Hey, Gaming Industry: Stop Being Xenophobes and Censors

The march of justice rolls on, ladies and gentlemen–through the passionate rants of radical gaming feminists, we are redeemed. Through the rabid guilt-tripping by game reviewers labeling everything under the sun “misogynistic” and/or “racist,” we are made clean. One way or another, we are going to make games “mature” and “grown up” and “sensitive” or we will die trying. Screw demographics, screw freedom of speech, screw art–making sure nobody’s feelings are hurt is way more important!

[DJustinUNCHAIND]

Stop making female characters with stupid names like "Quiet" whose outfit consists of nothing more than leggings and a "shirt" that barely covers her chest.

Maybe if Japanese games didn't have such ridiculous portrayals of women, they'd stop being so upset.

[DCfan]

Who cares, its a game.
Pixels drive people crazy.

[LAWSON72]

Maybe they should just shut the hell up and let designers design whatever the hell they want

[Blacktric]

"Maybe if Japanese games didn't have such ridiculous portrayals of women, they'd stop being so upset."

Another case of "Your rights end where my feelings begin.". How sad.

[Fromage]

Who is taking anyone's rights away?

People have as much right to criticize their works as the creators do to produce them.

[_QQ_]

Yup, just don't even bother learning why she is dressed like that, don't bother waiting to find out the reason. ignore the torture scene, that has nothing to do with it /S.And yeah and lets ignore the fact that her name probably has heavy symbolic meaning,not just because she gets her tounge cut out.

Funny you mention japanese games, although true some go way overboard, that isn't exclusive to japan. for example Look at DC and Marvel comics, don't try to tell me that every woman isn't portrayed with unrealistic proportions.

Quiet will probably be one the best female characters of 2015 if not one of the best characters . You obviously haven't played any MGS games if you think Kojima can't do great female characters.

[LOLzy]

That's the cost of freedom of expression. We can't punish or censor art, that will only limit our imagination.

[valormeer]

Hey Djustin stop being a fucking moron! \o/

[djplonker]

♧♣☆★♡♥All we need is love♥♡★☆♣♧

(and genitalia)

[Hatsune-Miku]

Theyll be more tolerant when they play xenoblade 2 or the next X game

[DinoNYC]

Author just ate a Whamburger and some French Cries.

[DragonKnight]

That was lame. Seriously. Leave comedy to funny people.

The author is correct.

[DinoNYC]

Thanks DragonKnight. You're so cool, like your name. Are you a Dragon of the Knights or the other way around?

[DragonKnight]

You're welcome, I'll be here all week, don't forget to tip your servers.

[FantasyStar]

Xenophobia is quite as stretch in the context of the article, but he makes a good point about it. What would've made the argument solid is the sole-fact that Japan is just more open about sexual stuff, but they're very heavy on portraying violence. America is the opposite of that.

I wouldn't go far to label as xenophobia, the word the author is looking for is ethnocentrism, but with violent words, not action. I don't like how their cartoons feature oversexualized kids but well...that's just the way they are.

[DCfan]

Reminds me of Dragon's Crown fiasco.
People take it too seriously regarding the pixelated sexualized females in games. They're game ffs.
Reviewers scored Dragon's Crown down because of the Sorceress, i used her and been playing 10+ hours everyday of that game.

[donwel]

The funny thing is, the forced controversy that these idiot reviewers caused over Dragons Crown actually improved the sales of the game.
I certainly bought it because it caused SJW butthurt, well, that and I like tits :)

[DCfan]

I think it sold about 1 million copies.
Yea, the contraversy gave the game the attention it needed, basically free marketing.

Im glad that the game sold that much because vanillaware deserves it and tits rock

[Software_Lover]

Naked women in video games doesn't attract me, to the game or the woman. I don't play those types of games. I love Tomb Raider games and I don't feel they ever had to stoop down to those levels. Now on the flipside, there is an audience for those types of games. Companies want to make money and they are free to do so. They will market those games to an older crowd.

My only concern are the games that they try to mass market to every age level that has so much cursing I can't even play it around my kids. They say the game is for a "mature audience" but they promote the game after cartoons and football games before primetime. GTA, COD, Battlefield. I love the games, but will not play them around my kids.

[rextraordinaire]

So what, people can't love sex anymore?

Should we also ban adult movies because it could offend kids or their parents?

Anyway, I mostly agree with this article. White knights of morals and values are taking it too far. Don't like it? Don't buy it.

[Fromage]

There are people who think material should be banned. I agree they are wrong.

It is just as wrong, however, to try and use the threat of censorship to stop anyone from criticizing products based on their depictions of women or other offensive material, which is precisely what this article is trying to do.

[rextraordinaire]

No one should censor anyone.

But also, no one should tell others what to enjoy or not. Sure, some games objectify women. But this is the realm of fantasy we're talking about here.

Some book objectify men (Most Arlequin books for women do just that), some other medias objectify women, and some objectify both.

One may not enjoy such representation, but it's the realm of fantasy, it's a place to enjoy what you can't enjoy in real life, may it be slaying dragons atop a white horse, or having a harem of seductive persons for your own pleasure, or big huge guns to kill everyone in sight.

I really believe this is a case of understanding something is not for everyone or for you, saying it out loud if you want to, but don't try to stop it.

Anyway, that's my opinion.

[Eonjay]

Why don't we all respect the ESRB ratings on games. Then this wouldn't be a problem. Neil made a big deal about Quiet being two shakes away from a naked sniper because he has a daughter and he wants her to be able to play games with strong, respectable female role models. Therefore, we see this reflected in the role of Ellie. As the same time, I wonder how he would feel about his daughter seeing the violence in his game TLOU? I think the key is to remember that the industry has to serve an assortment of tastes and interests.

But why stop there. By the logic of this article, no one should have anything to say about complete full on homo-eroticism in games either. Then again, if Colonel Volgan could identify a spy by the girth of his package... Kojima may be miles ahead of us.

[il-JumperMT]

What about men with impossible proportions and mucles?

[donwel]

YES!!!! Someone finally said it! Pixelvolt favourited and bookmarked.

[TuxedoMoon]

Typically, the issue that comes from people wanting to censor a game are:

1) Publishers want to lower the rating to branch out to more consumers.

Though, games like BF, GTA5, and Cod are played by kids despite them being rated M. So rating don't really affect a game's sale based on those games. If smash bros 4 came out with an M rating, would sales dip? Doubt it.

2) It's too _________ for Americans to understand.

Referencing smash bros brawl, there's a joke involving Snake and Sonic. The joke itself doesn't really make sense over in the west, but in japan, the joke is that Snake's voice actor is the Father of Sonic's voice actor. something like that. Sometimes, you do need to change culture jokes so it fits where ever it's being released. Just don't Americanize it too much...

3) Kissing Cousins

If you ever watched Sailor moon, you'd understand this title. While I don't mind SOME censoring or changes, there are some changes that are just wrong and screwed up the entire franchise. Changing a character's sexual orientation or taking them out completely because they are gay and "American audiences won't like this plus a gay character would shoot the rating from E to M somehow."
When it comes to homosexual characters, I honestly don't think American gamers are ready. There are homosexual novel games in Japan...so they might be a lot more accepting of those types of characters than Americans.

4) OVER sensitivity and over reacting

"Oh man, Deadspace had decapitation! We can't have that!"

"There's a trophy that rewards you for killing an evil demon lady? That's so wrong and demeaning to women!"

"The trope of damsels in distress is used way too much in games. We need strong female characters that aren't too pretty for girls to look up to. If they're too pretty, they're sending the wrong message."

"Chris is shooting black people in Africa! That's so racist!"

"There's a penis tower in The Little Mermaid! My kids can't see this!"

"The Sorceress in Dragon's crown is overly sexy! Even though the amazon is wearing nothing than a bikini, the Sorceress is the one who we should target! Her boobs are huge and UNREALISTIC!"

5) VIDEOGAMES ARE FOR KIDS!

This is probably the biggest reason why many issues concerning games pop up. People still believe that ALL VIDEOGAMES are for kids. So when Timmy is playing Deadspace or COD, cursing like a sailor, the parents get mad at the game. NOT at themselves for not reading the rating on the freaking box.

To sum this all up, why should people censor games even though we have a rating system? Should dry grind sex dances in GTA5 get censored despite that game being rated M? Should COD and BF have less blood and gore since kids will play them despite those games having an M rating? If you're going to censor things, why even have a rating system for games? When you play an M-rated game, you should expect either violence or sex in some form in the game.