Games News

A new video game set to be released on Playstation's virtual reality system is set to outrage a few feminists.

Dead or Alive Xtreme 3 is already controversial on conventional consoles and has been self censored and withdrawn from US and European release.

In a video showing the platform's new VR technology, the man playing clearly uses the motion controller to touch her inappropriately, despite her protests. The feature lets players ogle the female body, even though she tells him in translation: I don't like it . She also uses a word that directly translates to bad that is often used to flatly deny permission.

Founder and Creative Director of Games We Play, Kate Raynes-Goldie complained:

Very often women in video games are sexually objectified and don't have any agency in the game and this is taking that to the next level.

I think that video games play a strong part in contributing to the larger culture and what social norms are. The problem with that is the more you see that the more it becomes ok.

It's normalising it... It's definitely going to be changing the norm and further contributing to that norm that women are objects and no means yes and adding to that problem we have in society.

It is unclear if the Japanese version being demonstrated is the version to be released in the west on October 13.

Ubisoft's upcoming game, South Park: The Fractured but Whole has gone missing from games distribution win Australia via Steam.

Alex Walker of Kotaku Australia reported that the game went missing from Steam for Australians. It wasn't showing up on either the the desktop version of the website, the mobile version, and even the app itself. When the folks from Kotaku Australia tried to find the direct link from everywhere else in the world, it ended up showing a page where it said that the game is not available for Australians.

The Game has not yet been officially censored by the Australian Censorship Board and Ubisoft hasn't made any announcement about any censorship of the ttle. In fact the Ubisoft website still has the game slated for release on 6t December 2016.

Kotaku Australia already reached out to Ubisoft Australia for a confirmation regarding the status of the game's release, but so far no response has been received.

The previous 2014 game in the series also suffered censorship problems in Australia.  South Park: The Stick of Truth was initially banned before suffering 5 minutes of cuts to appease the censors who then granted an R18+ rating.

Valkyrie Drive: Bhikkuhni is a 2016 Japan fight game

From the creators of Senran Kagura - Valkyrie Drive is an intense brawler set in a universe where girls turn into giant super-weapons when sexually aroused. Wielded by partner girls called Liberators, players must use this power to take on levels swarming with enemies and giant bosses. Box Contains

The console games has been banned the Australian Censorship Board.

The board claims that the game promotes elements that offend standards of morality, and also uses sexuality as an incentive and reward. A major factor in the refusal of classification is due to implied sexual violence in the game, especially if they pertain to incentives or rewards..

In the game, the girls are able to turn into weapons by kissing and touching one another. This may be part of the reason for the ban.

One of the key creative figures behind the popular video game Tekken 7 , Katsuhiro Harada has been speaking of the PC bullies who seem to determine how Japanese games are censored for the western world. In an interview with Eurogamer Harada fires back against what he sees as ill informed Western critics who judge Japan by their own cultural standards. He explained:

The swimsuits was a good example. People who don't even play the game, they maybe just hear that there are swimsuits in it and then they say, 'Woah, you have these girls in sexy swimwear, what's wrong with you? You're such male chauvinists etc.'

But what they don't know is that it started off in the arcade and it's a season line, like you do for Christmas, Halloween or whatever. And it's not just the women. Robots have them, Kuma, Panda, the male characters have swimwear. It's not like we're trying to sexualize the female characters at all. But they don't go and look for that info before they criticize. So that is pretty frustrating.

Censorship is a legitimate problem when Japanese games come to the West. For example, the much-lauded Tokyo Mirage Sessions suffered a number of bizarre minor changes to desexualize the female characters.

Asked about disappointed gamers who just want to play a game the way the original creators intended, Harada said:

Well, I guess people forget that the game goes through very strict ratings in various countries, and the level of severity kind of changes depending on the country.

But Tekken has cleared those and been released. So people who actually look into the game content have seen it and it is fine. And so, as such, as long as it passes those kind of censorship or whatever for that country, as judged by their government or an official organization and not some random guy on the Internet, then obviously we want to release the content so as many people can enjoy it as possible.

heatst.com commented:

There is no word yet if swimwear will be released in the U.S. version of the game, but if it does you can be sure that a vocal minority of prudes on the internet will whine about it.

Computer games censors from USK (Unterhaltungssoftware Selbstkontrolle) have banned Criminal Girls 2: The Party's Over, a 2016 Japan RPG adventure game. The USK is self regulating trade group rather than an official state censor.

siliconera.com also reports that the game wont be distributed in Australia but there is no indication that this is due to the official state censors, Australian Classification Board.

Criminal Girls 2 has previously been in the media spotlight as the content has been censored for western releases when compared with the original Japanese release. NIS America explained the changes made prior to submission to the US Entertainment Software Ratings Board,.

1. Some artwork, especially during the motivation scenes, were altered over their explicit nature. It seems NIS America worried the ESRB would take issue with women tied up against the their will.
2. Swapping the term punishment for motivation. In the Japanese version of the game, the motivation scenes are actually punishment.
3. There won't be any English voice overs. All of the text will be displayed in English, but the voice tracks are staying Japanese.
4. All dialogue has been removed from the motivation scenes.
5. The stated ages of some the girls have been changed

The games is et for UK release on 23rd September 2016

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Dota 2 are at the center of a proposed bill in the Australian parliament, which would define the titles as gambling and could potentially see them banned or mandatorily 18 rated .

Introduced by independent Senator Nick Xenophon, a veteran politician in Australia, he told the Sydney Morning Herald that the bill is looking to curtail what he considers to be the Wild West of online gambling that is actually targeting kids.

The concept of skin betting is a nominally no-cash betting entertainment where the stakes are game commodities eg skins, hides, cases, chests. Presumably the skins are made available in the games. The skins betting sites are quite professionally presented along the lines of cash sports betting sites. And several have been linked to games producers. Of course even if skins are nominally not cash, the fact that they are scarce resources makes them suitable for trading and purchases somewhere along the line.

Skin betting has been controversial of late  with CS:GO and Dota 2's developer, Valve, eventually responding to the controversy by sending cease and desist letters to 23 of the most prolific third-party gambling sites, asking them to cease operations.

Xenophon argues that the in-game commodities known as cases (or chests in Dota 2) is gambling in and of itself, due to the differing value of the rewards players receive from them.

Should the bill become law, games providing such betting opportunities will be 18 rated, regardless of the level of content in terms of sex and violence etc. Furthermore if games become classified as gambling, Valve would find itself in breach of Australian law as only companies registered in the country are allowed to offer gambling services, meaning the games could get pulled from sale in Australia altogether.

Nick Xenophon's bill will be introduced to the senate next month as Australian Federal Parliament resumes.

Offsite Article: Xenophon's ill-judged counter strike

4th August 2016. See  article from theconversation.com

Nick Xenophon plans to introduce a bill to Parliament that could stipulate a minimum age for playing first-person shooter games which include payment for mystery items. This is a feature of games such as Counter Strike: Global Offensive , Overwatch and indeed many mobile games that get revenue through micro-transactions.

News reports have inevitably represented the issue according to the same media effects model Xenophon has adopted. That is, first-person shooters groom kids for gambling and video games expose unsuspecting children and young people to danger and risk. It is the kind of half-story often told, one that reflects our tendency as a society to reductively demonise every new medium, to blame them for our problems, and turn them into scapegoats for our bad habits and antisocial behaviour.

For instance, book-reading was once considered a lazy, indulgent or reclusive activity, TV gave our children square eyes and being online all the time prevented young people from learning how to behave appropriately in face-to-face contexts. Oh, and video games turn high school kids into mass murderers (think Columbine or Sandy Hook), or at the very least make our children obese, more aggressive and lacking in empathy. They also have been said to cause learning difficulties, behavioural problems and now, according to Xenophon, early-onset gambling addiction.

...Read the full article from theconversation.com

Bug Butcher is a fun shoot 'em up computer game from Awfully Nice Studios.

It has just been banned by the Australian Censor Board for reasons which are not yet apparent. The censors have provided just an uninformative stock statement on the website noting the game as 'Refused Classification'.

The description of the game does not really make the game sound very bannable:

You play Harry, an exterminator who gets tasked with slaughtering bugs in a futuristic research facility, in order to buy the surviving scientists time until the total decontamination process is complete. It's a simple game where you face wave after wave of enemies, picking up new weapons and power-ups in order to enhance your slaying skills.

Update: Censored whilst claiming to be uncensored

24th July 2016. See  article from refused-classification.com

Awfully Nice Studios explained a little more about the ban:

We have been in the age rating process for our upcoming console release in Australia. Seem like this triggered the ban from Steam as well. The reasoning behind is, is sad but at the same point also funny. We have a powerup called Speed powerup where Harry injects himself a syringe. Looks like the combination of the injection with the word Speed someone could assume that it's a drug. We are shocked but are trying to get in touch with Australia to see if we can fix this.

Perennial hindu whinger, Rajan Zed, has complained about a hindu inspired character in the Overwatch computer game. He wrote on his website:

Hindus are urging Blizzard Entertainment to withdraw Devi (Goddess) skin of Symmetra character in its Overwatch video game, calling it inappropriate.

Skins are said to be alternate appearances that players can apply to characters in video games.

Zed, who is President of Universal Society of Hinduism, said that in a video game set-up, the player controlled the movements of Devi, while in reality the devotees put the destinies of themselves in the hands of their goddesses. Moreover, Devi and its movements depicted in Overwatch did not match with characterization of the goddesses in the scriptures, Rajan Zed noted.

Rajan Zed indicated that reimagining Hindu scriptures, symbols, concepts and deities for commercial or other agenda was not okay as it created confusion. Controlling and manipulating Devi with a joystick/ button/keyboard/mouse was denigration. Devi was meant to be worshipped in temples and home shrines and not to be reduced to just a character in a video game to be used in combat in the virtual battleground.

Zed further said that Hindus were for free speech as much as anybody else if not more ...BUT... faith was something sacred and attempts at belittling it hurt the devotees. Video game makers should be more sensitive while handling faith related subjects, as these games left lasting impact on the minds of highly impressionable children, teens and other young people, Zed added.

The Chinese government is taking up new censorship measures to root out what it claims as undesirable content in mobile games.

Under the new set of procedures released by China's State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television (SAPPRFT), all mobile games released in China going forward must comply to an extensive set of rules and be submitted for review 20 days in advance of the game's release date. The country already has tight regulations on PC-based games and console games, so the new regulation extends that stronghold farther.

As for the numerous games already released in the Chinese market, they too are subject to the new guidelines, and the agency intends to retroactively approve these games with a submission deadline set for October 2016. If a game has not applied for approval by October 1st , it will be shut down.

Poised to take effect on July 1, 2016, the new restrictions are applicable to all downloadable or Internet-connected games on smartphones and other devices. But they are not necessarily limited to the gaming segment alone.