People's views on mosaic censorship?

Visual Novel Community Visual Novel Talk
#61

"The Shiny Days reaction you are referring to was about the censorship, not about it being announced."


And this discussion is about the possibility of JAST releasing mosaiced games, which could ignite the same sort of anti-censorship flaming / debate.


I've never heard of a single VN publisher that announces licenses they're pursuing before negotiations are finalized. Not a single one. You may want to know the name of the title, you may think it'd be useful for the sake of this discussion, but you're not going to get it. You'll just have to imagine it could be ANY VN, and frame your arguments accordingly. In the end, this isn't about the particular VN in question so much as JAST departing from its policy of demosaiced releases only.

#62

@ Dark_Shiki

I agree with many things you are saying, but just because you never heard of a single publisher announcing their game before things are finalized, does not mean they can not or should not give us the name of the game, since we are being asked in a sense to be part of this negotiation process, from my prospective.

I want the name of the game, and I know it would be useful for the sake of this discussion, and yes I agree I will not get the name of the game, but that means I or anyone else can not give a accurate or truthful answer based on our imaginations.

In the end, This forum may not have any point at all. I believe our answer will not have much of impact on Jast decision, because I do not really feel included in this decision. This whole two years in the making patch is a joke, and can not wait to see the forum thread created by Peter Payne the flame war master himself two years from now "patch not coming how mad are you", and I will be there to laugh out loud(lol). Finally to be honest, I think Jast has a good indication of how people feel about censorship right now in general, so I believe people do not have to reiterate their stance on this topic over and over again. Try asking us again sometime, maybe in two years when your mythical restoration patch comes out, magically created by the internet as Peter Payne believes.

#63

"Finally to be honest, I think Jast has a good indication of how people feel about censorship right now in general, so I believe people do not have to reiterate their stance on this topic over and over again."


I do not regard mosaiced images and removal of content in the same light, and based on the responses in this topic it seems many of those here agree.


I think Peter has posted a very important question that has real consequences for the English market. I'll repeat: the importance of this topic isn't the game in question. It's the potential of policy change. Depending on your perspective, JAST moving forward with mosaiced releases is a great advance or an infuriating regression. Do you want popular titles recently released in Japan, or do you want demosaiced art no exceptions no excuses? The fanbase's answer could very well set a new trajectory for not just JAST, but the entire English market.

#64

A question for Peter: are you satisfied with the responses you've received so far from the people who hang around here, or do you want feedback from a larger audience? If you put some effort into framing the question more clearly with some thought into the wider policy implications (and a poll to go with it), I'd be willing to help publicize this so it gets more attention from the wider fanbase.

#65

One of the main reasons that I look forward to official English releases of eroge is that they can be uncensored, so I will not buy a game that has mosaic censorship. As long as you release a patch later then I suppose it would be okay, but I'm just afraid that this will lead to more censorship of English games in the future. I've already written off some games that MangaGamer has released because of their censorship.


Just wanted to make my voice heard, since it feels like an overwhelming portion of people these days are okay with (or at least apathetic about) censorship of certain games, as long as it leads to a game getting released (albeit incomplete).

#66

I don’t think people are merely okay or indifferent to mosaic. In some cases they are in favor of it because the original artists did not draw the genitals with quality because it was meant to be censored anyway. And it is very rare for a title to get redrawn art and you may be left with pretty unexiting genitals.

In short it is not one answer for all titles, but it really depends per title if mosaic is fine to keep.

#67

I want to say, thanks for everyone's comments here. So our official policy would be to fight very hard against ever releasing anything mosaiced (which we've never done), yet be flexible if it is the only way we can get a certain game license. We'd make the mosaic as tiny and "fine" as possible in that case.

#68

Oh I'm a new member here who joined specifically to express my preference of censored games. Yes please release the original games as they're released in Japan! Unlike adult video content game cg's are usually drawn with the intent of getting censored and genitals do not have the same amount of detail in them and tend to take away a lot from the overall appeal of the cg's in my opinion.

#69

Late to the party, but my 2 bits is if you have to mosaic it, don't bother.


I'll play something that doesn't need mosaics over something that has mosaics.


Which is to say, while I'm thankful for it as we get unmosaiced "hardcore" shots, I find it difficult to understand the jp mindset to use mosaics in the first place, when camera angles/clever obstructions that avoid the need altogether would (IMO) be preferable. Unless it's so that they CAN sell the unmosaiced version in other jurisdictions/under the table. (or people can modify them to make their own)


It has absolutely nothing to do with my views on censorship. I just find the whole mosaic thing extremely jarring/ugly. On a similar note, I won't buy something mosaicked with promise of a demosaic patch in 2 years. I'll wait until said demosaic patch is available before I buy it. (by which time I'll probably have forgotten about it.)


As such, I'm concerned with the "slippery slope". Once Jast releases one title with mosaics, it would presumably simply be a matter of time before other companies demand the same, and then there wouldn't be any without.


FWIW, I seem to remember the law against pornographic *depictions* of minors (as opposed to actual photographs, i.e. anime) is actually a relatively recent law in the U.S. (looked it up, 2003.) And from wikipedia there was a conviction (upheld in 2008) of somebody for possessing "obscene Japanese anime cartoons that graphically depicted prepubescent female children being forced to engage in genital-genital and oral-genital intercourse with adult males". That said, the law for *depictions* isn't as clear cut as photographs, and is based on obscenity or lacking any artistic/literary/etc. merit, which makes it a huge grey area.)


That said, I didn't realize there was anything illegal about scat or bestiality *depictions* in the U.S. and from a Quick google search only referenced it's illegality when depictions of minors are involved. I suppose it's possible it's illegal in other regions in question?



P.S. I find it peculiar that the reason they don't want to license non-mosaic versions until a later date or not at all is because reverse import of the international version hurts their domestic sales. I'm assuming I'm missing something, but that seems like that'd be a strong argument to simply make an international version themselves in the first place, instead of licensing it out.

#70

@ Nathan Baker


"I find it peculiar that the reason they don't want to license non-mosaic versions until a later date or not at all is because reverse import of the international version hurts their domestic sales."


Put yourself in the Japanese companies shoes, its already hard enough trying to get people to buy your game when in a lot of cases people can download it for free illegally, but its a lot harder to sell your game if a superior version (uncensored) is available for free online. Would you pay close to $100 for a censored game if you can download the uncensored version for free online?


"I'm assuming I'm missing something, but that seems like that'd be a strong argument to simply make an international version themselves in the first place, instead of licensing it out."


One of the most common rules in business is for a company to focus on what they do best and to outsource the rest. That means that the developers will focus on making games targeted at their domestic audience and if they do want foreign revenues they'll partner with a company like JAST or MG to translate and distribute their games in English speaking markets. Also the size of the English market, compared to the larger Japanese one, makes it less lucrative to hold up a release in order to get it translated.

#71

In general, Japanese fans hate international fans because we complicate their fandom, causing "Rapelay events" to happen and peeing in their Wheaties, so to speak. Companies like, say, Nitroplus, have to balance fan discomfort against the money we'll bring to them. Often, they opt to not bother with the international market, at least until the domestic market has dried up for them. Remember that selling uncensored versions of 18+ imagery is illegal in Japan.


(One company we dealt with, which I won't mention by name, literally did ??? yonige or "running away in the night" on us. We found out later that the president had been arrested for trying to make uncensores games on a server in the US and sell them back into Japan.)

#72

@Hyugax

One of the most common rules in business is for a company to focus on what they do best and to outsource the rest. That means that the developers will focus on making games targeted at their domestic audience and if they do want foreign revenues they'll partner with a company like JAST or MG to translate and distribute their games in English speaking markets.


Maybe that's the thing. Every game I've ever worked on has been localized into multiple languages from the start, so it doesn't strike me as a big deal. Assuming your engine is designed to support it, (which is a one time deal, and not *significantly* harder than not supporting it in the engine. Unless you're a glutton for punishment, you're going to want your strings in *some* form of external text database anyways to make editing/QA easier), it doesn't significantly add to the difficulty. You still outsource the actual translation and QA.


Localization only really becomes difficult when it's actually done "after the fact", as odds are the unlocalized version violated a few key precepts. The fact that the Japanese companies aren't doing the localization themselves as part of the initial development is almost certainly part of the reason why so few games *get* localized. It's WAY WAY WAY WAY WAY more difficult after the fact. Which kills the profit margin. A title that's localized after the fact has to sell *far* more copies to be profitable than one that's localized as part of the original development. (Incidentally, this is part of why I'm sort of interested in seeing closer ties between JAST/MG and the developers. My understanding is that when Jast/Peach Princess/etc. first started out, localization was a nightmare, as there had been no thought at all to possible localization during development. Hopefully closer ties means that there's at least *some* thought to the requirements of localization during the initial development.

#73

Part of the issue is that JAST is 5-8 years behind the Japanese release curve, as for various reasons the Japanese companies don't want to offer their most recent titles. Thus JAST has to be working with a company for nearly a decade before they might get to work on a title which the company had made with the possibility of an English release in mind. Overflow was a special case because they were interested in expanding into the English market before they ever secured a deal with JAST, and designed their engine accordingly.

#74

MangaGamer’s blog posts by their programmers, etc have made it clear that Japanese visual novel makers don’t code for anything but the Japanese home market almost all of the time. Things like ‘English punctuation has a special meaning to the engine, because why would we ever want to use that?’ are common.

#75

I don’t know if you’re still actively looking for feedback on this, but I don’t have a really concerned viewpoint about it.

If it’s the same as the Japanese release, I’m honestly probably going to be okay with that. Uncensored releases are better because we don’t have the restrictions in place that require them, but you also sometimes end up with bad art underneath since it was never meant to be seen, so it can be a bit of a gamble anyway.

I’ll take mosaic if that’s all we can get and I’ll take uncensored if we can get it, but I’m not going to stress over one or the other. The only thing I don’t want is to have content removed. That’s the only place I draw the line.

#76

I know that my take about this is very late, but i still want to give you my thoughts about the subject.


Nobody likes censorship. However, think that in some cases it can be ok and can be accepted, especially in games with a strong emphasis on story. For this games the fact that it is censored or not is imo something that will not bother so much people. The most important part would be to have the game in it's entierety without any altered storyline or content (removal of scenes).


For the case of games more focused on the erotic side, then, censorship can definitely be an annoyance, because it directly decrease the main content experience.


But, the point is if it is possible to get a real deal with publishers to release the censored version then later do an update with the uncensored artwork (even if it happen 2 years later), it's definitely a worthy initiative. Of course, getting the uncensored artwork at first is the best which could happen but if there is still this possibility but delayed, i think it's not a reason to drop the deal. If this might open much wider possibilities to deal with japanese companies, that's for sure something that should be considered, because it can further help to build bridges between them and the western companies. It may soften things for them and make them more trustful, and would also prove them the willingness of the western licensors to make efforts, which is something always very appreciated in japanese culture.
#77

I really really don’t like mosaic. The reason would be it ruins the art. I consider VN CG’s an art, and since our laws do not force us to censor them in the west I believe we should try to have the no mosaic version whenever we can. Obviously there are cases where there may be no files where the mosaic aren’t there for older titles, and if that is the case having the game is still better than not having it. However if you release a game that could have been free of mosaic with mosaic, that would make me personally not want to purchase it.

I’m simply being true to myself and I personally only buy mosaic VN’s by accident unless I really really loved the VN. If a fan translated VN suddenly becomes available officially but with mosaic, I would find it hard to justify buying it due to not having any benefits from buying it officially over fan translated VN’s. I actually skip almost all MangaGamer’s releases with Mosaic.

If you look at my customer purchase history, I bought almost 90% (probably) more of all VN’s on jastusa. I actually played all of your games pirated before I knew they were available to be bought and before I made money to buy them. However if the game had mosaic in both the pirated and official copy, personally I would not in good faith be able to say I would buy all of the VN’s I played pirated.

#78

Censorship but i dont mind it

#79

I’ll say mosaics are unavoidable, especially if full nudity could cause severe legal problems for the Japanese side. (Just to be blunt, I’ve grown more conservative… not too sure if I can handle eroge or even nukige.)

Also, I think JAST might want to focus on an older title first to test the market. I really don’t want any Japanese company to think that “oh no! The international fans don’t want to play VNs” in case their newest products are like, full of context only Japan-lovers would understand. Besides, should their latest product fail, that’d only devalue their products.

Also wonder who this company is… hmmm…

#80

This was 2 years ago so I’m sure the matter is long settled.