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Post by wyrdwad on Oct 19, 2018 16:06:54 GMT -5
Speaking as someone in the industry: yes, there are.
I can't really go into detail on this, but things are absolutely spiraling out of control with censorship. Like, it's not a "maybe they'll spiral out of control if we're not careful" thing... it's already happening.
I was not exaggerating in my tweet when I said that it was the '90s all over again. Things are getting really bad right now.
EDIT: I'm sorry I can't go into further detail here, as not doing so definitely makes it sound like I'm trying to shut down what some of you are saying without any proof. My goal here is not to "win the argument," though; there's just been an issue with getting basically ANYTHING approved by ANYONE for the last little while, as I guess everybody's on edge about possible controversy now, and it's really made publishing games a lot more of a headache these days. And it's not just about things like intimacy mode in Senran Kagura -- a lot of games that would never have been an issue previously are being targeted as well now, seemingly out of nothing more than simple paranoia.
Hopefully, you'll never see the inevitable results of this -- hopefully we'll be able to successfully push back against this, and other companies being similarly affected will be able to as well. But I suspect you're going to start to see proof positive in the near future (if not from us, then from SOMEONE) that censorship really is spiraling out of control, industry-wide.
-Tom
P.S. This is also just my own personal take on matters, and does not represent any sort of official stance, so if you're part of a gaming news site, DO NOT QUOTE ME. In fact, just don't quote me at all from other sites -- link to this post if you'd like, but please don't just pick and choose sections of it as sound bytes. I shouldn't have to state this, but as my recent tweets have found their way all over the gaming news, I feel it's in my best interest to do so, just in case.
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Post by edmonddantes on Oct 20, 2018 0:37:51 GMT -5
I honestly don't mind censorship if it is censoring something which is utterly indefensible on the whole - a wholesale rape simulator for instance, or a high school shooter simulator nor a scrolling beat 'em up where the "hero" who is based on a real life racist, sexist motherfucker goes around beating the shit out of enthnic minorities as well as members of the LGBTQ community - literally kicking & punching them until they become a pile of shit. If there was some sort of justifiable satirical element to these things? Perhaps it was being used as an effective method of social commentary? Then maybe you could say "okay look at it this way". As has been pointed out before though, the problem with censorship in this context is it has a streissand effect--these things become notorious because people wonder what was so censor-worthy about them. Look at the U.K's "video nasties" ban list--just about every movie on it is a cult classic now (this includes more than a few that are almost literally rape porn, by the way--I seriously never got arguments that "I Spit On Your Grave" is somehow a feminist movie. That one not only had a slew of sequels and ripoffs but recently even a remake which spawned its own series!) Or you have faith they're so wrong that they'll be trounced in the open marketplace of ideas. Not allowing it a platform can be interpreted as "you don't have a response so you don't want the discussion to even happen." Gonna shoot this one down right now: There is no effing "rise of Naziism." That's some scare tactic certain facets of the internet came up with basically to discredit people they disagree with who might not even be preaching Nazi-like views. The closest I've ever heard to it being reality is some rally in Charlottesville... where the supposed neo-Nazis proved themselves to have basically no organization, showed no self-control, wound up turning everyone against them and basically shot themselves in the foot due to sheer incompetence. Anyone "emboldened" by that is probably due for a Darwin Award, and it proves my point--these people were allowed a platform, and it did far more damage to their cause than any censorship could ever do. The only thing that mystifies me is why people still bring it up in fearful tones--I have a buddy on Skype who used it as an example of Naziism being on the rise, which is how I know of it in the first place, but within an hour of Google searching I had learned not only all the above, but also that these people had been denied permits for any more meetings on the grounds of "Dude, last time you guys gathered, the city had to clean up your shit, so f__k off." These guys are as likely to be "on the rise" as Pinky and the Brain are to ever successfully conquer the world. Wait, what? Both Wyrdwad and I specifically mentioned that there will be responses. That's called living on a planet with other people. Freedom of speech entails freedom to contradict or criticize. Nobody at all is advocating "these people speak, you don't get to respond." That would itself be censorship if we were. See, this is the problem I'm seeing--you're applying everything we say as if it works only one way, for the benefit of one person or ideology. The problem is, NOTHING in life works that way (except for the bottles of V8 Splash I own, those are mine dammit!) Being anti-censorship does not entail "oh but we want to prevent all responses." Likewise, being pro-censorship never entails that only truly vile material will be censored ( which is exactly the problem, by the by). Think of the whole, not of just the part. Didn't this forum have a long, touchy topic about school shootings just over a month ago? Dude, don't do this (and for that matter, you may want to in the future avoid describing yourself as a "snowflake/social justice warrior" and obvious appeal-to-emotion lines like "I can't even begin to explain this to another adult"... these don't sway anyone, rather they damage your credibility by making you look emotional rather than rational. Emotions are good and all but they can easily be manipulated and make people see a bogeyman that isn't there, which... to be blunt, while those societal problems do exist, they're nowhere near as big as you think they are. Most normal people do NOT condone rape--even in prison populations, people in jail for rape tend to be low on the pecking order to the point where sometimes they have to be put in isolation for their own protection. And that's among hardened criminals. Why then would you think rape is somehow kosher in society?) The problem is that some people continuously keep thinking that censorship will spiral out of control. There's no signs ever pointing to that, no comparable precedents, No comparable precedents? I'd love an explanation as to why the Hayes Codes, the Comics Code Authority, and Nintendo's policies circa the 1980s don't count as "comparable precedents." |
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Post by wyrdwad on Oct 20, 2018 1:25:20 GMT -5
To be fair, "a culture where most women we know will be sexually assaulted at some stage in their life & open racism" does describe the modern-day U.S. pretty well, sadly. Socially, we are in a time of upheaval, and while no one outwardly CONDONES racism or sexual assault (save for extremists, of course), instances of both are on the rise, and the fact that prominent political figures have been able to get away with sexual assault, harassment, and open racism so frequently in this past year alone is honestly VERY frightening.
So I do get where Gmbison is coming from. The state of affairs here is not pretty.
There's no easy answer to fixing that state of affairs, though, and I'll tell you one thing: censoring popular media will have NO effect. Time and again, it has been proven that violence in media does not cause violence in real life, and while there are FAR fewer studies specifically about sexual assault, it stands to reason that the same would hold true for that.
Much as "violent video games" were used as a scapegoat for IRL violence for many, many years (a specter which is still seen to this day from time to time), I feel that "sexualized video games" are being targeted in what may be the first step toward using them as a scapegoat for IRL sexual violence in the years to come. But that's all they'll ever be: a scapegoat. An excuse upon which that those desperate to find answers can pin the blame for society's ills.
And just as blaming violent video games for school shootings has never once prevented a school shooting -- and may have even wasted valuable time and resources that could've been better spent helping prevent future school shootings -- I feel blaming sexualized video games for IRL sexual violence is not going to help anyone, and may even hinder the process of trying to find some way forward for a society in turmoil.
In short, while I agree with the vast majority of what you wrote, Edmond, I do feel that discounting the poor state of affairs in modern American society would be a mistake -- it really is awful.
But that has absolutely nothing to do with Senran Kagura, or any other video game. And the more time we spend trying to blame video games for these problems, the less progress we'll make toward bettering ourselves.
Let the things around us serve as warning signs that we have to improve ourselves -- not our media. When we've gotten better, our media will naturally get better as well.
-Tom
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Post by X-pert74 on Oct 20, 2018 2:07:03 GMT -5
Uhh, Nazism has been on the rise. We literally have a President who can't bring himself to commit to condemning Nazis... and who happens to like separating children from their parents to place them in concentration camps... and who makes weird comments about people having "good bloodlines"... and who kept Hitler's speeches by his bed... Aside from him, we also have literal open holocaust-denying Nazis running for political positions in the US (often under the Republican party). Please don't downplay how serious this is. It's alarming as hell, and to dismiss it is incredibly flippant and reckless. Anyways... I definitely disagree with the idea that something like hate speech deserves a platform. If hate speech gets protected under the idea that it's "free speech"... then that ends up promoting and encouraging it to thrive, which just further emboldens bigots to escalate, and makes said space less and less safe for anyone of a minority group to inhabit. Thus... you're actually in a sense, imposing on said minority groups' right to "free speech", as they get pushed out of such spaces. These articles by Julia Serano I think do a good job of going into this concept, the "paradox of tolerance" - Free Speech and the Paradox of ToleranceRefusing to Tolerate Intolerance |
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Post by 🧀Son of Suzy Creamcheese🧀 on Oct 20, 2018 2:20:36 GMT -5
It's not that censoring this is going to 'change' the world, but you gotta ask yourself if this kind of content isn't becoming tasteless in this day and age. You gotta ask yourself if you want to put a groping simulator in a game in the current western landscape. If pretending that this is normal is a good idea if you consider the fact that most women will go through sexual harrassment of one form or another in their life. Times are changing. If we can move on from minstrel shows (to take a very extreme example), surely we can move on from groping minigames in video games. No comparable precedents? I'd love an explanation as to why the Hayes Codes, the Comics Code Authority, and Nintendo's policies circa the 1980s don't count as "comparable precedents." These are examples of (self-)censorship. That doesn't mean these examples are automatically applicable to the current situation. |
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Post by Bumpyroad on Oct 20, 2018 2:33:11 GMT -5
It's a bit surprising, that that study from 10 years ago paradoxically comes from none other, but Japan itself, one of the genre inventors. Would love to get more info on that study and compare it to more recent ones. Video games 'can alter children's brains' |
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Post by edmonddantes on Oct 20, 2018 2:35:01 GMT -5
To be fair, "a culture where most women we know will be sexually assaulted at some stage in their life & open racism" does describe the modern-day U.S. pretty well, sadly. Socially, we are in a time of upheaval, and while no one outwardly CONDONES racism or sexual assault (save for extremists, of course), instances of both are on the rise, and the fact that prominent political figures have been able to get away with sexual assault, harassment, and open racism so frequently in this past year alone is honestly VERY frightening. Uhh, Nazism has been on the rise. We literally have a President who can't bring himself to commit to condemning Nazis... and who happens to like separating children from their parents to place them in concentration camps... and who makes weird comments about people having "good bloodlines"... and who kept Hitler's speeches by his bed... Aside from him, we also have literal open holocaust-denying Nazis running for political positions in the US (often under the Republican party). Please don't downplay how serious this is. It's alarming as hell, and to dismiss it is incredibly flippant and reckless. Okay, let point out something here: "prominent political figures" don't represent society, and are themselves separate from society. That is precisely why positions such as King and Emperor and yes, even President, even exist, and why people seek power--so they can live and hedonize however the hell they want with little in the way of repercussions. If we're going to take the Weinsteins and Trumps of the world as representative of our current culture, we have to also say that since Prince John was a greedy asshole that all the peasants under him (you know, the exact ones he was oppressing?) were greedy assholes too. And he came to power because his brother, Richard the Lionhearted, was off on crusades--not for the stated religious reasons but evidently just because he really liked fighting. This guy, de-facto king of England, barely ever interacted with his own people (some accounts say he didn't even speak English) and was hardly ever in his own country. So do we judge the entire culture just by its king? Because Dong Zhuo was an asshole who abused his authority, do we say all the people under his rule were power-mongers? If not, why do the same for Trump, Weinstein and whoever else? Weinstein didn't get away for decades because society somehow turns a blind-eye to rape or thinks its okay... he did it because he was a guy nobody wanted to cross. If anything that presents more that we have a problem of fearing authority rather than that we all think rape is okay. I honestly don't get people ascribing problems to some heretofore unknown social construct when there's perfectly logical, historically-proven pattern that explains it easier. Occam's Razor, please. Furthermore, a big component people keep bringing up is "giving these people a platform will just embolden them and make them worse." Except... nobody has yet presented an example of this being the case, and even recent history shows the exact opposite. I mentioned Charlottesville, X-Pert mentioned Trump (who I seriously doubt will win the next election since by this point everyone--even if they don't think he's scum--think he's at the very least a moron and nobody wants a moron to be their leader), i just now brought up Weinstein (now a pariah that nobody wants to associate with anymore than Shantae wants to associate with Mighty No. 9).... so even recent history seems to prove the old adage: "give a fool a long enough rope and he'll make a jackass out of himself." Why would you want to deny them that rope? |
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Post by GamerL on Oct 20, 2018 2:49:28 GMT -5
Here's some more thoughts from your old pal Gamer Griff.
What if.... I like just like sexy video game girls or games with some sex appeal?
The big issue is that any sexual content is being scrubbed from mainstream AAA games, look at Black Cat in the new Spiderman for example, she's way toned down from how she's been depicted in the past, why?
The new God of War has zero sex or nudity, which used to be a trademark of the series, again, why?
Even Dead or Alive 6 looks toned down which is a real shocker, although it remains to be seen what the final game will wind up like (not to mention the DLC), but Tecmo Koei decided to pass on releasing DOAX3 in the states at all because they didn't want to deal with the controversy and outrage.
Xenoblade Chronicles 2 got a lot of flak for it's female character designs last year, now even Soul Calibur 6 is getting flak for being the same as it's always been, sexy girls are being scrubbed out from most mainstream games and ones that do feature them people whine about it as if it's there's something actually wrong with that, as if they can't just not play these games if it bothers them that much, remember the controversy over Tracer's "butt pose" in Overwatch? Give me a fucking break.
Another crazy example is Harvey Smith said they removed lingerie from Dishonored 2, no, not girls in lingerie, but lingerie you'd find lying around bedrooms you sneak through, are you serious with this shit?
It's just a weirdly puritanical, anti-sex attitude coming from what's supposed to be the left wing, I don't like it and I don't understand it.
Now not every game needs buxom females or whatever, it depends on context, it would be ridiculous in something like Last of Us, but a game like Overwatch? Xenoblade Chronicles 2? Soul Calibur 6? Animated, anime or fantasy styled games? What's the problem? What's wrong with a little variety?
It's not a matter of people wanting to see less of this stuff, which has already been achieved for years now, they want to see none of it.
Because while I haven't played any of the Senran Kagura games and it's easy to say the groping stuff is no big deal to get rid of, people's attitudes and the trends have made it clear this stuff really is a slippery slope, how long until a game like Senran Kagura period is not something Sony will allow?
It's a tricky situation because there are plenty of things I think would be going too far and would personally want no part of, but this is why I'm very hesitant about censorship because it really is a give an inch and they'll take a mile deal, you can't convince me otherwise, the absurdly mild things people have gotten their panties in a twist over in recent times is proof enough of that.
Again, it's a tricky situation but I lean towards the more freedom to choose you give people the better and the less censorship the better, if you want people to make the right choices you have to actually give them the freedom to choose, otherwise it's not genuine if you try to force people and you're only going to foster backlash and resentment the more you try to control people.
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Post by 🧀Son of Suzy Creamcheese🧀 on Oct 20, 2018 3:39:13 GMT -5
It's all about context, GamerL. And it's also all about our culture changing. The world is more and more becoming a place where people just aren't okay with women as sex objects. Just like how watching old movies sometimes makes you kind of uncomfortable in how they female characters are portrayed, I think that 30 years from now, a lot of things we think of as normal today will be kind of cringe-y. But again, context is important too. Senran Kagura is still a very 'sexy' game, it's just getting a groping minigame removed (and only on PS4). It's not the sexy anime girls that's the problem, it's the situation the game puts them in in that minigame that could be considered tastless when you think about the reality that women are living in. You don't even have to agree with that, but surely you can see the reasoning behind it. Similarly, the new God of War simply goes for a completely different vibe, so nudity wouldn't fit in, and Xenoblade is a franchise that is generally pretty safe, making the over-the-top busty designs very out of place. Like you say yourself, there's a place for this stuff, but it's not every game. Of course there's times where people take this kind of stuff too far. I don't even have a problem with the XC2 designs (though they are still out of place and kinda stupid), but you gotta realize the world and its standards are changing. I'm a guy, so take this with a grain of salt, but I can imagine there's plenty of things in video games that would make a woman simply uncomfortable. |
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Post by wyrdwad on Oct 20, 2018 3:45:39 GMT -5
I've basically said everything I wanted to say on this topic in my previous posts (and more or less just disagree with the counterpoints that have been raised in response), but I just wanted to pop my head in and say, that was a very well-written response, Gamer Griff. I 100% agree with you all around, and feel I couldn't have put it better myself. And again, as someone in the industry, I can definitely say that you are ABSOLUTELY RIGHT about the recent puritanical, anti-sex trend in Western gaming. And it really is only getting worse. My friend Michelle has raised some very good points as well, in light of all this: she's a trans lesbian gamer, and has long been very concerned about the lack of respectful LGBTQ representation in gaming. And while that's beginning to change, she fears that this recent trend toward censoring sexualized content of any kind may have the unfortunate side-effect of lumping LGBTQ content -- particularly explicit LGBTQ content -- in with that, thereby undoing a lot of the progress that's been made in the 2010s thus far. And I strongly fear she may be right. As progressive as it may seem to say "content like this has no place in gaming!", the unfortunate flipside of that is that "content like this" is a rather broad term -- and like it or not, companies will not be able to differentiate good content from bad. As that Neil Gaiman blog post I always like to link puts it, "The Law is a blunt instrument. It's not a scalpel. It's a club. If there is something you consider indefensible, and there is something you consider defensible, and the same laws can take them both out, you are going to find yourself defending the indefensible." Replace "law" with "policy" in this case, but it really is the same situation. Link, BTW: journal.neilgaiman.com/2008/12/why-defend-freedom-of-icky-speech.html-Tom |
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Post by 🧀Son of Suzy Creamcheese🧀 on Oct 20, 2018 3:52:38 GMT -5
But they're not removing 'all' of this content. Pretty much 99% of female characters in video games are still slim, fit looking women. Games like Senran Kagura and other anime style games where girls dress up in skimpy clothing are still coming out (that game with all the SNK girls just came out and that went over just fine). There's no anti-sex trend, gaming is just slowly but surely adapting to the ever changing standards of the first world.
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Post by wyrdwad on Oct 20, 2018 4:00:48 GMT -5
I respectfully disagree with that assessment.
To be more specific: I don't think "but there are still sexy games coming out" means there's no anti-sex trend in the gaming industry today.
There absolutely is. But every rule has its exceptions, and there are always going to be some that manage to eke their way through regardless of how against the grain they may fall.
That doesn't change the fact that the trend exists, however. And again, I can tell you from first-hand experience, it's definitely there. Every game is scrutinized for even remotely sexual content, and the degree to which it's scrutinized is much harsher than it's ever been before.
The slippery slope is real. And we're sliding down it right now. Slowly, at the moment... but we're picking up speed.
-Tom
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Post by GamerL on Oct 20, 2018 5:04:53 GMT -5
It's all about context, GamerL . And it's also all about our culture changing. The world is more and more becoming a place where people just aren't okay with women as sex objects. Just like how watching old movies sometimes makes you kind of uncomfortable in how they female characters are portrayed, I think that 30 years from now, a lot of things we think of as normal today will be kind of cringe-y. But again, context is important too. Senran Kagura is still a very 'sexy' game, it's just getting a groping minigame removed (and only on PS4). It's not the sexy anime girls that's the problem, it's the situation the game puts them in in that minigame that could be considered tastless when you think about the reality that women are living in. You don't even have to agree with that, but surely you can see the reasoning behind it. Similarly, the new God of War simply goes for a completely different vibe, so nudity wouldn't fit in, and Xenoblade is a franchise that is generally pretty safe, making the over-the-top busty designs very out of place. Like you say yourself, there's a place for this stuff, but it's not every game. Of course there's times where people take this kind of stuff too far. I don't even have a problem with the XC2 designs (though they are still out of place and kinda stupid), but you gotta realize the world and its standards are changing. I'm a guy, so take this with a grain of salt, but I can imagine there's plenty of things in video games that would make a woman simply uncomfortable. If our culture is moving in the direction that people can't handle any sexual content at all, that's not a good direction to take, I'm not really seeing your argument here, just because the mainstream believes or does something doesn't make it correct. And you use the phrase "sex object" but it's not that black and white a thing, a female character can be gorgeous and still a well wounded character, a character you genuinely like as a character and not just a "sex object" But what's wrong with sex appeal though? Look, I'm a nerd/otaku and it's a huge part of nerd/otaku culture that we like our sexy female characters, but more often than not there's more to these characters beyond their looks and the vast majority of criticism is predicated on just that, their looks. Female nerds have characters they feel passionate about in a sexual way too, like David Tennant's Doctor Who or Benedict Cumberbatch's Sherlock, it's less visually oriented but that's just the difference in male/female sexuality, people like things that have sex appeal, it's literally human nature and there's nothing fundamentally wrong with the male side, to say otherwise seems to me to stem from demonizing/vilifying male sexuality in general and that's not something I agree with. Sex is just a very primal thing (I mean, it's how we all got here) and it's honestly a little creepy to me how sex is more and more disappearing from mainstream pop culture, maybe this is all an overcorrection to the ubiquity of internet pornography? I don't know, but I do know it's gonna be unhealthy for people if porn is the only place you can turn to for anything that's sexual at all. Now not every game has to focus on nerd/otaku culture, some games these days go for a very "Hollywood" mainstream appeal and that's fine also, there doesn't need to be any antagonism between the two sides over this issue, there's room enough for games of every kind, but there is a group of people these days that want gaming to be one way and one way only. This is just such a strange direction the culture has taken, the fact that people are debating over sexual content at all is very weird to me, it used to just be a given that some things are gonna have sexual content, what doesn't make sense about that? People can't handle a little sex anymore? If they can like I said they want it to be boxed into the category of porn and hidden from mainstream light, that's not a healthy thing to me, shit just doesn't have to be that black and white between porn and no sexuality at all. I've basically said everything I wanted to say on this topic in my previous posts (and more or less just disagree with the counterpoints that have been raised in response), but I just wanted to pop my head in and say, that was a very well-written response, Gamer Griff. I 100% agree with you all around, and feel I couldn't have put it better myself. And again, as someone in the industry, I can definitely say that you are ABSOLUTELY RIGHT about the recent puritanical, anti-sex trend in Western gaming. And it really is only getting worse. My friend Michelle has raised some very good points as well, in light of all this: she's a trans lesbian gamer, and has long been very concerned about the lack of respectful LGBTQ representation in gaming. And while that's beginning to change, she fears that this recent trend toward censoring sexualized content of any kind may have the unfortunate side-effect of lumping LGBTQ content -- particularly explicit LGBTQ content -- in with that, thereby undoing a lot of the progress that's been made in the 2010s thus far. And I strongly fear she may be right. As progressive as it may seem to say "content like this has no place in gaming!", the unfortunate flipside of that is that "content like this" is a rather broad term -- and like it or not, companies will not be able to differentiate good content from bad. As that Neil Gaiman blog post I always like to link puts it, "The Law is a blunt instrument. It's not a scalpel. It's a club. If there is something you consider indefensible, and there is something you consider defensible, and the same laws can take them both out, you are going to find yourself defending the indefensible." Replace "law" with "policy" in this case, but it really is the same situation. Link, BTW: journal.neilgaiman.com/2008/12/why-defend-freedom-of-icky-speech.html-Tom Thanks. And Neil Gaiman is one of the smartest dudes out there, he's hit the nail on the head with that comment. One thing I think has been forgotten by modern culture is that freedom has costs and consequences, but it's a price you pay because the overall picture is worth it, with free speech you're gonna get offended by something eventually and nobody likes that, but it's still the lesser of two evils, censorship is a slippery slope that can lead to bad things quickly. I mean shit, son, free speech is literally one of the most fundamental concepts of freedom there is and it's a pretty uncompromising thing, there's no real such thing as "free speech but", it's something you either have or you don't in a fundamental way. That is why guys like me might sometimes find ourselves defending the indefensible, it's not cuz we like the indefensible but because we're looking at the bigger picture. The historical context of free speech is the smoking gun that ends this argument if you ask me, traditionally free speech has been a very liberal policy that protects the weak and disenfranchised, it doesn't protect the powerful. Back in the day gangsta rap was a real controversial thing that many wanted to censor, they had their excuses but a lot of it stemmed from the fact that the music had political messages those in power didn't like being talked about by groups such NWA and Public Enemy. The left's been playing a dangerous game these days by wanting to compromise on free speech. (I find it funny we're talking about such a serious issue that has stemmed from discussion over an anime titty game, but it's the root of all this) But they're not removing 'all' of this content. Pretty much 99% of female characters in video games are still slim, fit looking women. Games like Senran Kagura and other anime style games where girls dress up in skimpy clothing are still coming out (that game with all the SNK girls just came out and that went over just fine). There's no anti-sex trend, gaming is just slowly but surely adapting to the ever changing standards of the first world. One thing to remember is the divide between Japanese and western developed video games, Japan hasn't really followed these western trends with a few exceptions. But this is totally happening to western developed video games, the only mainstream western game in recent years I can think of to have any sex appeal is Overwatch, the popularity of which you'd think would lead to more, but not really. We're a long way away from say the whole Aphrodite sequence in God of War 3 for example. |
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Post by 🧀Son of Suzy Creamcheese🧀 on Oct 20, 2018 5:36:52 GMT -5
Griff, I don't think that it's that people can't 'handle' sexual content. It's, again, the context, and simply the fact that western culture is moving in a different direction. That doesn't mean people have a problem with sexy girls in games. The public's taste is evolving. People are no longer interested in schlocky sexual content like you'd see in God of War or GTA. Just like how other aspects of gaming are changing. Western games are more and more obsessed with storytelling and creating some believable 'world'. That's just 'in', right now, and overt sexuality doesn't fit with that. God of War used to be a flashy action series. The new one is more toned-down. Culture is constantly moving on. If you want an indication of how much we've moved on, remember that Playboy of all things got rid of topless photos for a brief while. Which, for the record, I think was totally idiotic, but seriously, we don't live in 2005 anymore. You can blame it all on censorship and PC-ness, but the world is just changing.
It's fine if you like sexual/sexy content in your games. But as a culture we're just going different places. I dislike some of the changes that the industry has seen in the last decade as well, but I'm not the only person playing games.
And again, it's not like this type of content is completely gone. Again, look at the range of male character designs there are and then look at female characters. Most female characters are slim, attractive and young. That doesn't mean they can't have fleshed out personalities, but it's still very telling. Women still have a profoundly different role in a lot of media, video games perhaps first and foremost. Cho Aniki is something we all laugh at for its homoerotic overtones, but meanwhile, most fighting games still have most or all of its female characters dress up in skimpy clothing.
And regarding Senran Kagura, think of it this way. Imagine you're a woman who has had to deal with sexual abuse or harrassment. You also know other women who have had similar experiences. Now imagine there's a game where you grope young girls and they look bothered/uncomfortable by it. You would feel that a serious and shitty situation you've been through got reduced to a cute minigame. Things like this won't be considered acceptable anymore 15 years from now, I'm sure.
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Post by wyrdwad on Oct 20, 2018 6:18:27 GMT -5
And regarding Senran Kagura, think of it this way. Imagine you're a woman who has had to deal with sexual abuse or harrassment. You also know other women who have had similar experiences. Now imagine there's a game where you grope young girls and they look bothered/uncomfortable by it. ...I would not play that game. Problem solved. I mean, that's really the crux of the matter here. If you're bothered by the game, don't play it. Don't watch videos of it. Ignore it. It's not for you. Also, I would just like to point out that your view of Senran Kagura is a bit skewed. While it is an exploitative game (there's no denying that), to say you "grope young girls and they look bothered/uncomfortable by it" is kind of an unfair assessment. The Senran Kagura girls are always very much in control of the situation, and it's heavily implied (or outright stated, in most cases) that even in situations such as intimacy mode, they are there entirely by choice, not through coercion. They do often appear bothered or uncomfortable, but it's generally presented as role-playing, NOT actual discomfort. Senran Kagura is weirdly a very sex-positive game in many ways, and its characters are surprisingly deep and nuanced, considering the general perception people have of them. The struggles they go through are surprisingly well-written and poignant, and no one simply exists as an object of sexual desire. They own their sexuality, and flaunt it by choice -- and yes, that's because they were written that way by their male creators, so obviously titillation is a major part of the experience. But bear in mind that each of them is voiced by a female seiyuu, and the female seiyuu have almost all taken a real liking to their characters, feeling generally good about voicing them and really enjoying their story arcs, personality, and the freedom with which their more eroticized scenes are presented. My point here isn't that this justifies the inclusion of intimacy mode -- frankly, I think it's irrelevant, as I don't feel the mode even NEEDS to be justified beyond the simple fact that its creator wanted it to be there. But there are two sides to every story, and I do feel it's a little too common these days for people to make assumptions and jump to conclusions. If people are going to criticize elements like these, I do wish they'd take the time to actually learn more about what they're criticizing, rather than assuming the worst. -Tom |
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