Sometimes it may just be that there is more sensitivity to what is a pretty horrible game design.

I haven't played FF either, but if my imagination from that video is accurate, it's strikes me as essentially the "you have to do X to complete the railroad adventure", where X isn't something many people really want to even think about, and wouldn't know to expect when they bought the game. I get annoyed by this in several CRPG games, and just strikes me as awful design which deserves to be complained about as a bad design decision people are free to dislike and talk about their dislike about. Accordingly, I don't see this self-"censorship" and really a censorship problem as much as it is a design issue to consider. I support the right of game-makers to make awful games about whatever subject - I just don't recommend it, and reserve the right to complain and despise them for it.

In this case, what looks like "to complete the adventure you need to go to a brothel and get gang-molested" looks like a game-decision that would tend to get me to stop playing and/or make many public comments about how ridiculous that was.

It seems to me a lot like other games I can think of:

* Grand Theft Auto 3 - you need to do various awful crimes for the mob in order to get the city to fix various public transportation so you can even get to other parts of the city.

* Knights Of The Old Republic - you need to go dance with people in a bar. You need to participate in (win?) an annoying race sequence.

Quote from: Skarg;910957I haven't played FF either, but if my imagination from that video is accurate, it's strikes me as essentially the "you have to do X to complete the railroad adventure", where X isn't something many people really want to even think about, and wouldn't know to expect when they bought the game.

Not exactly.

This part of the game is a railroad, in that you have to perform a fetch-quest to get enough women's clothing so that Cloud can dress in drag to sneak into Don Corneo's mansion, along with Aerith, and rescue Tifa. However, the game only requires you to get one or two items to do that (I haven't played the game in well over a decade, so my memory is fuzzy here, but I believe it was just the dress and wig); that you can go around and continue to collect further feminine apparel - which is the only reason to go to the brothel - to improve the disguise is entirely optional. It's only done if you want Don Corneo to choose to spend the night with Cloud rather than Aerith or Tifa...which doesn't matter anyway, since no matter what happens the group's cover is blown and the story moves on.

In other words, the entire gay bar/brothel thing is an optional side-quest, and is there purely for amusement. It can be skipped entirely.

Quote from: Alzrius;910959Not exactly.

This part of the game is a railroad, in that you have to perform a fetch-quest to get enough women's clothing so that Cloud can dress in drag to sneak into Don Corneo's mansion, along with Aerith, and rescue Tifa. However, the game only requires you to get one or two items to do that (I haven't played the game in well over a decade, so my memory is fuzzy here, but I believe it was just the dress and wig); that you can go around and continue to collect further feminine apparel - which is the only reason to go to the brothel - to improve the disguise is entirely optional. It's only done if you want Don Corneo to choose to spend the night with Cloud rather than Aerith or Tifa...which doesn't matter anyway, since no matter what happens the group's cover is blown and the story moves on.

In other words, the entire gay bar/brothel thing is an optional side-quest, and is there purely for amusement. It can be skipped entirely.

Well there is the slight advantage of not having to fight 10+ goons but thats about it.
After all its an rpg fighting goons rather comes with the territory.

I figured the game would be rated and potential customers could read reviews, talk to people that played and take other steps to make an informed choice rather than censoring the game for everyone.

Quote from: Alzrius;910959...
In other words, the entire gay bar/brothel thing is an optional side-quest, and is there purely for amusement. It can be skipped entirely.

Oh ok, thanks. Now I know. (pause to stop laughing)

Quote from: Nexus;911207I figured the game would be rated and potential customers could read reviews, talk to people that played and take other steps to make an informed choice rather than censoring the game for everyone.

I think the Japanese game companies in particular have no real idea *why* the West loses its collective shit about certain things.  
Ass2Mouth and ChokeFucking porn - freely available anywhere
Nipple visible underneath a costume - EOTWAWKI

As a result, the westerners in the company tell them certain things, and so they make completely blind decisions, not really getting why, but knowing they'd rather not have their games be splashed across the general media as some kind of "ist".  They're starting to just ignore the western market for some games and not even release a version to non-Asian country zones.

Quote from: CRKrueger;911330I think the Japanese game companies in particular have no real idea *why* the West loses its collective shit about certain things.  
Ass2Mouth and ChokeFucking porn - freely available anywhere
Nipple visible underneath a costume - EOTWAWKI

As a result, the westerners in the company tell them certain things, and so they make completely blind decisions, not really getting why, but knowing they'd rather not have their games be splashed across the general media as some kind of "ist".  They're starting to just ignore the western market for some games and not even release a version to non-Asian country zones.

Good observation. Though old news the kerfluffle over the character Poison in Final Fight is a good example of this (and an amusing one, IMO).

Quote from: Nexus;911332Good observation. Though old news the kerfluffle over the character Poison in Final Fight is a good example of this (and an amusing one, IMO).

ROFL, yeah.

It's like Hobbits and Klingons, they might both like food and drink, but everything else is a complete mystery to the other and always will be.

Quote from: Nexus;911332Good observation. Though old news the kerfluffle over the character Poison in Final Fight is a good example of this (and an amusing one, IMO).

Do fill me in on this one, please.

Quote from: 3rik;911341Do fill me in on this one, please.

Hot fighting chick gets turned into transgendered post-op woman (ie. remove penis, make a vagina) for the Western version of the character while the Eastern version of the character is a transgendered pre-op woman (still has the frank and beans) who just (I fucking shit you not) is supposed to be tucking it under like Buffalo Bill in that scene from Silence of the Lambs.

All this, of course, with the actual game art of the character being a ridiculously hot, obviously non-surgically altered, anime female.

Actually, Poison (Roxy) started as cis-women in Japan, as women fighting in gangs was not a wholly foreign concept. (It's not a wholly foreign concept in the West either, but whatever.) The kerfuffle started when one Western SNES localization male playtester (that's right, just one) objected to any man hitting a woman. That was enough to throw a justification that Poison (Roxy) is a male transvestite (this later changed to transgenderism in both pre-op & post-op variants, as Japan really just doesn't care).

Never mind that these female characters were designed by Akira Yasuda to be a ganger woman, and to contrast the regular gang roster by moving more randomly, and was named by an unnamed staff woman in honor of the glam rock band (& nigh club). Never mind that Golden Axe, Streets of Rage, Street Fighter, Strider, and a whole litany of others already had women as antagonists (let alone protagonists) in both the arcades and console games. It was because of only one Western SNES localization male playtester — with whatever "chivalrous code," blind to the gaming world for at least over a decade — that this whole thing started.

So yes, one person can make a difference. You should see how much import material had to be chopped up, swapped about, or wholly erased due to American Puritanism. Homosexuality and transexuality don't even scratch the surface. Stupid Puritan USA norms involving where women can be or stay, how they (or their statues) can dress, what they can eat, drink, smoke, say... Needless to say we missed a lot (and spare us the red herring "but the pederastry! it's in all Japanese things!" and stay on topic).

Quote from: CRKrueger;911330I think the Japanese game companies in particular have no real idea *why* the West loses its collective shit about certain things.  
Ass2Mouth and ChokeFucking porn - freely available anywhere
Nipple visible underneath a costume - EOTWAWKI

As a result, the westerners in the company tell them certain things, and so they make completely blind decisions, not really getting why, but knowing they'd rather not have their games be splashed across the general media as some kind of "ist".  They're starting to just ignore the western market for some games and not even release a version to non-Asian country zones.

Not that its any diferent for us devs they dnt get the changes that have t be made too there games ether just look at what the creators of south park thought of the changes made to the stick of truth
NSFW
 

Spoiler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuK6CZy5qaw

Its also worth pointing out that japan actually has some of the strictest laws regarding video game content.

NSFW

Spoiler

[video=youtube;I-GJzgzNPxE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVvmH1XL9iE[/youtube]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-GJzgzNPxE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rS6VzDlGaCU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EkU20AyXRA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IK_MGfbm4UE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3WJ4WnBkf0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-GJzgzNPxE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOzvbGOGrTI

Quote from: 3rik;911341Do fill me in on this one, please.

These videos shows all the final fight changes in detail.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TW69J9AXOqI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_v6E6qhLds

It's also worth pointing out...if you want to get your real-life ass kicked - start a fight with a ladyboy. Hell, you don't even have start the fight, they'll do it for you. If I wanted to create a fighting video game set in a realistic Asian setting - a ladyboy would be an absolute necessity. It wouldn't matter how feminine the character looked, the minute any kind of argument broke out they would be pulling out a well-worn and taped-up box-cutter and heading straight for your balls. Jesus...just ask a Thai sometime who the last person they want to face in a fight is - they will inevitably say 'a ladyboy'. Kathoeys, to coin a phrase, will fuck your shit up seven ways from Sunday.

Quote from: 3rik;911341Do fill me in on this one, please.

Opapjanr and others have given you the gist and you can imagine the years of outraged howling from every side of the argument witg accusations of homophobia, transphobia, gay bashing, sexism, endorsing "violence against women" etc etc.

It flared up again relatively recently when some original concept art for Final Fight was recovered with pictures of Poison allegedly not as "newhalf" (male to female pre op transgender) surfaced thus "proving" that's what she always meant to be.

Quote from: Kellri;911451It's also worth pointing out...if you want to get your real-life ass kicked - start a fight with a ladyboy. Hell, you don't even have start the fight, they'll do it for you. If I wanted to create a fighting video game set in a realistic Asian setting - a ladyboy would be an absolute necessity. It wouldn't matter how feminine the character looked, the minute any kind of argument broke out they would be pulling out a well-worn and taped-up box-cutter and heading straight for your balls. Jesus...just ask a Thai sometime who the last person they want to face in a fight is - they will inevitably say 'a ladyboy'. Kathoeys, to coin a phrase, will fuck your shit up seven ways from Sunday.

Huh, it was same story were I grew up. You did not want to start shit with transvestites, flamboyantly gay black men either. They'd been taking shit most of their lives and were good at dealing with and usually had some rage issues to work out.