Forum - View topicThis Week in Games - Nintendo Numbers, Steam Stoppages, and Lots of Virtual Fistfights
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Joe Mello
 Posts: 2304 Location: Online Terminal |
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It's possible that there is just One Dude at Valve that has a bug up their butt about Japanese games but considering how, for example, parts of the niconico ecosystem are now just completely walled off to Western countries, I think the issue is larger than that one dude.
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i got the shivers!
 Posts: 114 Location: Brazil |
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I think it's just the "Japan is weird" mentality never really went away and some people think it's their moral duty to fight against the country for whatever reasons. I hope the Switch 2 is backwards compatible via physical games and not just digital. That was one of the nicest features of going from the DS to 3DS, even if it lost GBA compatibility. Any degree of backwards compatibility is always convenient. |
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FishLion
 Posts: 221 |
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I think it could be kind of both, I think there is a larger issue going on for sure but that it is very possible there is this some dude or dudes that really worry about that larger issue, possibly even because of Japanese games sites getting hit so hard with rules. I'm sure if valve lost credit card services for a day even then somebody would be in a lot of trouble, not that it's an excuse for being unfairly hard on them, I think they should have a rule that if it isn't rated Ao or equivalent in any country then it's automatically allowed for sale. It's also weird because they have outright pornographic games with fully animated sex scenes that don't get taken down, even without Kagura style patches. Maybe it's because those are opt-in to see while characters that are in sexy outfits but not "adult only" games get treated differently. You'd think if that were the issue you could just move it to adult only instead of banning it, but these are just guesses as to why they can have porn but ban games like that at the same time. At the end of the day it's still wild to me that sexy anime girls cross a line while they sell both entries of Fear and Hunger with no problems, that game has things way more horrifying than any eroge I've seen and things of a very sexual nature. I guess horror nudity is artistic and scary unlike anime girls in revealing outfits that aren't even nude are banned? That's why I would hope it is a category issue they are handling badly and not literally allowing western producers to make games like Cloud Meadow with fully animated sex cut scenes while blocking Japanese games that have revealing outfits and don't even contain sex scenes. |
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FinalVentCard
ANN Reviewer
 Posts: 636 |
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Even if it is a category issue, outright banning the game on Steam would be such an overreaction. A misclassification is basically a clerical error, banning the game doesn't just refuse the game it means you can't resubmit the game again. You raise an interesting point with the "sexy costumes but no sex" theory, but the problem is that doesn't explain a ton of other games that might have some kind of racy costume to them and nevertheless are on Steam. X-Blades is on Steam, and its protagonist is dressed way more skimpy than anyone in Tokyo Clanpool. And remember: even if it's opt-in, any content in a video game (optional costumes, optional levels, optional missions or story scenes) have to be submitted for review by the ESRB. Even if you specifically have to make the conscious decision to go into the menu to make all of your party members in Baldur's Gate 3 buck-naked, that's still out in the open and a factor in its review. This was part of the issue with Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas when the Hot Coffee scandal happened: yes, the Hot Coffee stuff was dummied out, but it was still in the code. So we're back to the same weird point. Tokyo Clanpool is a long way from Criminal Girls, which I could understand rocking the boat. |
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Greed1914
 Posts: 4618 |
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I keep wondering when Steam will be consistent when it comes to Japanese games. As others have said, things made elsewhere that are being sold on nothing other than shock value, get a pass. There was a point where adult visual novels could be sold there sans the sex scenes, but Steam wouldn't let them mention on the store page that there even was a patch for it. Steam's presence as the place to buy games meant that it didn't even occur to customers to go to a site like JAST or Manga Gamer to get it directly.
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FishLion
Posts: 221 |
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I completely agree, there is some weird double standard going on, I am just trying to figure out why sexyish games from Japan are getting dinged while games like Baldur's Gate or X-Blades go free. At the very least it would explain why I am able to find so many extremely explicit games from Japan and America that are marked for sexual content but Tokyo Clanpool is completely banned. I also wonder if it is a judgment of "anime elements" being in a game, if they outright comb Japanese games for questionable content and judge it more harshly for some reason, or if it's anything in particular they dislike. It's dumb, whatever that reason is is, but I always try to find out why things happen and not just leave it at "Steam has a weird double standard." Not that they'll ever tell anyone why, I just have a bit of an interest in this rash of games being taken down or banned lately and what @Joe Mello said made me wonder a bit more if it's a random dude or related to other events. |
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Joe Mello
Posts: 2304 Location: Online Terminal |
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The public reason for the Japanese site restrictions is to compliance. Some of it is international regs, but a lot of it is to the Terms set by Point of Sale processors: so your card companies, digital wallets, etc. If sites can't collect payments from their subscribers, they won't be able to stay afloat, so measures get taken and people like me who only use niconico for Vocaloid/MikuMikuDance stuff (I have too many hobbies) and occasionally finding weird a capella covers get stuck.
I'm not cynical enough to think this game getting banned is some form of clapback (only in one's own mind, maybe), but I could easily see these things as two symptoms of a greater issue and one that probably won't be going away anytime soon. |
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FishLion
Posts: 221 |
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That is what I was wondering, payment processors are more strict because lobbying/activist anti-porn groups are being hard on them to restrict content. I know that these groups pressured Mastercard and Visa to cut all business with mainstream porn sites and I don't know how related that could be to niche anime content but I feel like at the very least the fact that payment processors have started targeting niche media is coming from that larger push to make them responsible for any content that is sold by websites on their watch, even if the company is working with a site who is not responsible for what third-parties post. It feels like they are trying to make such businesses self police the entire globe for content they disagree with and blaming the tech companies for not fixing it, even though that would logically be the site holder's job. |
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Silver Kirin
Posts: 1225 |
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- Nintendo news: I have to admit that the wait for the Switch's successor reveal has been very long, there hasn't been such a long wait for the reveal of a game company's new hardware, I mean the existence of the Switch, or NX as it was referred to, was revealed in 2015 I think, so it's been more than 9 years Nintendo hasn't announced any new hardware.
Out of all of the information Nintendo mentioned in their fiscal report, the one that caught my attention was them trying to strengthening their relationships with third-parties, people have always said that Nintendo users only buy Nintendo games and that ever since the Nintendo 64 there hasn't been that many relevant third-party games on Nintendo consoles, but I don't think that's true, the N64, GCN and Wii did have some big titles and their handhelds were the home of some major games, like Dragon Quest IX on the DS and some Monster Hunter games on the 3DS. However, I'd say that the Switch did have a lot of third-party support, especially from series that haven't been in Nintendo consoles for quite a while, though the majority of them were ports of old games and late ports, and I can kind of understant that after the WiiU some developers had their doubts about Nintendo and the Switch's hardware is pretty weak, but I think the Switch is missing some games that could have been successful, like Kingdom Hearts I & II, and some ports took a long while to come out, like Ace Combat and Yakuza. I just hope that developers have their games ready when the Swtich's successor gets released.
I'm pretty sure the Switch's successor will probably have a smilar type of game cards like the original Switch, perhaps it'll be something similar to how the 3DS handled backwards compatibility, I cannot imagine the new console habving a two games slots like how the DS handled GBA backwards compatibility. - Virtua Fighter: it's kind of incredible that the last brand new VF game came out almost 20 years ago, while I'm happy that SEGA has made the announcement, I'm trying to keep my hype to reasonable levels. I'm not that big into 3D fighters, but I find it sad that Tekken is the only major 3D fighter that keeps getting new games, back in the late '90s and early 2000s it seemed like 3D fighters would be the future of the genre, but 2D fighters like Street Fighter, King of Fighters, Mortal Kombat and Guilty Gear managed to reinvent themselves, and there's plenty of platform fighters and arena fighters released as well. |
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BadNewsBlues
Posts: 6275 |
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Well in the interest of fairness Battle Arena Toshinden, Bushido Blade, Ehrgeiz, Dissidia, Bloody Roar, Fighting Layer etc just didn’t have legs or were seen as weird. |
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varmintx
 Posts: 1233 Location: Covington, KY |
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I haven't played any of the high profile remakes that have come out these past couple of years, but I think I'd have to play a Vagrant Story one.
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Silver Kirin
Posts: 1225 |
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While I haven't played every 3D fighting game I would say that the majority of the early games in the sub-genre didn't have a lot of staying power compared to 2D fighters, some of them are still good games, though other I think were popular due to the novelty of 3D graphics: - Battle Arena Toshinden: I never actually played it, but I find it interesting that it was considered the original PlayStation's first killer-app, so much that it was even included in the PlayStation Classic - Bushido Blade: a weird experiment from Squaresoft, perhaps too realistic due to the chracters can kill each other with just one stroke - Bloody Roar: I think the second game was actually the first 3D fighter I ever played, it was over twenty years ago, but I still remember having fun. Though I don't think Konami, who now owns the rights after buying Hudson Soft, is interested in reviving the series - Dead or Alive: the series always felt like the closest competitor to Tekken after SEGA stopped making new Virtua Fighter games, it was also well-known among gamers, but mainly due to the Xtreme Beach Volleyball spin-off, though the series itself was kind of infamous by its fanservice elements, which is a shame because the games itself were very well done, but after what happened with DOA 6 I don't know if Koei Tecmo will make a new one soon. Though I've heard a new spin-off was announced a month ago, so the series is still alive - Soul Series: I actually played a lot of Soul Calibur VI in a friend's house, a while we had fun I've heard that some of the fanbase weren't happy with some of the gameplay changes, despite the fact that it was better received than SCV. I've also heard that while the initial sales seemed fine, the game didn't have very good legs and it only managed to sold 2 million copies, which is 10 million less compared to Tekken 7, so I can understand why Namco only focuses on Tekken. In some aspects I think it's kind of hard to innovate in 3D fighters compared to 2D ones, even Katsuhiro Harada lamented the fact that Tekken has no direct competitor. |
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