Censorship in Family Project Kazoku Keikaku

Visual Novel Community Archive, 2000-2009
#41

I have mixed feelings about this:

On one hand, this seems to have been a deliberate coverup, which is a definite no no. You don’t necessarily need to broadcast such things on the game’s main page, but discreetly leaking info (even partial info) to a reputable site like Encubed ahead of time is definitely a better way to handle the situation. People tend to respond violently when they perceive they’ve been misled. You don’t want that. On this count, I consider JAST guilty.

On the other hand, I can see why they did this (censoring, not the coverup). The Japanese game was safe under Japanese law. An unaltered US version may not have been safe under American law–not necessarily because the character appears very young, but because the original scenario in Japanese had the theme of forgoing an adult relationship until the character was older (suggesting that the character was underaged). With the current pedophilia scare in the US, they deemed the legal situation shaky enough to redraw the CGs, despite the uproar they knew this would cause (whether they were forthcoming or not). In doing so, they not only protected their own hides; they protected US customers as well. I can almost sort of accept that.

On yet the other hand, the prospect of censoring anything that could potentially be considered lolicon in this and all future games is enough to make me give up on Jast in disgust. If this game was “special”, then fine. I’m rather annoyed, but I’ll deal with it; if that’s what it took to bring over this great game, then so be it. As long as they didn’t censor the text, I can probably go find a hack that reinstates the old Japanese CGs anyway. But if this applies to future games as well…well, I’ll be frank. I’m a lolicon fan. I like that kind of artstyle. I like those kinds of themes. If games from now on were to have the loli scenes / paths removed, or only games without lolis were localized, I’d lose much of my interest in Jast localizations. It’s not about spite or principles, or some narcissistic notion that Jast should exist to please me, the customer. It’s just a difference in interests. They’ll serve their interests by selling games that won’t bring them lawsuits. I’ll serve mine by taking my business elsewhere.

#42

If it had, I not only would have grabbed a pitchfork myself, I would have poked someone already.

#43

Well, to me this is an extremely disappointing development, especially as Matsuri was by far the girl I was most interested in in this game. (Why, yes, I do love lolis.) I just recieved my copy in the mail this afternoon, and I was all psyched to get started, but now it’s going to go on the ‘to play’ pile until I work through some of my backlog. It’s especially disheartening coming after the long, looong wait and major hype for this game.

Now I’m not going to go boycotting JAST; unless and until I learn to read Japanese, that would just be cutting off my nose to spite my face. I will probably have to be more careful about preordering in the future. But I certainly don’t blame those who do feel betrayed, especially those who were around for the XC3 fiasco and heard all the promises about how this would never happen again. Just to clarify, my issue here is not mainly with the censorship itself. Irritating as it is, I can see why it might be thought necessary, and at least I was able to get the uncensored versions from the link in the OP. The major problem as I see it is that in two years of development, there was no hint of this until the preorders were sent out and people were charged. Even now, we still don’t have an official announcement here on the boards or on the official site. And that is just not cool. Just leaving the phrase “100% uncensored” off the press release doesn’t cut it.

I’m honestly a bit baffled that a company whose higher-ups, at least in my interactions with them, seem genuinely to care about their products and their customers, could have made this exact same mistake again after the blowup over XC3. For a niche company like this, the hardcore fan base is extremely important, and I can hardly think of an action more likely to piss off the hardcore base than this. Neglecting to announce this in advance really seems to bespeak either gross ineptitude or total disregard for the customer, especially for those who preordered and had no opportunity to cancel before this came out.

#44

Wrong. The issue was just as volatile back then as it is now. Remember Dwight Whorley? He was sentenced the same year as they announced this title.

And how exactly is that going to even get the “moral majority” to get to the voting polls if the company, its products, and the entire concept of eroge itself is practically unknown in the US. To get preoccupied by what’s possible is BS–Anything could happen. There’s no reason, other than acting out of plain fear, if there isn’t even a resonable chance that they’ll get caught, especially if they’ve released previous titles with similar content.

No, it is a big issue because I happened to have been lied to, what with their “promise” to inform us if such content was changed, as well as having the product labeled “uncensored” when it is clearly not. As a result, I’ve been screwed over by the prospect of having KK released here uncensored, and others have also been due to the fact that they pre-ordered it without knowing that such changes have been made.

They did this to themselves. Ultimately, they are the ones who make the decision to decide to localize and censor this title. There is nothing you can say to refute that.

#45

It really seems like their greatest mistake here was not telling anybody before the game was released that there would be censorship. People who preorder the game are their biggest supporters, and stabbing them in the back is not a good way to build trust and loyalty. And really, all companies have in this market is the trust and loyalty of their fans. There’s no easy way to spread beyond their core supporters.

So I’m really tired of all this lack of clear communication. I’m probably not going to preorder any more Jast titles. It’s not like I need them. I can play the games in Japanese. The main reason I’m buying their games is to support the English side of the market, but they need to earn that support. Though I do have to admit I sometimes prefer being able to breeze through a game since it’s in my native language.

#46

Do you have a link to this, Narg? That’s an extremely disturbing development.

I just wanted to say ‘word’ to your whole post, and especially this part.

#47

Handley has scared many people because of the implication of what actually happened. Not only was he purchasing legal material (since the actual "criminalisation of fictional “child” porn was struck down), but he was doing so without forcing it on anyone that might have deemed it offensive. That is not a big deal at all… :roll:

Also, you realise election hysteria and witch hunts target anything and everything, right? Anything that could grab media attention is fair game to these people. Guess what, a game and a company tied in any way to “child” pornography fits wonderfully with media hysteria. It would be easy to use something like this to fan the flames of idiocy among the common rabble in this country. It happens all the time.

Last: I’m a little miffed over the broken promise. But it isnt’ the end of the world. First, I understand it. Second, it just isn’t that big of a deal with me since the censorship doesn’t touch the story (from what I’ve seen). Most of the reactions by people like you are the exact same frenzied insanity of the moral majority in their witch hunts. I’m waiting for the meteor to strike the earth and obliterate us all over this heinous atrocity that demeans all mankind and the glory that is life.

#48

Sigh.

The actual changes are completely unimportant as far as I’m concerned - they sound TINY and pretty irrelevant. But it’s quite distressing that it wasn’t made clear ahead of time for the purists. Especially in light of previous incidents… that combined with the impressive percentage of my orders which have been messed up in some fashion does make me feel rather frustrated. I thought after the thing with Princess Waltz having surprise DRM and many of us making a point to thank them for letting us know before the game shipped, that we’d get warnings in the future…

(I didn’t preorder KK, for a number of reasons including the fact that I’ve never yet actually gotten my hands on my copy of Princess Waltz to see how annoying-or-not the DRM is. That’s not PP’s fault, I’ve just been distracted with other things and haven’t gotten around to it.)

#49

Yay, JAST lost a few customers, thats including future titles as well. The circle I hang with are NOT happy with this at all. Good Job!

#50

Just because "you’ understand it doesn’t mean everyone else does. Most people do not appreciate being blatantly lied to, and the product link for the game still says that it’s “Fully Uncensored”.

#51

My $0.02:

The changes wouldn’t matter to me, personally; while they do set a bit of a disturbing precedent, and it’s sad that they were totally unexpected, they don’t exactly affect the game in any way whatsoever.
I just see this sort of ‘censorship’ on the same level - or even lighter than - stuff like Manami’s scenario in KimiNozo getting removed from DVD Specification. True, this is censorship done by an importer rather than the original company, but it’s done in response to external stimuli and it doesn’t harm the game for the vast majority. So it doesn’t matter - for this particular game, at least. The original version doesn’t give you greater value (unless you really want to see the fraction of extra Matsuri nudity during the parts of the game where she’s 13 years old)

If you boycott the game because of this, you’re going to miss out on an excellent title, and chances are you’ll never see anything equal to it translated again. You’re the one that loses out!

#52

I don’t appreciate it by any stretch, but I’m not acting like a little child or as if the apocalypse has just swept through the world.

There is a level of indigation that is acceptable. Many of these posts have far surpassed that and become a tragic farce.

#53

Enjoy being lied to and letting JAST keep feeding you their bullshit then, by all means. I know I won’t in the future.

#54

Screenshot of site sure looks like lies. You know here in the US, there are consumer laws that protects them against false claims by companies. Doesn’t look good to me. If you ask me ‘Fully Uncensored’ means the same as ‘100% uncensored’

#55

Grow up Sudo…

Two games, with content that could have led to dire problems for the company were slightly altered. XC3 affected the story a bit, this one does not. Make it known about your displeasure, but don’t blow the situation out of proportion.

But expecting a level-headed approach to anything in this world anymore… sigh, hope springs eternal only to be brutally beated down.

#56

That doesn’t make them any less responsible for succumbing to such things and lying/breaking promises as a result of it.

#57

Be careful on that high horse of yours, you’re liable to fall off. Whether the censorship “affects the story” is not the topic at hand, here. The fact is that JAST lied and the product page on the website is deceitful. I wouldn’t have bothered posting here if that weren’t the case.

#58

You know last thursday I was thinking about pre-ordering it, but due to the age of the game (even if it’s highly regarded in the community), I decided to wait and get opinions from others first. I’m glad I did, because I just saved myself 40 dollars. It might seem stupid to others, but its all about principles to me, and I’m willing to make that trade off.

#59

It’s worth noting that only the Peach Princess site claims the game is uncensored. J-List, G-collections, and JAST make no such claims; apparently the listing on the Peach Princess site was an honest mistake. Not that a mere coverup is much more excusable than flat out lying.

#60

Then what does the back of the game package say?