I don't approve of the censorship of this image but at least he convered Mai in a way that makes sense. Ogura didn't just add a piece of cloth to cover her breasts, he actually went in & drew her normal attire but adjusted it so that she wears it differently to cover her up. I can appreciate that effort.
I don't approve of the censorship of this image but at least he convered Mai in a way that makes sense. Ogura didn't just add a piece of cloth to cover her breasts, he actually went in & drew her normal attire but adjusted it so that she wears it differently to cover her up. I can appreciate that effort.
I don't approve of the censorship of this image but at least he convered Mai in a way that makes sense. Ogura didn't just add a piece of cloth to cover her breasts, he actually went in & drew her normal attire but adjusted it so that she wears it differently to cover her up. I can appreciate that effort.
I swear coomers will bitch about anything if it's not complete nudity
Altering a character's outfit so it's less revealing is definitely censorship. No one who's ever done that has had sincerely well-meaning intentions.
You can't even determine the difference between fiction and reality, so I don't really expect a good faith argument coming from you.
As I said, you don't know what censorship is and you are the one who refused to answer a simple question proposed multiple times so, don't deflect your dishonesty at me.
As I said, you don't know what censorship is and you are the one who refused to answer a simple question proposed multiple times so, don't deflect your dishonesty at me.
Censorship, the suppression of words, images, or ideas that are "offensive," happens whenever some people succeed in imposing their personal political or moral values on others. Censorship can be carried out by the government as well as private pressure groups.
Covering up Mai's cleavage and removing Athena entirely from the image is censorship. We all know why those changes were made.
And that's within the right of the creators to decide.
It is, but it's also the right of potential customers to complain about it. Self-censorship is still censorship, just a more proactive version of it.
Video game companies are businesses and will often put profit first. Japanese game companies know there is a global market for their games and this will affect how they are developed. If removing sexual content will make it more marketable outside of Japan, there's a chance they'll push for the changes themselves (that's not to say that the other side won't also demand changes, of course).
Now, even though the companies are not necessarily being told they have to censor their content, it still fits the definition blindVigil gave above because they are releasing their content in an altered form for other countries to try to match the sensibilities of those audiences. The point where in-house decisions become self-censorship can be a bit fuzzy, but my opinion is that if the creative process is still in its early stages (making concept art, for example) and they're rejecting more objectionable content at that time, it's not censorship. But releasing a game in one form for one audience and removing parts for another is definitely censorship.
I also think censorship is a necessary evil in some cases, especially for games intended to be family-friendly (Mario Kart, Link's Awakening, etc.). Don't get me wrong, I don't condone any censorship, but I can still admit those games probably wouldn't have become the classics they are outside of Japan without those changes. But we have the ESRB now. Why do we need censorship in T- and M-rated games? And why are so many of these changes so small as to barely make any difference? It's both patronizing and pointless.
It is, but it's also the right of potential customers to complain about it. Self-censorship is still censorship, just a more proactive version of it.
Video game companies are businesses and will often put profit first. Japanese game companies know there is a global market for their games and this will affect how they are developed. If removing sexual content will make it more marketable outside of Japan, there's a chance they'll push for the changes themselves (that's not to say that the other side won't also demand changes, of course).
Now, even though the companies are not necessarily being told they have to censor their content, it still fits the definition blindVigil gave above because they are releasing their content in an altered form for other countries to try to match the sensibilities of those audiences. The point where in-house decisions become self-censorship can be a bit fuzzy, but my opinion is that if the creative process is still in its early stages (making concept art, for example) and they're rejecting more objectionable content at that time, it's not censorship. But releasing a game in one form for one audience and removing parts for another is definitely censorship.
I also think censorship is a necessary evil in some cases, especially for games intended to be family-friendly (Mario Kart, Link's Awakening, etc.). Don't get me wrong, I don't condone any censorship, but I can still admit those games probably wouldn't have become the classics they are outside of Japan without those changes. But we have the ESRB now. Why do we need censorship in T- and M-rated games? And why are so many of these changes so small as to barely make any difference? It's both patronizing and pointless.
It's within the right of the creators, that's all that matters. If you care to follow vigil's nonsense, it's still not censorship because there's no private or government pressure group forcing SNK to release anything. They made their own decision on their own to market things differently per region. What, ads can't run on different languages now because it's different across regions? No one is owed equal marketing because not all markets are same.
For every artist that gets told to tone the horny down in order to be more "family friendly", there's an artist being told to make their female characters more risque by a marketing guy who is convinced that "sex sells". Would the latter case also be censorship?
For every artist that gets told to tone the horny down in order to be more "family friendly", there's an artist being told to make their female characters more risque by a marketing guy who is convinced that "sex sells". Would the latter case also be censorship?
It's not. The key difference is removing content. Your example doesn't actually strip content away because someone finds it objectionable. The original content in your example could be released without someone making a social or political complaint about it and demanding its removal.
It's does strip content away, since it's remove the "family friendly" aspect.
Any product that is being marketed under the notion of "Sex Sells" is never going to have a "Family Friendly" aspect unless the marketing team is insane.
And it's within our right as consumers to call out bullshit.
Creators having rights to their creation is not bullshit. You can't say that you despise censorship and then demand that creators have zero control over their creation. It's hypocrisy.
Creators having rights to their creation is not bullshit. You can't say that you despise censorship and then demand that creators have zero control over their creation. It's hypocrisy.
Ask yourself, why would a developer censor their own game? Because some small angry mob on Twitter might throw a pointless tantrum if they don't. Now, will that small angry mob buy their game if it's censored? No they won't, they don't care about the game. All they care about is feeling morally superior, whatever they're angry about is tertiary. So, does self-censoring the game serve some purpose? No, it doesn't. It's bullshit. It's Bullshit!
And that's within the right of the creators to decide.
America is generally weird. You can have extreme depictions of violence, and I mean extreme, but a single titty will cause the general population to lose their mind.
Spoilers: the problem isn't the general population, it's Republican lawmakers pushing and passing legislation to outlaw all sexual content on the internet, spurred on by Evangelicals. Boards of publicly traded companies that won't accept anything less than exponential growth apply further pressure through lobbying, else they get lumped in with the "degenerates" and have their business in red states be stifled.
Mai being a premier fighting game poster girl for 30 years is an incredible long standing precedent. Literally for almost as long as video games have existed, there was Mai and her money maker. Covering her up for a game's promotional material very nearly defeats the point to having her in the game in the first place.
Undoing and undermining a precedent like that? How is that not censorship? How is that not an attack on the core of the game's long-standing culture?
Mai has been censored some way or another for decades even in gameplay. Just look at KOF'94. How is this any different? Of course it's censoring.
See what I mean about "modern" games? Why should I buy something I've been emulating for two decades. Online play and useless achievements? I don't need it, thank you. I'll buy another one with at least modern graphics. The gag Ryu did at Mai's wardrobe and profession was epic though.
Spoilers: the problem isn't the general population, it's Republican lawmakers pushing and passing legislation to outlaw all sexual content on the internet, spurred on by Evangelicals. Boards of publicly traded companies that won't accept anything less than exponential growth apply further pressure through lobbying, else they get lumped in with the "degenerates" and have their business in red states be stifled.
Were you waiting for the opportunity to go on a tangent about Right-wing politics and corporate business practices?
My point was that American culture has always been afraid of not just sex, but any sort of nudity while being less phased by depictions of violence.
@Saladofstones: But this part of American culture is because of right-wing politic, they are the one who lost their shit toward anything related to sexuality and nudity.
@Saladofstones: But this part of American culture is because of right-wing politic, they are the one who lost their shit toward anything related to sexuality and nudity.
Its probably semantics, but I think its this cultural tendency that fuels politics rather than the other way around. You will find this view dominant across the political sphere here.
Yeah, I did. Still thought that it was worth mentioning, though. And the censored version still hasn't been uploaded here, so where else am I to say it?
I swear coomers will bitch about anything if it's not complete nudity
What part of my comment was a coomer complaining about no nudity? All I said was that I was glad they weren't lazy with covering her up. Also, yes, I like women. Being attracted to women doesn't make one a coomer, stop being retarded.
It's within the right of the creators, that's all that matters. If you care to follow vigil's nonsense, it's still not censorship because there's no private or government pressure group forcing SNK to release anything. They made their own decision on their own to market things differently per region. What, ads can't run on different languages now because it's different across regions? No one is owed equal marketing because not all markets are same.
Language support increases accessibility and can be done without toning down the content. Censorship can only take away accessibility. Removing playable characters like Athena is a good example of this. Reducing four inches of cleavage to three doesn't affect accessibility, but it's still dumb. It won't pacify the people that have a problem with it and will just make the people who like it mad. And if the change is barely noticeable, there's no reason to make it.
Your definition of censorship ignores how it's used in the real world. If a work is produced, then altered from its original form to remove or change content that could offend people, it's censorship. It doesn't matter whether it was a forced decision or not. The most important part is that something is removed. An artist who draws a nude character, puts the image behind a paywall, and mosaics it for the public is censoring their own work. They're only hiding it to make a profit and expect people to see the original, but we still say the image is censored. The only people I see arguing otherwise seem to want to take an absolutist position against censorship while actually being okay with some kinds.
XionGaTaosenai said:
For every artist that gets told to tone the horny down in order to be more "family friendly", there's an artist being told to make their female characters more risque by a marketing guy who is convinced that "sex sells". Would the latter case also be censorship?
If the artist is trying to distribute their work in a nation run by extremist nudists that outlaw any depiction of clothing, then yes.
Ask yourself, why would a developer censor their own game? Because some small angry mob on Twitter might throw a pointless tantrum if they don't. Now, will that small angry mob buy their game if it's censored? No they won't, they don't care about the game. All they care about is feeling morally superior, whatever they're angry about is tertiary. So, does self-censoring the game serve some purpose? No, it doesn't. It's bullshit. It's Bullshit!
And this invalidates their own rights to their creations how? You are just parroting the twitter mob complaining about the picture and trying to spin it as morally superior when you too are just advocating for control over works that you have no rights to. You ARE the twitter mob right now. You are what you are complaining about.
It's not. The key difference is removing content. Your example doesn't actually strip content away because someone finds it objectionable. The original content in your example could be released without someone making a social or political complaint about it and demanding its removal.
But in both cases, the artist is being forced to compromise their vision in order to appeal to standards that are being placed on them by an outside force. You can finagle about the specific definition of "censorship" all you want, but I just don't buy that external pressure to make something more explicit is any more (or less) okay than external pressure to make something less explicit. If you're going to bellyache about one but insist that the other is perfectly fine, that's just hypocrisy.
If you can point to an actual law or proposed law that says that XYZ content is forbidden, then that's censorship, and people should absolutely be fighting to get that law repealed (or prevent it from being signed into law in the first place). But artists are always going to be influenced by external factors - that's just what it means to make art in a world where other people exist - and insisting that a particular decision was made because of "censorship" (and therefore should be reverted) is just another kind of external pressure, no different from that of the "woke mob" that's supposedly the cause of all of this "censorship".
But in both cases, the artist is being forced to compromise their vision in order to appeal to standards that are being placed on them by an outside force. You can finagle about the specific definition of "censorship" all you want, but I just don't buy that external pressure to make something more explicit is any more (or less) okay than external pressure to make something less explicit. If you're going to bellyache about one but insist that the other is perfectly fine, that's just hypocrisy.
If you can point to an actual law or proposed law that says that XYZ content is forbidden, then that's censorship, and people should absolutely be fighting to get that law repealed (or prevent it from being signed into law in the first place). But artists are always going to be influenced by external factors - that's just what it means to make art in a world where other people exist - and insisting that a particular decision was made because of "censorship" (and therefore should be reverted) is just another kind of external pressure, no different from that of the "woke mob" that's supposedly the cause of all of this "censorship".
This entire comment is the equivalent of burying your head in the sand and pretending something isn't happening, just so you can accuse other people of being hypocrites for recognizing that two situations aren't equal. Of course artists are always subject to external influence, but there's a difference between people in power enforcing something and people without power having no other option than hoping their voice reaches somebody who cares.
No one is systemically enforcing the censorship of things that could be considered "family friendly" or "politically correct" or whatever label you want to use. Even if an artist might be asked to make something sexier by whoever they're working for, it's definitely not because a third-party has the power to prevent you from even selling the final product if they don't like what you've put in it. Vulgarity and sexuality are constantly under threat of this.
You know there's such a thing as negative external influence and positive external influence, right? It's not all the same thing just because you want to sit on a fence and criticize someone for caring about the things they enjoy being changed because some Karen or out of touch corpo exec thinks cleavage is ruining society. How dishonest do you have to be to seriously argue that art being censored to make it more "acceptable" and fans demanding it be released in its original, intended form are the same thing?
So, I want to make a game (I'm not just saying this as a hypothetical, this is actually something I've been making plans for for over a decade). One of the major characters I want to make for that game has boobs that are like three times the size of her head each, well within what would be tagged on this site as gigantic_breasts (though closer to the lower end of what qualifies for that tag). However, I also want to avoid giving her impractically revealing outfits or other male-gazey/sexualized tropes that are normally associated with characters that have breasts of that size. I know that if I ever actually make this game, with this character, I will get a lot of heat from people on social media, from both sides - I'll get just as many people pissing and moaning that I should make this character show more skin as I will people pissing and moaning that her boobs are too big.
From an anti-censorship stance that supports artists being able to make art exactly as they intended, my adherence to keeping this character this way despite getting flak from both sides for it should be applauded. But I know that people in the "Soldier-chan should show more skin" camp will assume that I'm "self-censoring" - that I want to go full horndog and turn my character into a hypersexualized "fanservice" character, but am holding myself back because I'm scared of the "woke mob". But they would be wrong about me. Their idea of what my "vision" would have been were it not for "woke" has nothing to do with my actual vision and everything to do with their own projection of what they wanted my work to look like, and that is no different from the other side coming at me with their opinions that my character should be "less sexualized" (even though the whole point is that breasts shouldn't be seen as so inherently sexual in the first place and a character with massive tits but no other "fanservice" tropes associated with her shouldn't be seen as sexualized at all).
I'm absolutely opposed to any form of actual censorship, but I think "self-censorship" is an accusation that's hard to argue for in most cases without making some pretty major assumptions on what the author's actual intent was - assumptions that, more often than not, rely heavily on projection. Sure, in this case (talking about the image above, not my own example), it's a pretty clear-cut example of corporate overreach stamping on artistic vision, and that sucks! Corporations suck! We should be supporting indie artists and pushing for changes to copyright law that reduce corporate power! But there are a lot of other cases where these kinds of arguments have come up (pantyshots in Skullgirls, Tracer's ass, Bridget) where things aren't so clear-cut. When an artist or designer comes out and says that they've had a change of heart or consider their earlier decision a mistake, and that a change is something they genuinely wanted to do, but the "anti-censorship" crowd responds by insisting that they must be lying in order to appease the "censors", the idea that they genuinely care about the artist's rights starts to hold less water.
And this invalidates their own rights to their creations how? You are just parroting the twitter mob complaining about the picture and trying to spin it as morally superior when you too are just advocating for control over works that you have no rights to. You ARE the twitter mob right now. You are what you are complaining about.
Criticism is not censorship. Anything short of legal mandate, harassment, or violence is fair game. If there is no legal barrier, it's up to the company to decide how much they let their critics influence them. If a base product exists and they remove it because they don't think it's appropriate for another audience, it's censorship regardless of whether they were pressured to do so. If these changes were really in line with their creative vision, they would have included them in all releases.
XionGaTaosenai said:
When an artist or designer comes out and says that they've had a change of heart or consider their earlier decision a mistake, and that a change is something they genuinely wanted to do, but the "anti-censorship" crowd responds by insisting that they must be lying in order to appease the "censors", the idea that they genuinely care about the artist's rights starts to hold less water.
The reactionaries on both sides only make it harder for this issue to be treated with the seriousness it deserves. All of these should be looked at on a case-by-case basis and take the actual context of the change and actual words of the creators into account.
Good luck with your game. Designing a character like that sounds like a real challenge.
The reactionaries on both sides only make it harder for this issue to be treated with the seriousness it deserves. All of these should be looked at on a case-by-case basis and take the actual context of the change and actual words of the creators into account.
Criticism is not censorship. Anything short of legal mandate, harassment, or violence is fair game. If there is no legal barrier, it's up to the company to decide how much they let their critics influence them. If a base product exists and they remove it because they don't think it's appropriate for another audience, it's censorship regardless of whether they were pressured to do so. If these changes were really in line with their creative vision, they would have included them in all releases.
Their Vision is to market differently per market. Saying that everything needs to be same is again, just an attempt to control something that you have no right to control. No one is owed same marketing. Creatives and rights holders have the right to present anything to any audience in any way they want. Editing and iterations are basics of any and all creative works. Saying everything needs to be same is to deny the right of the creators
Their Vision is to market differently per market. Saying that everything needs to be same is again, just an attempt to control something that you have no right to control. No one is owed same marketing. Creatives and rights holders have the right to present anything to any audience in any way they want. Editing and iterations are basics of any and all creative works. Saying everything needs to be same is to deny the right of the creators
Why are you treating a company like an individual? They're a business selling a product, that means they're open to criticism from the people that might pay for that product, simple as. I really don't understand why you and some others here are so desperate to paint paying customers as unreasonable and selfish while dismissing the destructive push for censorship from Western localizers and groups like BlackRock.
Do you want to live in a megacorp dystopia where you're not allowed to criticize the things you spend money on?
Why are you treating a company like an individual? They're a business selling a product, that means they're open to criticism from the people that might pay for that product, simple as. I really don't understand why you and some others here are so desperate to paint paying customers as unreasonable and selfish while dismissing the destructive push for censorship from Western localizers and groups like BlackRock.
Do you want to live in a megacorp dystopia where you're not allowed to criticize the things you spend money on?
letting people control what they create is basic right of the creator. Take your hysteria and hypocrisy elsewhere. I call it unreasonable because you are pushing for creative control just like your opponents away from the creators. You can take your anger at your opposition, but creators, themselves should have the final say and they did. What you aren't pushing for is critique, but control over the work itself, just like what your opponents are supposedly doing.
letting people control what they create is basic right of the creator. Take your hysteria and hypocrisy elsewhere. I call it unreasonable because you are pushing for creative control just like your opponents away from the creators. You can take your anger at your opposition, but creators, themselves should have the final say and they did. What you aren't pushing for is critique, but control over the work itself, just like what your opponents are supposedly doing.
What part of this is so difficult for you to understand? People that want to buy/play this game aren't the type of people who take offence to attractive women & by covering them up, they are marketing the product to the people who have no interest in it whatsoever. So it's just bad marketing because nobody has ever said 'Boy, I sure do love King of Fighters but I wish they would just cover Mai up..' It was all done to not be scrutinised by a bunch of sad, miserable people looking to be offended by something who aren't part of their audience, so why take away from your actual supportive fanbase?
I don't expect any real response from you, just more disingenuous drivel. You started this out by insulting me, calling me a coomer. You expect anyone here to believe that you actually care about publisher's/creator's rights?
