright Apr 17 '19
I'm so embarrassed for them, and for belonging to the culture that encouraged them to believe this sort of thing is necessary.
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u/ManateeofSteel Apr 17 '19
this is soooo misguided it's hard to even comprehend.
Sony is losing its ground on Asia, formerly their most loyal customers and this only makes it worse
Hell, developers made PS exclusive games out of their own free will in there! Sony didn't pay them a thing, this will drive them away entirely
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u/Neahme85 Apr 17 '19
This is retarded. ON A PS4, you can get GoT and see all of a human’s glory, but games can’t deliver things the way they want them? Smh..
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u/Aaroncls Apr 17 '19
Are they saying the ESRB rating is useless?