Sony Now Internally Regulates Sexual Content in Video Games

[MadmanRB]

While I am in the pro vetting camp when it comes to steam games (as lets be honest steam is a mess when it comes to asset flips and lazily made games) this is a bit of a weird move by Sony.

I mean there is the ESRB to determine what rating gets slapped on the side of the box after all.

[Arika]

is Sony based in the UK? what's with the war against tits?

[MadmanRB]

4 minutes ago, Arika S said:

is Sony based in the UK? what's with the war against tits?

I really dont know.

In any case this is the kind of censorship to complain about here, its one thing to argue for or against a game called Rape simulator 3000 and rather it should be on steam or not (and considering such games are only called this to generate heat as its all meaningless asset flips anyhow and perhaps better off not on the steam storefront)  but this is another level as the games seen on the Sony storefront and in game stores are rated by the ESRB, most steam games dont even have ratings so at least there I can get behind vetting.

[ARikozuM]

Senran Kagura "censored"...

 

It's already largely censored... or are they just blacking out entire scenes? 

 

Clothes Break now adds clothes. Smart move, Sony. /s

[Rune]

Man....if only there was some rating system in place that would be designed to stop young children from getting their hands on games designed for adults. I guess that would require parents to give a shit about what their child is buying though, so that's impossible.

[mr moose]

Meh, their damned if they do and damned if they don't.  If they continue to sell games of a controversial nature then they face a lot of public criticism, if they virtual signal they lose customers.  I think they chose the path of least financial damage.

[RejZoR]

30 minutes ago, Rune said:

Man....if only there was some rating system in place that would be designed to stop young children from getting their hands on games designed for adults. I guess that would require parents to give a shit about what their child is buying though, so that's impossible.

Do you remember times when games and movies had NO ratings AT ALL and everyone grew up just fine consuming them the same way we do today? Now you see ratings and warnings on freaking everything and people are more fucked up in the head than ever in this regard. What's next, warnings on bananas and cucumbers because they can be used as improvised dildo and they'll stick warnings on them just as a precaution? Given current trends, it'll happen in matter of months, starting in puritan UK of course.

 

I mean, I'm from generation that grew up with Lara Croft, the first most sexualized character in games. Sure we had triangle tits back then, but it doesn't matter if you know what they are. And people turned up just fine playing it all the time. Just because graphics are more realistic now, that doesn't change the perception. We knew what tits were back then whether they were smooth or triangular.

 

It's also funny how oblivious people apparently are to things. I like watching National Geographic or Animal planet and they roll warnings for "strong scenes" like every 3 minutes because a croc eats something and everyone needs to be protected form that. Why? It's just a reality of nature and we need to be protected from it like some sort of retards. Yeah, that includes kids. I watched documentaries since I was a kid. I loved watching them and since there were no such warnings, I just watched them like anything else. I don't have any traumas or PTSD because I watched lion maul a zebra when I was a kid. But now kids are crying and are terrified when they do see something like this because they are so coddled and isolated from all this. Heh. I don't know, I just don't get it where this dumb world is heading...

[D13H4RD]

So, did Sony just out-Nintendo even Nintendo themselves? 

[duncannah]

just watch porn instead lol

[Trik'Stari]

9 hours ago, Chett_Manly said:

We will just have to accept that our entertainment is going to be censored to protect the feelings of virtue signaling woke progressives. A small minority of the population that has undue influence because of their wealth and large presence in the tech sector gets to ban you from having content that they feel is indecent. Sony has now fallen under their control as so many other tech and media companies. There is no push back, because unlike in the 90s with the religious right, they already infiltrated the organizations from within, and silenced dissenting voices. 

 

 

Sadly this is true of our education system as well. Which is why we have so many people demanding to be taken care of by the rest of society.

[Sauron]

21 hours ago, matrix07012 said:

Policies like this are extremely stupid. Artistic expression is subjective, thus any guidelines like this cannot be objectively enforced and it's purely up to the whims of the censors.

Sony is a private company, don't you think they should have a say in what they publish or allow on their specific hardware and how they think it affects their image? Of course it's up to their whims, why wouldn't it be? You're stating the obvious here and framing it as outrageous.

 

They can (and most likely do, very often) decide that they don't like a game for virtually any reason and not publish it. They may think the graphics aren't nice enough for the game to represent their system's capabilities, that it won't sell enough to justify working with the developer and advertising it, you name it - if this bothers you, why do you only complain when it's a porn filter? How isn't the tight control Sony has on the hardware you bought the main issue?

21 hours ago, matrix07012 said:

This is just a part of a puritanical moral panic about D&D turning kids into Satanists and violent games turning kids into murderers jokes turning kids into nazis and lines on screen turning kids into rapists. 

The rules are obviously sensationalist and arbitrary since it's ok for kids to see brutal finishers in MK11, but Dear God, they can't be allowed to see a breast. Any reasonably person can conclude that it's not actually about the kids.

It's about Sony's public image and the demographic they market to. I would wager a very large part of their western customers are parents or grandparents buying a gift for a teenager - those are the people they want to convince. Grandma probably won't buy you a playstation if she thinks it's actually a pornstation, regardless of how true that assessment is.

10 hours ago, Chett_Manly said:

We will just have to accept that our entertainment is going to be censored to protect the feelings of virtue signaling woke progressives. A small minority of the population that has undue influence because of their wealth and large presence in the tech sector gets to ban you from having content that they feel is indecent. Sony has now fallen under their control as so many other tech and media companies. There is no push back, because unlike in the 90s with the religious right, they already infiltrated the organizations from within, and silenced dissenting voices.

This is honestly just delusional, if you think a massive corporation like Sony would deliberately go for a highly unprofitable maneuver just to appease imaginary "virtue signaling progressives" that somehow managed to get to the highest sphere of corporate influence despite being actively anticapital you need to reconsider your basic assumptions about the world.

 

Corporations market to people and only care about money; if they do something that appeals to progressives it's because their extensive market research concluded that the majority of their customers will like it and that they may draw in a sizeable amount of new customers at the same time.

 

Not to mention that I would hardly consider censoring breasts to be particularly progressive - the problem with overly sexualized characters in games isn't their explicit nudity, it's the way they are written to act and present themselves and/or the overly suggestive body proportions, even if they're fully clothed. If a character is extremely sexualized, covering their breasts isn't going to change that.

9 hours ago, MoonSpot said:

Back up your skyrim mods, they'll be coming for mods next.

Maybe you didn't notice, but increasingly fewer games have mod support and that has been happening for over a decade. It's not because anyone cares about how people modify their games, it's because the publishers want to sell you skins and weapons dlc - which doesn't work if the community can just fork out their free mods.

21 hours ago, TacoSenpai said:

Sony censors what Nintendont.

I know it's meant as a joke, but Nintendo has always been very strict on what they allow on their hardware... if there are games with explicit nudity on Nintendo systems, they are few and far between. This is because Nintendo cares a lot about their image as a family friendly company, more so than Sony ever did.

20 hours ago, Stefan Payne said:

that just alienates the consumers, who mostly don't care about all that radical shit and just want to play a game. And want it in all the glory that the game was intended to be.

Do you have any study that shows that? What data do you have on what most of Sony's customers do or do not want? These statements always boggle my mind; you just assume that because you don't like it or don't care, the majority also won't like it or care. Not to mention Sony has far more data on who their customers are than anyone else so assuming to know better than them about this sort of thing is absurd.

[Doobeedoo]

Meh no point, what are ratings even for. It's consoles so they want to keep children 'safe' hah. 

[suits]

What kind of world do we live in where people get upset because they get less cartoon boobies in their video games?

[MadmanRB]

1 minute ago, valdyrgramr said:

Yes, but on steam, there is both the ESRB and warnings about what you buy/are about to view.  If you choose to go past the warnings and ratings then that's the fault of the user.  You can have your moralities and all, but you're still voting for censorship.  Nintendo was like this in the 80s and 90s.  They wanted to censor blood, adult stuff, gore, and more.  This is when the ESRB came into action.

But thats the thing, wanting vetting isnt about wanting censorship its about quality control.

Now me personally I don't care if there is a game called child molestation: the video game however why would such a game need to exist on the steam store front?

To generate buzz and heat?

Yes probably as such a game is no doubt created by some hack developer who uses asset flips and lazy coding to make the most basic and asinine game possible and yet still garner attention due to the fact he made a game called child molestation: the video game.

With steam being such a messy store front it makes it very difficult to ignore such games even when they are not so blatantly titled, the steam storefront more resembles a junk yard than a store front and there are some great games getting utterly buried under the muck of Valves negligence of not vetting games.

Plus I would argue that Nintendo did the world a service by having a seal of quality, before then there was zero quality control in video games, sure the nintendo seal of quality did not stop bad games from coming on to the console (heres looking at you Jekyll and Hyde) but it did help cut down the muck.

Now yes i do think nintendo did go too far by censoring things in the US but considering there was no ESRB at the time I can see why Nintendo did what they did.

Did not make it right but it wasnt exactly wrong.

[Stefan Payne]

1 hour ago, Sauron said:

Do you have any study that shows that? What data do you have on what most of Sony's customers do or do not want? These statements always boggle my mind; you just assume that because you don't like it or don't care, the majority also won't like it or care.

Gamers are not very political correct and don't want any censorship.

 

One of the best examples in the recent years is Battlefield 5, wich totally tanked because of the direction it was going. 

 

1 hour ago, Sauron said:

Not to mention Sony has far more data on who their customers are than anyone else so assuming to know better than them about this sort of thing is absurd

Do you have any proof of that?

Especially if you look at where Sony Interactive Entertainment is Located. And you think about it.

Its just the usual SJW-Puretanian bullshit, that's void of all data.

 

Also there is a Video from Jeremy H. about that, where Sony outright claims that its because of "Metoo" and "Gamergate", or at least that was written in the Article cited by Jeremy.

 

Also what about the two young girls kissing in the upcoming Last of Us 2??

That seems a bit hypocritical...

[Stefan Payne]

23 minutes ago, valdyrgramr said:

 And, yes it was wrong as it's censorship.  Censoring will always be the wrong way to go about it.  This is partly why Nintendo lost its following over the years.  The Wii U was part of it, but what drew people to other consoles at the time was the lack of censorship that Nintendo was doing.  When MK games were on consoles in the 90s people jumped over to Sega because they got blood there when Nintendo refused to allow it.  

Yes, exactly.

And to show you one extreme example of Censorshit, that really pissed off gamers, something @Sauron might also look into, is the WiiU Game "Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE". Its a pretty good game in general, but the part with the photographs just made no sense in the Western Version because it wasn't what it should be. In the Original its about "Gravure Pictures", in the English Translated it was something different...

Another Thing: for the Western release they had to record hundreds of lines for the censorshit, also the Age of the protagonists were changed as well...

 

But you can see a bit about that here:

https://kotaku.com/all-the-racy-stuff-changed-for-tokyo-mirage-sessions-we-1783052483 (Pictures don't seem to work here)...

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2016-06-28-fans-create-mod-that-restores-censored-content-for-tokyo-mirage-sessions

 

Here a Video:

 

Was also overseen by Nintendo of America.

 

[MadmanRB]

51 minutes ago, valdyrgramr said:

Then don't buy the game!  Nobody is forcing anyone to buy these games.   If you spend your money on something over a title that's on you!  Why do you care what people spend their money on?  If they want to do that then that's their problem.  It has 0 impact on your life.  And, yes it was wrong as it's censorship.  Censoring will always be the wrong way to go about it.  This is partly why Nintendo lost its following over the years.  The Wii U was part of it, but what drew people to other consoles at the time was the lack of censorship that Nintendo was doing.  When MK games were on consoles in the 90s people jumped over to Sega because they got blood there when Nintendo refused to allow it.  It also amuses me that Nintendo pretends they are so pro-family when they funded a guy like Itagaki of all fucking people.  Ya know the guy behind Dead or Alive games and the modern Ninja Gaidens!  And, do I need to bring up that Japanese exclusive Fatal Frame game they funded!  Nintendo are fucking hypocrites.

Who said I was going to buy such a  game?

 

Again the vetting on steam argument is about wanting some level of quality control not censorship.

Again I dont care if someone does buy a game called baby rape simulator or whatever, its none of my business what they do.

However it does become my business when such a game is getting Valve into trouble and if they dont do at least something then we really will see censorship.

I must remind you that steam was almost banned entirely in Malaysia due to the video game called Fight of the gods due to that nations policies concerning religious content.

This is the sort of thing i dont want to happen again, where the entire storefront goers under fire from even worse threats than social justice warriors.

Valve has gone under a lot of scrutiny recently so maybe in this case they should at least have some sort of filter on the search or something.

Maybe even a game featuring a school shooting should have not just a ESRB sticker on it but maybe a warning label on the side saying "controversial content" so that maybe we can at the very least have less governing eyes on the steam store front.

The voices of minority groups and SJW's are nothing compared to the power of some governing bodies who could deem the entire Steam ecosystem as something that should be outright banned.

I can easily see this sort of thing abused in countries like China

[Sauron]

19 minutes ago, Stefan Payne said:

Gamers are not very political correct and don't want any censorship.

Citation needed.

19 minutes ago, Stefan Payne said:

One of the best examples in the recent years is Battlefield 5, wich totally tanked because of the direction it was going.

Citation needed. The only data available on that is what EA told its shareholders and they made no mention of the woman on the cover (seriously?) being responsible for lower sales; they said it was most likely due to the lack of multiplayer content, as evidenced by the more successful Apex Legends.

22 minutes ago, Stefan Payne said:

Do you have any proof of that?

Of what, that Sony has more data about who buys their products and signs up for their services than you or anyone else? Do I need to prove to you that the sky is blue? You are claiming to know more about Sony's costumers than they do, it's up to you to bring proof to the table when you argue against common sense.

25 minutes ago, Stefan Payne said:

Especially if you look at where Sony Interactive Entertainment is Located. And you think about it.

Sony has local divisions wherever they sell their products, this doesn't make any sense.

25 minutes ago, Stefan Payne said:

Its just the usual SJW-Puretanian bullshit, that's void of all data.

He said, without providing any data.

26 minutes ago, Stefan Payne said:

Also there is a Video from Jeremy H. about that, where Sony outright claims that its because of "Metoo" and "Gamergate", or at least that was written in the Article cited by Jeremy.

There isn't a single word about gamergate in the article.

 

As for MeToo influencing the decision, what's the problem with that? It doesn't contradict a word of what I said. Sony saw that their western customers weren't thrilled with the demeaning of women in games and acted accordingly. I don't think it's the right solution but that's beside the point.

20 minutes ago, Stefan Payne said:

And to show you one extreme example of Censorshit, that really pissed off gamers, something @Sauron might also look into, is the WiiU Game "Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE". Its a pretty good game in general, but the part with the photographs just made no sense in the Western Version because it wasn't what it should be. In the Original its about "Gravure Pictures", in the English Translated it was something different...

Again you're showing the huge disconnect between the people you perceive as "gamers" and the actual majority of people who buy videogames.

 

From wikipedia on TMS:

Quote

According to Famitsu, the game debuted at #13 with 23,806 units, having a moderate sell-through rate.^[94] At release, the game ranked as #8 in Nintendo's weekly download charts.^[95] The following week, it dropped to #16, selling another 9094 units, bringing total sales up to just under 33,000 units.^[96] By mid-January, it had dropped to #27, but its sell-through rate had increased.^[97] According to Media Create, the game reached #14 on their charts, with all versions selling 26,340 units. By the following week, it had dropped out of the top twenty.^[98][99] According to Dengeki Online, the game had sold 32,896 units by January 2016.^[100] In its first week on sale in North America, the game sold 50,000 units.^[101] Upon its UK debut, the game reached #18 in the all-format charts and #16 in single-format.^[102]

clearly the game sold pretty well considering it's not quite a mainstream title. According to the same page, the reviews also rated it positively:

 

So what's your point? Perhaps the game was made worse by the censorship, I'm not arguing that because I don't know the game and frankly I don't care - it's not relevant to the discussion - but that doesn't mean it wasn't a valid business decision. I'm not claiming it was, mind you, because I don't have the data to back that up; YOU are the one claiming it wasn't though, and you haven't provided any evidence to that effect. You're raving on about things you simply don't know and blaming it all on unspecified "SJW puritans".

[MadmanRB]

11 minutes ago, valdyrgramr said:

A) That's a shitty government if they whine over the content on a game platform, and that is censorship that is getting Valve into trouble.  Instead of bitching about the company who publishes the game there maybe bitch at the government crying over it?  If steam allows a game that is going to get them in trouble in a country than that's Gabe's fault as it is his company and his company allowed the publishing.

B) When a game is controversial you are slapped in the face with a warning literally tell you that the game is NSFW and other things you don't just get to the product page.   You have to agree with the content of the game.  Then you get to the product page, after you personally agreed to view this content, where you are met with the rating system.

C)  Again, that's a problem with the country not with the games or the companies.  These countries like to censor everything.  It's a political problem.  Gabe can simply now allow these games for availability in specific countries on his platform.  But, outright banning them everywhere is simply silly.

Yes but everyone knows how easy it is to bypass Steams age restricted content filter, it is so easy to bypass its not even funny

[Bramimond]

23 hours ago, TacoSenpai said:

Sony censors what Nintendont.

Just a reminder:

 

Nintendo recently pulled a classic and already censored game from it's shop, because it wasn't censored enough by their standards. The game is called "Super Real Mahjong".

 

With Nintendo censorship is the norm, but Sony didn't always behave that way.

[Sauron]

Just now, valdyrgramr said:

Then that's the fault of the parents, again.  If a parent or guardian isn't doing their fucking job as a parent that's on them.  It's not up to these companies to babysit their kid for them.

If a parent doesn't want to personally check every game their 13 year old buys with their allowance the easiest way is to not buy a Playstation. Do you think Sony is ok with that? Not to mention that any game that sells less because parents don't buy it for their kids, due to the mature rating or sexual content warning, is also bad for Sony. You seem to forget that Sony doesn't care about your kids; they care about selling you games and consoles. You're framing the discussion from the wrong perspective.

[MadmanRB]

12 minutes ago, valdyrgramr said:

Then that's the fault of the parents, again.  If a parent or guardian isn't doing their fucking job as a parent that's on them.  It's not up to these companies to babysit their kid for them.

Still I am more than in favor of a redesign or something, there is a lot wrong with the steam storefront as it is now so any reorganization and or vetting is very welcome considering how much of a mess it is.

[Sauron]

2 minutes ago, valdyrgramr said:

My point is that it's not up to a company to babysit these kids, and if a parent has a problem with what their kids are playing than that responsibility is their own, not Sony's, Valve's, MS's, or any other company.

Sure, I just don't see how this is relevant to the topic at hand - and while Sony has no obligation to babysit anyone, doing it can be profitable (they wouldn't do it if they didn't think it were).

3 minutes ago, valdyrgramr said:

Mature games actually help sell a platform. It's why Nintendo had to secretly abandon their family values and fund people like Platinum Games, Valhalla Studios, and others to boost sales.

It depends on the situation and which parts of a game make it "mature". Still, Nintendo has opened up relatively speaking but they are still far from allowing just anything on their consoles and their advertisement is designed to avoid it unless it's a game trailer.

[MadmanRB]

10 minutes ago, valdyrgramr said:

Then go bitch at Gabe Newell because bitching here isn't going to accomplish nothing.  But, it's probably not going to accomplish anything because I highly doubt Gabe cares what you think of his platform.  The man is richer than he ever thought he would be, and he cares more about himself and the people at his company than the people giving him money.

Its not bitching when it actually is a legit complaint.

If my car had a defective engine it would sure as hell would not be bitching if it was a well known problem that went under the radar and the car company that made my car did not admit there was issues that is certainly a legit complaint and said car company needs to be held accountable.

But I guess for you people who had their ford Pinto had no right to complain when the gas tanks exploded.... oh no that's their fault despite the fact there was no internet back then and information was much slower to come by.

[Stefan Payne]

30 minutes ago, Sauron said:

If a parent doesn't want to personally check every game their 13 year old buys with their allowance the easiest way is to not buy a Playstation.

Playstation has a parental control (level) system...

Nintendo doesn't have that (didn't find anything).

So your claim makes no sense.

 

Here what Sony describes:

https://www.playstation.com/en-au/get-help/help-library/my-account/parental-controls/ps4-parental-controls/

 

What they should have done is another option to enable/disable "Sexualized Content" and force the Developers to rate their game in their categories and call it a day.

 

Here another Article about that:

https://blog.eu.playstation.com/2017/10/06/how-to-use-the-new-parental-controls-and-family-accounts-features-on-ps4/

 

The Parental Control stuff on PS4 is already pretty good and can't be done much better.

So the only reason for them is their Puritanian points of view because they are in an awful Echo-Chamber in the deepest "Progressive" Shithole...