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This Week in Games - Nintendo Numbers, Steam Stoppages, and Lots of Virtual Fistfights




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Joe Mello



Joined: 31 May 2004
Posts: 2303
Location: Online Terminal
PostPosted: Fri Nov 08, 2024 10:17 am Reply with quote
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!



Joined: 30 Nov 2022
Posts: 114
Location: Brazil
PostPosted: Fri Nov 08, 2024 10:40 am Reply with quote
Joe Mello wrote:
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.


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



Joined: 24 Jan 2024
Posts: 219
PostPosted: Fri Nov 08, 2024 12:00 pm Reply with quote
Joe Mello wrote:
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.


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


Joined: 28 Oct 2018
Posts: 636
PostPosted: Fri Nov 08, 2024 12:48 pm Reply with quote
[quote="FishLion"]
Joe Mello wrote:
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.


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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