Nintendo’s alleged ‘censorship’ of games deemed too sexy or shocking for politically correct Western audiences revealed
Japanese games developer discusses his own experience of being asked to remove 'boob slider' which made female characters' breasts get bigger
A JAPANESE game developer has spoken out to provide a rare insight into Nintendo's alleged "censorship" of games deemed too raunchy or shocking for Western audiences.
Nintendo is famed for producing child-friendly video games, whilst publishers in Britain and the US focus on big, bloody affairs like Fallout and DOOM.
But some of the games it originally releases into the the Japanese market are very different from the ones which see the light of day in North America and the rest of the world.
Nintendo follows a strategy of "localisation" in which parts of games are re-written to make more sense to players outside of Japan.
Gamers are worried that this process could allow progressive and censorious “social justice warriors" (the name for a very vocal group of censorious activists) to dictate a game’s story and character designs, overriding its original creators' intentions.
Now Tetsuya Takahashi, CEO of the Japanese developer Monolith Soft, has revealed his own experience with Nintendo's shadowy localisation division.
He was the executive director of Xenoblade Chronicles X, which originally featured a shocking depiction of a 13-year-old character Lin Lee wearing a bikini - as well as a ridiculous "boob slider" that allowed players to choose the size of their character's breasts.
Both were removed from the game which was released in North America.
“As a developer, I do feel like it’d be ideal to be able to adjust the content so that it’s culturally acceptable, whether it’s in the US or in the EU,” he told Kotaku.
“For example, there was a discussion about the breast slider.
"Jokingly, I said: ‘well, would it help if we had a crotch slider for the male?’ "Obviously it was a joke, but they responded obviously it’s not gonna work out. I do realise there’s a cultural difference between what Japanese people think and what the rest of the world thinks.”
In recent years, several of Nintendo’s products have come under heavy criticism from the gaming community for being badly localised for American audiences.
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This process is led by a wing of Nintendo called Treehouse, which is alleged to have been involved in the censorship of popular video games like Fire Emblem: Fates, which saw significant chunks of the game altered and in some cases removed.
A “petting” minigame, where players could spend personal time with characters as they tap the screen with the stylus, was removed. But the romantic dialogue remained intact.
Another change involved the removal of a controversial scene social justice warriors claimed was support for gay conversion therapy.
It was intended as a lighthearted moment where a man-hating character perceives everyone around her as female after consuming a magic powder.
To nip potential controversies in the bud, Nintendo devised a new strategy to have its staff form professional relationships with Japanese developers to tell them how best to make their games and inform them of any content with “cultural relevance”.
Also speaking to Kotaku, Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime said that the creators are “always involved” during localisation in this new strategy and explained how the process worked.
He said: “In terms of what gets localised, there’s a simple collection of words that we use to define how we think about this: it’s ‘cultural relevance’ and ‘understanding of the ratings and ratings implications."
Fils-Aime provided adding a few years onto a character’s listed age as an example of such a change to avoid a “mature” rating, but didn’t list any games in particular.
The significance of Nintendo of America’s localizers participating during development can’t be overstated.
Gamers fear it means that progressive and censorious social justice warriors can now dictate a game’s story and character designs, overriding its original creators' intentions.
Critics fear the rise of political correctness in the United States and especially among video game industry professionals mean such a collaboration will only lead to further censorship of Nintendo’s games.
And this time, gamers may not even know about it.
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