Western "Censorship" In Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness

Originally Posted by Psychotic

Can you put panty shots in your game? Absolutely. Should you put them in your game? Not in this instance, no.

If it's going to be a pornographic game, fair enough. It is what it says it is and everyone consuming it expects sexuality. Slipping them into a perfectly standard RPG is just sad though. Do you have such little faith in your game's ability to captivate your audience that you have to resort to the lowest common denominator? Fair play to them for recognising the cultural differences and tailoring their product to their intended audience.

Sadly, this is becoming more and more common as otaku culture is being pandered to increasingly often in games that are relatively mainstream

To quote Miyazaki, "Anime was a mistake"

Originally Posted by Rez09

Originally Posted by Fynn

To be clear - censorship happens when people's free speech is systemically limited. Think letters that get intercepted with important data erased out with a marker, or being thrown into jail for saying (not even acting on - just saying) a political opinion that is different from what the government allows, or newspapers being banned from posting anything else than what the government allows because other content could threaten their authority.

A company willingly deciding to cover up a character in their game for a foreign release to avoid backlash stemming from Values Dissonance is not censorship in any stretch of the word.

This is interesting. I wonder, if Kate Chopin's The Storm was not published during her lifetime due to its sexual themes and positive depiction of adultery, especially coming from a female author, being deemed socially unacceptable -- but not being governmentally blocked -- does this mean her being prevented from freely expressing her ideas, based not on law but on public perception, is not an act of censorship?

This is an act of censorship because her freedom of speech is limited. Nowadays, such things would be published by niche audiences. The difference is that in the case of Star Ocean, Bravely Second, Dragon Quest VIII, what have you, the decision to change is made by the authors in order to respect cultural differences and in general just be sensitive and express basic human decency

Originally Posted by Fynn

Sadly, this is becoming more and more common as otaku culture is being pandered to increasingly often in games that are relatively mainstream

Also, as an enjoyer of said culture, I don't need it to pander to me in all my mainstream games. If I want a game about Loli catgirls, Nekopara is right there on Steam for a hell of a lot less money than Star Ocean (and a hell of a lot more cat girl).

It's kinda like... if you wanna go to the sex shop and get some porn; great! That's totally cool. When the local supermarket doesn't put that same content on its shelves; that's not censorship. That's just the supermarket realising that maybe their audience by and large isn't gonna be too pleased with it.

Maybe it's also illegal to put porn in the supermarket, I don't know. But for the sake of the example lets pretend its not ^^

Blah blah blah objectification, cry me a river. Come back when you complain about being murdered or robbed and then maybe, maybe I'll allow your double hipocrisy standards to slip through and take your arguments seriously. "Violence is totally okay but sex crimes are not!", lol, you guys are hilarious. It's either both or nothing, but saying that games that encourage one thought are fine but ones that so-called encourage the other are not is some fine double standards y'all are having there. Get real.

Originally Posted by Elpizo

Blah blah blah objectification, cry me a river. Come back when you complain about being murdered or robbed and then maybe, maybe I'll allow your double hipocrisy standards to slip through and take your arguments seriously. "Violence is totally okay but sex crimes are not!", lol, you guys are hilarious. It's either both or nothing, but saying that games that encourage one thought are fine but ones that so-called encourage the other are not is some fine double standards y'all are having there. Get real.

I guess in order to be taken seriously about objectification and violence toward women, I need to mention that myself and many other women I am close to - women who are on this online forum who are reading these responses - have been sexually assaulted or raped by men who have objectified them.

So get real yourself. There are no double standards here. Just women asking to be treated like humans and hoping for video games to not perpetuate violence and objectification toward women. If that's too much to ask from people like you, you are the problem here. Your violent response above is an attempt to justify how you want to further objectify women and young girls. That is disgusting.

It must be nice to live in a world where you don't worry about how media is going to rationalize how you can be mistreated by the opposite sex. Any measures to curb that like "western censorship" I am 100% for.

The fact that you think video games so-called teaching kids to objectify women is a heinous crime while at the same time thinking games that so-called teach kids to pillage, murder and plunder are ok is what's wrong here, not me. Those are your double standards and if you don't like being called out on them, well, then don't have them. In my eyes either they are both to be allowed, or neither, because otherwise why one but not the other? They're both terrible things. But I guess you need to be murdered first before you have the right to speak out against games promoting murder, right? I guess that would give the victims of abuse the advantage on the complaint train.

Originally Posted by Fynn

At what age were you first harassed in a sexual manner? I can't, of course, evaluate your experience, but as a cis straight man, I can say that hasn't happened ever, and any expressions of sexual interest from the opposite sex haven't happened to me until I was well into my late teens.

And do you know what the women I know tell me when I ask them this question? 12. 10. Even 8. Imagine, an 8-year-old girl, being called obscene sexual things by old men on the streets and touched in inappropriate places by sleezy uncles. This happens all the time, and the media and its objectification of women is the direct cause of this. The younger the portrayal, the younger it seems acceptable for those people to do it.

Another very valid (and very scary) question to ask is "When were you last sexually harassed?" Again, as a cis straight man my answer is never. Ask a female friend the same question and the answer is very often: "Earlier today".

Originally Posted by Elpizo

"Violence is totally okay but sex crimes are not!"

1) That was not said at any point in this thread.
2) Even if it were, "Let's allow sex crimes as well" doesn't seem like a particularly strong response.

It's either both or nothing

Wouldn't it be great if life were that simple? Look, there is a very large disconnect between virtual violence and game violence. Most of the time, when you shoot someone in the face with a shotgun in game, you don't have people playing it thinking "I hate how this normalizes being shot in the face with a shotgun. This is a very real problem that I experience regularly in every day life and it causes me distress to relive it".

When it comes to lusting after little girls, however, that is a very real, very relatable problem that many, many women have been on the receiving end of. So casually including it in a mainstream video game isn't exactly sensitive. Returning to the point of violence - how often do you see domestic violence in a video game? Very, very rarely, because most developers are smart enough to realise that a) it doesn't add anything of value to their game and b) it's going to upset a significant number of their potential audience who have been victims of it. So they choose to stick to the 'fantasy' violence of the movies that generally won't trigger anxiety attacks in 50% of the audience.

Not censorship; just business sense and tact.

Originally Posted by Elpizo

The fact that you think video games so-called teaching kids to objectify women is a heinous crime while at the same time thinking games that so-called teach kids to pillage, murder and plunder are ok is what's wrong here, not me. Those are your double standards and if you don't like being called out on them, well, then don't have them. In my eyes either they are both to be allowed, or neither, because otherwise why one but not the other? They're both terrible things. But I guess you need to be murdered first before you have the right to speak out against games promoting murder, right? I guess that would give the victims of abuse the advantage on the complaint train.

I already addressed concerns about real life vs. video game violence and murder and the likelihood of them happening versus the subtleness of real-life objectification that is a daily occurrence for women. You must have not read my entire post because you were too busy brushing off my concerns as invalid. No one here has said those things are okay, so why are you putting those words in my mouth? That isn't acceptable, and it's no way to have a debate about something.

And what in god's name are you talking about "either they're both allowed or neither." Allowed how? Who is allowing what? Frankly, it sounds like you're grasping at straws because you aren't being agreed with, because you are making no sense.

Why exactly do you think the world is going to end if we don't show panties of underage girls in video games, and why do you feel the need to defend such nastiness so vehemently? It doesn't sound like it's a censorship issue to me. It sounds like you just want to look at underage girls' panties with a legitimate outlet for it. Which brings us right back around to the objectification issue.

No, it just bugs the hell out of me when people crawl on top of their moral high horse, all outraged about the fact that a player might accidentally get a panty shot in a game, decrying how the end of society is near and how such vileness should never be accepted, but then conveniently looking the other way whistling as a whole slew of games glorifying other heinous crimes runs by behind your turned backs. It rings dishonest. Maybe that seems simple to you, but it is my impression that a lot of things would be simple if only people would stop complicating them when it's not needed. If that doesn't make sense to you, well, that's your problem, not mine.

The best way that I can explain it all, is that violence in video games is cool because there's usually a contextual reason as to why it is there. Playing a video game story that requires you to kill aliens to save the world would be pretty boring with the violence.

Putting tiny little panties on teenage characters serves no purpose for the story, it serves no purpose for the character - and ultimately, it's just boring and overdone. So bored of skimpy little female characters, like, can't they come up with something else?

Originally Posted by Elpizo

No, it just bugs the hell out of me when people crawl on top of their moral high horse, all outraged about the fact that a player might accidentally get a panty shot in a game, decrying how the end of society is near and how such vileness should never be accepted, but then conveniently looking the other way whistling as a whole slew of games glorifying other heinous crimes runs by behind your turned backs. It rings dishonest. Maybe that seems simple to you, but it is my impression that a lot of things would be simple if only people would stop complicating them when it's not needed. If that doesn't make sense to you, well, that's your problem, not mine.

I didn't make the connection between objectification and violence, you did. So I feel like you are the one complicating things here. Who here has glorified violence? I would also be disturbed if someone was doing that in such a consistent manner.

It's not complicated. It's simple. I've already explained it several times. I'm not interested in debating the validity of video game violence because it is not an issue that is important to me. You don't get to tell me that I have to feel the exact same way about two issues that you've laid out. You don't get to tell me that because sexual objectification is important to me that violence and gore also has to be important to me. That isn't how this works. I have consistently expressed disproval with one aspect about this game in question - and really, for a lot of video games in general - and that is all I'm interested in talking about. You bringing in hypocrisy with violence or whatever is detracting from the issue, and you are trying to invalidate what I am saying because I don't care as much about Column B as I do about Column A. While they are similar topics, they are still different.

I care about one more than I care about the other. That doesn't translate to hypocrisy. It translates to me being more passionate about something I deal with more consistently in real life, like objectification, than I deal with much less, physical violence. I don't think that's unreasonable.

You are equating the two because you don't have to deal with either. They are different.

If you think that violence in games is equivalent to objectification of women in terms of what it normalizes in society then you are wrong. Absolutely, unequivocally, 100% wrong.

See society makes it clear, pretty much from birth, that violence is wrong. We are told this constantly in school, by parents, other adults, and by the fact that there are pretty well established laws that everyone knows about which say if you assault or murder people, you're scum and going to prison. Possibly for life. There are serious consequences to committing acts of violence. And people know that while violence can be a part of fiction, it is not accepted in the real world barring very specific circumstances.

There is nothing even remotely comparable to this treatment of objectification in society. No one tells kids that objectification is bad and harmful. There are no laws against it. And the majority of media outright says it's okay.

So drop the false equivalency. It's complete bull and has no place in this discussion. And since it seems to be the only argument you have, you'd better find another if you want your argument to be taken seriously.

decrying how the end of society is near and how such vileness should never be accepted

Literally no one says this except the people trying to argue that objectification is fine.

I must have totally blacked out on the day my parents taught me it was okay to objectify women and harass them but that I would go to hell if I murdered someone. Oh wait, I didn't because that never happened because my parents did teach me that it was decidedly not okay and I imagine it being the same for a whole lot of other people. Usually the lesson "don't be a dick to others" gets taught before the "don't murder someone" lesson, but then again my childhood was a while ago so maybe my memory is going.

You may believe every couple out there raising their kids is morally bankrupt but even I with all my pessimism about the world am not prepared to go that far off into the deep end just yet.

What makes you think most people even think of objectification as being something bad? Because they don't.

And cut the needless hyperbole. Clearly I don't believe every parent out there is morally bankrupt. People can fail to recognize something is wrong or a severe societal problem without being monsters.

Now do you have an actual argument to make or would you prefer to continue being deliberately obtuse and attack strawmen?

Originally Posted by Elpizo

I must have totally blacked out on the day my parents taught me it was okay to objectify women and harass them but that I would go to hell if I murdered someone. Oh wait, I didn't because that never happened because my parents did teach me that it was decidedly not okay and I imagine it being the same for a whole lot of other people. Usually the lesson "don't be a dick to others" gets taught before the "don't murder someone" lesson, but then again my childhood was a while ago so maybe my memory is going.

You may believe every couple out there raising their kids is morally bankrupt but even I with all my pessimism about the world am not prepared to go that far off into the deep end just yet.

So what you're saying is that your parents taught you to not objectify women? Yet here you are page after page in a video game forum arguing for outlets to be able to do so and invalidating others when they have said that aspects of video games like showing underage girls' panties translates to objectification. None of that makes sense to me, including your mention of "don't be a dick to others". Where does that come to play in this discussion?

And I don't see how your second paragraph has anything to do with any of the discussion. No one has indicated that "every couple out there is morally bankrupt." Instead, Vivi very clearly laid out the societal terms that we all find pretty agreeable and are taught from a young age. Are you even reading any of the responses in this thread, or are you just typing things are you think of them hoping they will make for a good defense because you don't like being pointed out as someone willing to objectify women?

There is literally no point in arguing with you. If you at least made a cursory attempt to address the arguments made that would be one thing, but any further attempt to engage you on this subject is a waste of everyone elses time since you apparently can't debate in good faith and make even the most cursory attempt to even understand peoples arguments. If you don't believe that media can reflect the attitudes of society and influence it then there's really nothing else to say since you're denying simple truths of the world in much the same way as a child who plugs their ears and screams until people stop talking to them. I'm guessing you'd consider it a victory in much the same way they would as well.

I'm off to murder ghouls and rape women, because I saw video game panties and drank the blood of virgins.

This sentence alone sums up exactly why every post you're making in this debate is an utter waste of peoples time.

I was going to write a post laying it out exactly what I think of you and your ilk, but then I realised I really just don't care anymore. People like you just make me sad and tired, because people who think like you do are the reason the world is what it is. Given the state of the world, I'm sure you can figure out that that's not exactly a compliment.

You say it's a waste of people's time, but nobody's time was more wasted than mine, trying to make people be reasonable, only to be met with the same wall of blind ignorance every single time. I hope you're happy.

I understand things get heated in these kinds of debates, but I will kindly ask that everyone please refrain from posting personal attacks toward other members. There have been a few posts now that have towed the line. Be cool, kats.

I'm deeply concerned about the chilling effect on teen panty shots this could have.

Well, considering the world is a better place to live than it had ever been, I say we can be pretty proud of ourselves

I don't really care about this that much but I find it funny that people are acting like Japan is some paradise for sexual freedom when harassment is a HUGE issue there. Second hand account, but my best friend, who is a woman, lives in Japan and they have train carts for women only to prevent that kind of harassment. More recently she had to report the same man twice in one week for boarding women-only cart and being a creeper.

If people want to pretend there's no relationship between the media we consume and the reality we live in, they can. However, they are wrong. Our realities are often engendered in various media. Look at the issue of diversity in casting or white washing of characters and think of all the racial tension in the USA. Think of how women's body can be sexualized to sell cars, yet people will foam at the mouth if a mother breastfeeds in public! THe connections are not always obvious or direct but that does not mean there is no relationship between the two.

Edit: Should note that my friend teaches HS and was concerned for the safety of her students as well. The very fact that she had to worry indicates that there are women-only carts and that she had to worry about a creeper points to large societal issues.