Don't care about neptunia but we all know where this ends. People will push for more and more in their eternal holy war to save fictional characters from being treated like objects (which they are, they aren't people lmao) and all the way down they will gaslight everyone by calling them gooners or whatever is the latest trendy term is.
No one is trying to "save fictional characters", that's a total strawman argument. People like me are against a culture where the sexualisation of teenage girls and the other such practices reduce women into sex objects starting from an early age. Like it or not, fiction (including video games) plays a large role in creating and upholding such trends, and they have serious real-world consequences in how real girls and women are treated.
Imagine you're a hotel and it's a generally accepted norm that you put a Christian Bible in the bedside table. But you, the owner of this specific hotel, are not Christian. You don't really want to promote it. It's against your religion, or lack thereof, to promote it. So you choose NOT to follow this. Your ability to do this is, in and of itself, a form of speech. You're not a government, you have no power over other hotels, you just set the conditions of your hotel. In a free and open market you can choose what kind of product you wish to sell and as a free citizen you can make these kinds of value statements. Not censorship
That's an excellent metaphor, thanks for putting it into words. When people are talking about "censorship" in cases like this one, they don't seem to know what censorship actually means.
@Polvasti And again, the sexualization of minors should be seen as wrong across the board. Fictional or not. I genuinely don't get the argument of "It's fictional, therefore it isn't hurting anyone." You're still turning a child into "eye-candy," fictional or no.
@Polvasti@VoifoLight It is obvious that not all things depicted in the fictional world are appropriate in the real world. Children don't understand this, which is why there are age restrictions and the role of parents should be to explain certain things. If, on the other hand, an adult can't understand it, then has a big problem and it reflects badly on education, role models in real life or mental health. Leaving aside the fact that she may confuse fictional anime drawings with real people, would the same person then mistake car theft and murder of a random person from GTA for real life? Because following this line of reasoning, fiction should not show any harmful behavior....
I think it's just looking for a scapegoat in games, personally I would be more inclined to look for it more in real life and individuals e.g. Social Media, lack of proper education and social role models....
And also some people writing here, as if to say nothing is black or white, but I guess people have only blacker thoughts in their heads. It's not about obscene pornographic games, but rather adventure, action, rpg games with some fanservice. And, of course, everyone has different sensitivities, but being told that a swimsuit of symbolizes sexualization.... Perhaps this is due to the prudishness of certain cultures however it is a bit weird thinging so... When you see a minor in real life at the beach or pool, do you also have such thoughts?
Although this example with DLC, is not particularly meaningful to me, I can see that it can lead to a dangerous trend. At least 3 games on Nintendo Switch have been blocked recently. Playstation has long become very prudish since, the main command was taken by Americans in total. So if such games can't appear on the Switch, they won't be able to appear on consoles in general. PC ist is also not a certain market, as Steam also has twisted guidelines, and despite having such absurd games as “sex with Hitler” on offer, at the same time refuses to publish visual Novel games without erotic scenes, with a really wholesome story, just because it is set in a school setting and is prejudiced against anime stylistics
While this example with DLC, is not particularly significant to me, I can see that it could lead to a dangerous trend. At least 3 games on Nintendo Switch have been blocked recently. Playstation has become very prudish for a long time, ever since the Americans took over the management. So if such games can't appear on Switch, they won't be able to appear on consoles at all. PC ito is not a sure market either, because Steam also has twisted guidelines, and despite having such absurd games as “sex with Hitler” on offer, at the same time it refuses to release visual novel games without erotic scenes, with a really wholesome storyline, just because it is set in a school setting and is prejudiced against anime style.
Unfortunately, independent platforms also have a problem, through the monopoly of payment platforms such as VISA, Mastercard, etc. And they refuse to do business with publishers selling Visual Novel because they have a problem with some of the content.
People from another culture, often not understanding the source material and exaggerating the problem and assaulting anime fans lump them together with criminals and mentally ill people. Very clear is the influence of American companies that have an increasing share of the medium of Japanese games and anime and often pressure publishers directly in Japan on how they should create them and what elements to remove so that they can release them on the American market (from the latest high-profile examples Yakuza series or Dragon Quest). I don't think that such control and influence over the medium is a good thing. For many, it may be a meaningless change, or they are generally completely uninterested in the Japanese game market, but for those who are really interested in it, such parts of bigger trends are very worrisome.
What I find crazy about this is porn in Japan is censored by law, so you can’t show naughty bits so they make up for it with hundreds and thousands and millions bits of anime underage schoolgirls dancing around in swimsuits “fan service”. Just weird.
@VoidofLight Following your analogy - killing and harming people/animals is wrong and should be unacceptable. It doesn't matter if it's a fictional character and you're not really hurting them. You are still making violence be portrayed as attractive and as entertainment. It doesn't matter that it's fiction.
You can replace the killing with gambling, illegal racing or other activities that should rather not be done in real life.
I don't know, is it so hard to understand what fiction is?
@VoidofLight Following your analogy - killing and harming people/animals is wrong and should be unacceptable. It doesn't matter if it's a fictional character and you're not really hurting them. You are still making violence be portrayed as attractive and as entertainment. It doesn't matter that it's fiction.
You can replace the killing with gambling, illegal racing or other activities that should rather not be done in real life.
I don't know, is it so hard to understand what fiction is?
These two things are not comparable. In most societies violence and killing are taboo and illegal (except for self-defense), and people in general can mentally separate the violence in media and real-life violence, cos the latter is not a part of their everyday existence. For most people, the sort of violence seen in media is pure fantasy.
Whereas sexism and objectification of women's bodies in our cultures and in media is not taboo, rather it's incredibly common, pervasive and often the exact selling point, as with these swimsuit DLCs. From an early age, real girls and women are treated to constant objectification, ogling and even physical harassment, partly because media makes us think it's okay to treat women's bodies like that. This interlink between sexism in media and sexism in real life has been proven in studies, unlike the supposed connection between violence in media and violence in real life.
@Kuroyumu The mental gymnastics being performed in this thread in an attempt to normalise the sexualisation of children is absolutely disgusting. Some of you clearly need to be on some sort of list. Weirdos. You sound like a bunch of incels
No one is trying to "save fictional characters", that's a total strawman argument. People like me are against a culture where the sexualisation of teenage girls and the other such practices reduce women into sex objects starting from an early age. Like it or not, fiction (including video games) plays a large role in creating and upholding such trends, and they have serious real-world consequences in how real girls and women are treated.
Yawn. Moralism in media. People already brought up violence in general, and your studies are no counter. Fighting, conquering, violence, criminal acts, authoritharianism, hero worship, excessive competition, these are all things that exist in video games. You use your logic against "objectifying the female form", you can use that logic against anything. (And, mind you, the media and academics HAVE used that logic complaining about how games are violent or support this or that type of politcs.)
When I buy an ikemen game I expect pretty dudes, when someone buys a bishoujo game they expect pretty girls. Yes, the characters are objectified, because they are objectively, objects. You buy them at the store.
No amount of academic elistism, gaslighting or name calling (teen boys into teen girls? the INCELS!) can change that lmao. And even when people like this overtake the decision making of the industry, and do all they can to take it all away, all they do is make games that sell 0 copies, while the people that don't pearl clutch about problematic stuff move on, make their own games and find success.
I don't know how old the characters of neptunia are. It seems they transform and can look a bit mature, or maybe not. But I don't really care, if it helps to gatekeep, it is good, better have this discussion here where I don't particularly care about the results, than when it moves to "actually adult women in games looking pretty is also an issue" then into the more ludicrous "actually strategy games shouldn't have conquering" type topics.
@B4L0R_CLUB Not a very high level of commentary... The low personal culture and toxicity of the statements I rather indicate a not very educated person.
As I wrote, I am not very interested in these particular games, and I am more concerned here with logic and fairness. The titles that have been mentioned rather represent people aged 16-17, so by definition in the real world they are not children (the definition applies to people before puberty) , but teenagers, or almost adults (high school age). If someone obsessively sees also something not decent and it disgusts him that a fictional character is wearing a swimsuit or has some attributes that may make him attractive.... Sorry but, I think that such people may have some problem with themselves and their way of thinking is worrisome.
Apart from a few people who in a cultured way, express their opinion and inform that they personally do not like a certain value, which I think is absolutely fair, other people show some kind of blinded fanaticism trying to demonstrate their moral superiority, however, are themselves quite unreflective. I agree that the real world has a lot of problems, but as I wrote before I rather see this as lack of education, poor parenting, lack of social role models, social media etc. Blaming it on unrealistic video games, is a just scapegoat. But as you can see even from this topic very many people have a problem, with separating fiction and the real world, which, unfortunately, speaks a little badly of our society.
I think I expressed everything I had to express and rather this discussion is going nowhere anyway, so I won't comment anymore.
@Rosamira I've been seeing good points here, from people that are in favour of censoring these types of game and the ones that don't. But yours isn't one of them. You are doing textbook strawmanning here.
Your point of comparing sexualization to violence in videogames and how that "objetifying" logic can be used for anything is fine. I can see how that point can be make.
Then you start saying that people call incels to teen boys being into teen girls... ok? And then you say "when people like that" (...like what?) and "overtake the decision making of the industry"... huh " take it all away, all they do is make games that sell 0 copies, while the people that don't pearl clutch about problematic stuff move on, make their own games and find success." which... ok?
You made up that fact in your head and got really angry here. To my knowledge, noone here said teen boys being into teen girls are incels and being against sexualization of characters have nothing to do with being able to make games that sell. Unless you claim that, in order for a game to sell, it has to have sexualized characters (and, I could even say, for the actual topic of this post, underage looking sexualized characters).
My opinion of this topic is simple: Yes, this games should be allowed to be released if they are properly age rated. Rate them 18+ and if you need to make filters on the eShop (which would also help a lot with the constant totally not *** anime games released there). However this even being a "trend" for Nintendo process in rating games and assuming the reasoning behind it seems a bit out there. Even more making claims that "Nintendo wants to be a baby console!".
And for a long time it always bother me how all the "mah censorship" claims are ALWAYS about sexual content (and specific sexual content at that). I've seen the same people claim how LGBT topics should be censored and how bad censorship of x game is because it doesn't show enough anime tities.
That, alongside how those arguments are made, does make me really question the motives behind them even with me agreeing with the anti censorship arguments.
I'm probably bowing out of this. The people who defend the sexualization of minors are the type of people I'm not remotely wanting to discuss anything with. I don't care about the definition of "child," anyone under the age of 18 is a kid. They are a literal minor.
Most of the arguments these people make are pretty much in defense of sexualizing minors and pushing that it's okay to do so. They use strawmen like "Well its for the teenagers," or "Violence in video games should also be illegal by your definition," not understanding that they're choosing this hill to die on. A hill that literally makes them look like they're okay with fuel being made for child predators and groomers.
Minors being sexualized in video games shouldn't be normalized. It acts as fuel for sick people to get their kicks. I used to know a guy who literally wanted to see Lin in XCX uncensored because he was into children (blocked him and stopped being friends with the guy not long after that).
Violence in video games isn't the same as the context isn't the same. It isn't targeting itself to a demographic of murderers and it isn't giving them fuel. Most average people aren't going to just play a violent video game and decide in real life that they're going to go out and kill people for fun. Groomers? Child predators? Giving them that fuel is literally enabling them and is going to result in them hurting others down the line.
As @jowy_sw said, this conversation isn't ever in good faith. The censorship topic isn't talked about for the actual issues of censorship (things like the Middle East not being alright with Final Fantasy XVI releasing there because of having a gay couple in it), but rather focuses on the topic of female sexualization and being upset that you can't look at pictures of underaged anime girls in a video game that sexualizes underaged characters. It's always "They removed the breast slider!" "They removed the swimsuit for a 13 year old girl!!!!" "Xenoblade 3's character designs aren't as sexualized as Xenoblade 2, so it's censored!!!!!"
I'm not fully against sexualization of adult characters. I think there can be a place for it (although some games like Stellarblade irk me because that's all they market the game as). I feel like both men and women should be able to be sexualized. The issue I take is that a ton of games specifically sexualize children or teenagers. That sort of content gets removed in western releases, and rightfully so. It isn't because people are "prudes" or "snowflakes," but because the content literally caters towards pedos.
"It is fate. Many have tried, yet none have ever managed to escape it's flow."
@Kuroyumu Good, because you're not adding anything, you're digging a hole for yourself. Persisting with your mental gymnastics and throwing unsubstantiated insults because someone has called you out for being a wrong 'un. Disgusting.
@B4L0R_CLUB You must be having a very sad time in your life if you are such an angry and mean person on Christmas Eve,so I wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays for a change
@Polvasti
There is plenty of eye candy for females in games as well from unrealistically ripped dudes and the like. It’s fantasy and power trippy for a reason. That’s why we play games. To escape from reality. To do the things we wouldn’t ever do in real life. Again this is where the rating system should inform parents who purchase games for their children (or by extension their families like grandparents, aunts/uncles etc) so they are getting media appropriate for them. Seriously! We are not strangers to the ratings systems in our respective countries! We know what they are and what things like suggestive themes, mild sexual content or simulated gambling and realistic violence mean when it’s printed on the box as it may be of concern to those buying the products first someone else. It should be a requirement that the ratings boards actually play the games instead of just taking a base synopsis to judge the games rating on. Again all this could be solved if those in control over children would exercise some due diligence and investigate and make a well informed decision first before blaming fantasy virtual worlds for things.
Let’s think about this. Why are series like GTA so popular? Because you can do things you can never do in real life without consequences. As far as fan service is considered, people wear swimsuits. Newsflash to everybody! You can sexualize anything. Even the most innocent of things! You can literally turn anything dirty or have it have a double entendres! (Examples of things in my youth and presently: Cartoon Cat 1-“Give me the bird!” Cartoon Cat 2- If the Hays office would only let me I’d give him the “bird” alright. Ex 2. Steven Universe- I’ll play meat beat mania). Morals and moral compasses are different from person to person even in the same culture. You shouldn’t weapon use it to further your own views to others. We have tools available to those that know to use them. If you don’t use the tools necessary then you are part of your own moral problem.
@GameOtaku There's a major difference between enabling pedophiles and having violent crime in video games. I don't see why people are even equating the two, including you.
@VoidofLight I find this discussion mind-boggling as well. People are actually employing sophomoric posturing to defend sexualizing children. Equivocation is rampant and grossly misplaced. I’m willing to guess none of the users of these paper thin, self-satisfying high-minded defenses have daughters or little sisters. Cheezus.
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Topic: Why is NOA going back to their old ways on making Nintendo seem like a baby console?
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