[Poll + Discussion] Censorship in Gaming: Is self-censorship actually censorship?

[Deep Blue]

It should be called censorship, why is the "self" there? 

It doesn't matter the context or if it's a game, book, movie, etc.

If you can't do what you want and have to change it because someone else is forcing you then that's censorship.

This is like asking if censorship is censorship 

It all comes down to the question of why would a creator of "X" product change his own product? There are a few possibles explanations:

At that time his/her believes were in some way and over the time they change thus it reflects them into their product, this is not censorship. (Creating a character, realizing it looks stupid and then changing it)
He wants to release it in another country and needs to abide to those countries "society" rules what sanah calls "political sensibilities", this is censorship and how do you know? If his product is still "A" in his country but "B" in the other one.
 

[Darklord Rooke]

9 minutes ago, Deep Blue said:

If you can't do what you want and have to change it because someone else is forcing you then that's censorship.

No, often that's just a business reality.

For example, if a publisher forces a dev to change something because of budget reasons, or because they don't approve of the devs vision of the game. Or if a publishing house editor forces a writer to change something because what they wrote was logically inconsistent. Neither of these examples is censorship.

This goes back to what I said about actually understanding what censorship is. It's not about change, it's not about forced change, it's being forced to change for specific reasons.

[Deep Blue]

13 minutes ago, Rooke said:

No, often that's just a business reality.

For example, if a publisher forces a dev to change something because of budget reasons, or because they don't approve of the devs vision of the game. Or if a publishing house editor forces a writer to change something because what they wrote was inconsistent. Neither of these examples is censorship.

This goes back to what I said about actually understanding what censorship is. It's not about change, it's not about forced change, it's being forced to change for specific reasons.

We are talking about a product that was already made and changed later on, how can you explain that it's a budget reason to actually spend more money to change it?
I'm not talking about changes that are purely made because of budget reasons or inconsistency in their plot, etc.

It's about saying I want my main character to look like "A" but someone tells you "well you better make it look like "B" " or some people are going to complain and give you a really hard time if you do that, actually you might lose money, screw your company name because of it.", that's censorship or if you want to call it self-censorship.

EDIT: Let's see this example: the developer wants to release a game with a male main character but the publisher forced them to make it female I mean they say if you don't make the main character a woman we are not publishing you, is that censorship to you or not? <--- this is the new trend in gaming industry.

EDIT2: I really didn't want to bring the sexism into this topic but I had to for my example.

[Darklord Rooke]

1 minute ago, Deep Blue said:

We are talking about a product that was already made and changed later on, how can you explain that it's a budget reason to actually spend more money to change it?
I'm not talking about changes that are purely made because of budget reasons or inconsistency in their plot, etc.

It's about saying I want my main character to look like "A" but someone tells you "well you better make it look like "B" " or some people are going to complain and give you a really hard time if you do that, actually you might lose money, screw your company name because of it.", that's censorship or if you want to call it self-censorship.

Once again, I'll bring up the Nier example where the main character's appearance was changed when launched to the Western audience. If this change were forced on the devs by the publisher, this would be an example of a change occurring later on that wasn't censorship. Why? Because the change wasn't made due to a perception that the original would harmful or objectionable, it was changed due to a perception of what would be more appealing in the Western world.

Censorship is not forced change, it is forced change due to certain reasons. Your post was a blanket statement which was incorrect, which is why I brought it up.

[Darklord Rooke]

7 minutes ago, Deep Blue said:

EDIT: Let's see this example: the developer wants to release a game with a male main character but the publisher forced them to make it female I mean they say if you don't make the main character a woman we are not publishing you, is that censorship to you or not? <--- this is the new trend in gaming industry.

No. And if you think that's censorship you don't know the meaning of the word. 

[Deep Blue]

10 minutes ago, Rooke said:

No. And if you think that's censorship you don't know the meaning of the word. 

I think your definition of censorship is a bit wrong then but hey you are entitle to have it.

EDIT:

Well not the definition itself but the understanding of it, the definition and the meaning is one and it wont change even if you want to give it another meaning, like you're doing. 
 

[Darklord Rooke]

Just now, Deep Blue said:

I think your definition of censorship is a bit wrong 

It's not.

[Darklord Rooke]

18 minutes ago, Deep Blue said:

the definition and the meaning is one and it wont change even if you want to give it another meaning, like you're doing. 

You're wrong again.

[sanahtlig]

21 minutes ago, Deep Blue said:

I think your definition of censorship is a bit wrong then but hey you are entitle to have it.

Censorship doesn't encompass all types of changes, or even coerced changes.  You can disapprove of coercion without calling it censorship, which encompasses suppression of speech considered "objectionable, harmful, sensitive, politically incorrect or inconvenient".  Censorship is not a catch-all word for undesirable changes, and indeed some types of censorship could be desirable in some contexts (e.g., censorship of hate speech or child pornography).

I myself use the word broadly, perhaps over-broadly, but I temper this by clearly explaining terms, inclusion criteria, and what was specifically changed in each game.  I try not to make value judgements in my censored eroge list: I simply collect data, categorize it using objective criteria, and let readers sort through it themselves and make their own value judgements.

[Deep Blue]

3 minutes ago, sanahtlig said:

Censorship doesn't encompass all types of changes, or even coerced changes.  You can disapprove of coercion without calling it censorship, which encompasses suppression of speech considered "objectionable, harmful, sensitive, politically incorrect or inconvenient".  Censorship is not a catch-all word for undesirable changes, and indeed some types of censorship could be desirable in some contexts (e.g., censorship of hate speech or child pornography).

I myself use the word broadly, perhaps over-broadly, but I temper this by clearly explaining terms, inclusion criteria, and what was specifically changed in each game.  I try not to make value judgements in my censored eroge list: I simply collect data, categorize it using objective criteria, and let readers sort through it themselves and make their own value judgements.

So you have a company working with a publisher that "coerce" them to change something they don't want but if they don't do it they will cut their budget, how would you call that? The change is purely for political sensibilities reasons, not financial.

[Darklord Rooke]

5 minutes ago, Deep Blue said:

The change is purely for political sensibilities reasons, not financial.

A wild assumption which hasn’t been established.

[Decay]

Well, this thread very quickly devolved into a matter of semantics. Going back to the original topic at hand, how coerced are you imagining these developers being when they make alterations to the games they're developing? Because it seems to me that in most of these cases, they actually do it willingly. Stuff like Satan being turned into Prince of Darkness in Shadowverse being called censorship is absurd to me. As is calling that outfit change I originally tweeted about. They also called out a shadowverse character being changed to reveal less cleavage, yet there's still so much card art in that game revealing tons of skin. I do not know why they made the change they did, but if I was to guess, they genuinely believe that more people will enjoy the game by doing so. Why else would they do that?

Thing is, you portray it as some desperate situation where these companies are forced to do these things, yet no one is holding a gun to their heads. 

[Deep Blue]

Just now, Rooke said:

A wild assumption which hasn’t been established.

That's and was my example and yes it has been established a lot of times but developers don't talk about it openly because of  the fear of the repercussions on doing so.

[Darklord Rooke]

1 minute ago, Deep Blue said:

That's and was my example and yes it has been established a lot of times but developers don't talk about it openly because of  the fear of the repercussions on doing so.

Not at all. You haven't established that every time a developer swaps a male character for a female one, it's done for political reasons. And if you want to take that example as being done solely for political reasons, that's what you'll have to establish. Not that 'it's sometimes done for political reasons', but 'it's always done for political reasons'.

If the game targets the female audience for than a male audience, than it would (for financial reasons) make more sense to have a female protagonist.

6 minutes ago, Decay said:

Well, this thread very quickly devolved into a matter of semantics.

Important semantics. People like to give topics more worth than they have by labelling it with a word that has powerful emotions attached to it. 'Censorship' is much more powerful than 'forced change', and so if someone wants to hype up an issue they'll attach such a word. Taking back that word and reserving it for situations for which it solely applies will keep the gaming community (like Deep Blue) from devaluing it and also stop them from hyping up issues which aren't as important.

The overhyping of petty issues is irritating, and misusing words is partly how it's done.

[Deep Blue]

4 minutes ago, Decay said:

Thing is, you portray it as some desperate situation where these companies are forced to do these things, yet no one is holding a gun to their heads. 

You don't need to point a gun to someone to force them to do something, money is a good way to force them (the main way this days), speak bad in the media, remove your support, etc.
See how they attacked the guy from AVGN after his "review" of the new ghost buster movies because of the female characters, the words misogynist, sexist, among others was all over the internet, that has a cost which leads to censorship, the main objective (this is just a silly example on how to "force" someone)

[Nosebleed]

If a developer approves of a change themselves, how is it censorship?

If they cried about it, you'd have a different story, but they literally approve it themselves. The fans getting outraged in their stead are the ones I don't comprehend.

Would it be censorship if Jk Rowling's editor suggested she changed something in one of her books to make the story more coherent? No, it's their job to make a good product. Just like it's the game developers' job to make a game that will sell well, and if they approve of changes for said purpose, it's not censorship.

[Decay]

It's funny you bring up Ghostbusters, where it was the misogynists who fired the first shots and tried to stop the movie from even happening in some cases, along with mass harassment cases the likes of which makes AVGN's case look like child's play. All because they had the audacity to star women instead of men.

The reaction to Ghostbusters was indeed blatantly misogynistic, and a defense against that isn't censorship.

[novurdim]

8 minutes ago, Nosebleed said:

Would it be censorship if Jk Rowling's editor suggested she changed something in one of her books to make the story more coherent?

Or suddenly make one of the long established main characters black for no apparent reaso- oh wait 

[sanahtlig]

18 minutes ago, Deep Blue said:

developers don't talk about it openly because of  the fear of the repercussions on doing so.

That's censorship, in a similar way as military classification of sensitive information is censorship.  But that's actually a completely different type of censorship than we've been talking about thus far.  Do you have a right to know what's going on behind the scenes?  Maybe, maybe not.  Do you have a right to know about changes made to games for localization?  I'd say you'd have a stronger argument there.

29 minutes ago, Deep Blue said:

So you have a company working with a publisher that "coerce" them to change something they don't want but if they don't do it they will cut their budget, how would you call that? The change is purely for political sensibilities reasons, not financial.

Since the motive is important, it's only "putative" or "alleged" censorship until the "why" is known, I suppose.  Honestly I don't really care about browbeating people with definitions.  As long as I can figure out what they mean at a glance, that's usually enough.

[Deep Blue]

2 minutes ago, Rooke said:

Not at all. You haven't established that every time a developer swaps a male character for a female one, it's done for political reasons. And if you want to take that example as being done solely for political reasons, that's what you'll have to establish. Not that 'it's sometimes done for political reasons', but 'it's always done for political reasons'.

If the game targets the female audience for than a male audience, than it would (for financial reasons) make more sense to have a female protagonist.

 

Well if you want to believe that the changes are made for financial reasons specially with all the changes that society is going through in the last years then go ahead, I believe that that thinking is naive, also you don't need to have several cases to be censorship, you can have just one and will still be that, is not like you need a minimum quota to be filled so you can start saying that it's censorship.

Just now, Decay said:

It's funny you bring up Ghostbusters, where it was the misogynists who fired the first shots and tried to stop the movie from even happening in some cases, along with mass harassment cases the likes of which makes AVGN's case look like child's play. All because they had the audacity to star women instead of men.

I never said anything about the movie itself, my example was about how the media can be a way of censorship on itself.

[Darklord Rooke]

Heh, do you know the likely reason why they wanted a female Ghostbuster reboot? Because a straight reboot would do nothing to entice a new audience to watch it, whereas a FEMALE reboot would likely net in the female audience while having a strong chance of maintaining the original (likely mostly male) audience. That was likely their thinking, a decision made for the chance of profit.

Then came the fucking whinging. Honestly if you like the male lead Ghostbusters so much, watch the fucking male lead Ghostbusters. I have the DVDs, they’re still awesome! I liked it better in the good old days, when people voted with their wallets, not have a gigantic tantrum on social media.

[Darklord Rooke]

5 minutes ago, Deep Blue said:

also you don't need to have several cases to be censorship, you can have just one and will still be that, is not like you need a minimum quota to be filled so you can start saying that it's censorship.

To make a BLANKET STATEMENT like you did, you need a minimum quota to be filled. You are wrong, yet again.

EDIT: Firstly you stated there was a trend in the gaming industry.

Then you pulled out an example which was to represent that trend. For an example to represent a trend it would need to be representative of the likely reasons behind that trend, which means now you need a ‘minimum quota’.

[sanahtlig]

To redirect this discussion to something slightly more relevant to VNs, but still controversial, consider JAST's release of Aselia the Eternal (list of censored eroge link).

Title

Product link

English release date

Publisher (primary)

Publisher (secondary)

Adult version

Mosaics?

Non-adult version

Description of censorship / differences between versions

Remedies

Aselia the Eternal

J-List

3/23/2010

JAST USA

not released

uncensored

The adult version was not localized due to concerns about the loli content

None

 

This was an eroge that had a non-adult version in Japan, and JAST chose to release only this version.  I say definitively that Aselia the Eternal was censored.  Do you agree?

 

[novurdim]

12 minutes ago, Rooke said:

Because a straight reboot would do nothing to entice a new audience to watch it

Losing the original audience in the process sure was the ingenious decision. It's not so much about women as more about how the usual Paul Feig's comedy is pretty insulting for anyone with a brain and now they decided to let him cosplay as GB. You guys are falling for the orchestrated by Sony themselves "misogyny scandal" way too strongly. Though I don't really see how it's relevant to the discussion about censorship, it's mostly just banal idiocy. 

[Darklord Rooke]

2 minutes ago, novurdim said:

Losing the original audience in the process sure was the ingenious decision. It's not so much about women as more about how the usual Paul Feig's comedy is pretty insulting for anyone with a brain and now they decided to let him cosplay as GB. You guys are falling for the orchestrated by Sony themselves "misogyny scandal" way too strongly. Though I don't really see how it's relevant to the discussion about censorship, it's mostly just banal idiocy. 

What you don't realise was I was there for the WHOLE debate, and if you have a problem with Paul Feig's comedy you say "I have a problem with Paul Feig's comedy." Saying "Oh my God, they're fucking women" in no way translates to "I have a problem with Paul Feig's comedy."