Good Thing GTA V Isn't A PS4 Indie

Good thing GTA V isn’t a little indie game. Because, when put up against Sony’s objectionable content guidelines for self-published games on PlayStation 4, it seems like Rockstar wouldn’t be able to do most of the stuff in the game.

[iamnsuperman]

What is weird by this is that there are games coming to the Playstation platform that go against these guidelines. I guess it is used to stop AO content flooding it

[Fireseed]

Well it's more likely that it's prevent indie putting out games with a statement on one of those issues and risking Sony getting sued. Far too much censorship for a group of games that are supposed to be different and can often make statements on issues such as these.

[ShinMaster]

I think this all depends on the context.
Aside from maybe substance abuse, GTA mostly parodies some of these topics and didn't really have sexually explicit content or child abuse or had blatant racism.
In fact, I don't think even GTA broke any of these rules.

It sounds like they're just trying to prevent more extreme AO rated levels of explicit content.
Sony is cool with games like Hotline Miami and Binding of Isaac. So I don't think there's much to worry about here.

Also, "Good thing GTA V isn’t a little indie game" come on now. It's Kotaku trying to start something again.

[SilentNegotiator]

Like it says, they're concerned about reputation. Those rules are probably just for avoiding garbage titles (like the flood of crap that you get on a service like Google Play, where half of the top 100 titles are "HERP DE DERP LURN TO ROLE BLUNT RAYGAY STYL" or "please a woman" with infringed pictures of porn stars) and games with an especially heinous offensive overtone (like if the KKK decided to make a game or something).

We haven't seen enough games be blocked from Sony for this to be worth worrying over. They'll probably only cut games that are overtly offensive (GTAV not being a game made with the purpose of being offensive, but to entertain with parody).

Kotaku knows that Sony would never block a game like GTA5. They just want the hits.

[AngryTypingGuy]

Is Kratos ripping Helios' head off in God of War 3 not "sadistic" enough for Sony?

Self-titled games should be able to play under the same rules, just make sure they're put through an approval process to make sure there's nothing in the games that crosses the line.

[ATi_Elite]

I read that list and all I could think of was GTA and Saints Row pretty much did everything in that list.

[Gamer1982]

To be fair the guidelines are there mostly to stop p0rn games etc.. Getting into the store. As if it was a fully open store you know it would only be a matter of months before it would be headline news that PS4 has its very first hardcore p0rn game

[MrBeatdown]

I really don't see how the content of GTA wouldn't make it past those guidelines, yet something like Hotline Miami does. Obviously those guidelines aren't as strict as they seem.

I'd imagine this is just the kind of standards they all have in place to make sure the really ridiculous, unnecessary, or offensive stuff doesn't make it through. You never know if some indie decides he wants to finally develop "Hitler Saves The World".

[cleft5]

Yeah I get the feeling if you can make a strong argument for why your game is a particular way than Sony is going to be fine with it. This rule is more like having the, please behave yourself rule written down somewhere.

It's more of a cover their basis situation that gives Sony the power to stop some from releasing a game that they feel serves no point. Basically it's a rule that never gets brought up unless someone tries to getaway with something extreme. Like you pointed out, Hotline Miami has some really violent content in it.

[Nikhil]

What would Sony have against a historically accurate game?

[mydyingparadiselost]

Who told you about my 'Hitler Saves the World' game?! Oh well 'The Hitlerful 101' is still top secret and I know 'Metal Gear Hitler' and the 'Barbi Hitler Sunshine Horse Ride' will be super successful....

[GraveLord]

Sounds like they're covering their own asses to prevent people from releasing porn simulators.

[KwietStorm_BLM]

Could you imagine the advertisements and tutorials for the Move controller?

[pedrof93]

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAh.

You nailed it. Bub+.

[Ezz2013]

***reading Kwietstorm comment***

***Imagine a naked girl using Move control for...ahhh.... ahhmm....something nasty ;)***

now i can't that image from my head
,thanx alot :D

[WeaseL]

I'm guessing MS has the same or similar policies.

[coolasj]

The important thing to remember, is that Binding of Isaac will be given away on PS+. If that's the bar, we're in pretty good shape.

[sync90]

Who thinks adult material in gaming should be allowed?

[360ICE]

Every flipping body.

[isarai]

GTA V breaks none of those guidelines actually, all of those sound like extreme cases like blatant acts of porn, racism, meaningless gory and extremely detailed genocide(which i'd imagine isn't all that strict seeing as how they got Hotline Miami) offensive religious content, and child slaughter. GTA has none of those so it would be fine

[ajax17]

Hey Sony I'm 23, I don't need a nanny blocking developers from creative control.

[isarai]

but it isn't really, these are extreme cases, chances are no dev will actually want to make something that would go against these guidelines besides like straight up porn games

[assdan]

That's probably because indie titles aren't as well regulated by the ESRB. For example, minecraft, which is the most popular indie game of all time isn't even rated by ESRB (I'm talking about the real version, not 360).

[darkhitman]

I would say this is it exactly all big publishers get there games screened and rated where as indie's do not that coz its an opt in system that big publishers signed up for years ago for the good of the industry.

[thebudgetgamer]

This is what happens when lawyers interfere with creative people.

[Malacath]

Not surprising really.

Sony love censorship.

The British version of last of us was censored by Sony to suck up to the German government even though the British censors would have allowed it uncut.

Also the DLC for grand theft auto 4 was delayed so that Sony could censor objectionable content from the radio stations.

Sony cannot be trusted when it comes to censorship.

[SilentNegotiator]

"Also the DLC for grand theft auto 4 was delayed so that Sony could censor objectionable content from the radio stations"

Source? One that says that Sony is specifically responsible for the censorship.

[Kryptix]

The guy is just grasping at straws.

http://www.eurogamer.net/ar...

"The gore and violence ratings are subject to local regulatory boards in various countries, so the game must be slightly changed in order to accommodate those choices," -EvangM from Naughty Dog

Not Sony or Naughty Dog's fault on that matter of the Last of Us being censored outside of US. It's just how it is in different countries. Some of their rating boards are strict, most notably Australia for example.

--

http://www.electricpig.co.u...

"Rockstar hasn’t revealed what specific bits of the GTA 4 DLC Sony wanted trimmed, but mentions in a statement that there are “different regional requirements for content”, suggesting one ratings board at least didn’t like some of the black humour the Grand theft Auto series is famous for."

And the GTA 4 DLC, I guess the PC version of it was also delayed because of Sony. The true story was really because of the ratings board. Most likely, the 360 version was ahead of censoring the content and Sony wanted to allow it to pass through so they waited till the last minute to see what happens. Because it failed, they had to delay it 2 weeks to cut the parts and the ratings board also spotted the PC version still holding the same content as the PS3.

[Malacath]

@Kryptix

Actually it is Sonys faulty about Last of Us.

They choose to obey german censorship laws for the UK version of the game.

There is absolutely no reason for a game that is censored in Germany to be censored in the UK.

It's because they can't be bothered having separate versions of the game for different countries of Europe. They have one censored European disc with loads of languages on it to save money.

The same can be said of the PSN store. Instead of a UK only store like they have on xbox we get the same European store in different languages meaning games have to be censored to keep all European ratings boards happy.

[pogayoga1]

You do know that The Last of Us was censored in various countries because they couldn't sell the game period unless various content was cut to meet those countries rating standards, right? This has nothing to do with Sony censoring anything, it's the ratings systems in these countries that is.

Also, Beyond: Two Souls was censored for similar reasons. David Cage responded today, "On Beyond there was a struggle, not with Sony, but with some rating boards in a few territories, they still think that videogames are toys for kids, I’m doing a mature game for a mature audience so let me talk about these things, I won’t do that just for the sake of shocking, I’m an author and I want to tell my story."

Nice Xbox avatar BTW.

[GentlemenRUs]

No proof to your claims and Micro$oft has done a lot worse.

[Bakkies]

GTAV was developed by Rockstar North and published by Rockstar, therefore the game was self-published and dare I say independent?

[JohnS1313]

How do we even know that's real? I don't believe anything on Kotaku. Not the best site.

[goldwyncq]

"Children in an abusive context"

The Last of Us had extremely gruesome death sequences for Ellie, not to mention what almost happened to her in the winter chapter. These types of censorships would just hold gaming back.

[Ratty]

I think what they mean is extreme cases of violence and offensive content. I'm pretty sure Sony would let you take it as far as The Last of Us did. They just want to make sure no one makes a totally offensive just for the sake of being offensive kind of game.

[BRAD-RIDGE]

This is poop. First off the game is not an indie title, so it won't be sold as an indie. question? when you go to the playstation store do you purchase the LAST OF US under the indie tab.

[My_Name_BTW_Is_Dante]

Console indies are garbage tier considering all the censoring they would force on them. PC is the only place to get true uncensored indie games.

[voodoogts]

Sony fanboys are just mad.

[SwiftRyu]

People do realise these are fairly stock restrictions? Sexually explicit means no hardcore porn, sadistic violence goes far beyond anything any GTA has ever attempted (it would include things like self mutilation or sexual violence devoid of any context), extremely profane acts is much the same. The Binding of Isaac doesn't come under the disrespect category either, given that it is a highly stylised comic satire in its iconography. It merely taps into satanic imagery and is fairly tame compared to some of South Park's religious commentary (and even that would be considered fair given the comedic satire context). The only games I can think of that would be banned due to this are Postal 2 or Japanese anime rape sims. Trust me, any console will have these restrictions.