Jun 27, 2009 at 11:36 PM
Indie game enthusiast
"What is a man!? A miserable pile of secrets! But enough talk, have at you!"
Join Date: Apr 18, 2006
Location: Forever wandering the tower...!
Posts: 1789
I don't think that many people here know much about visual novels and "eroge"; but some crazy stuff is going down in Japan...
Basically, what started as a foreign protest against some nasty hentai games (a game with rape mess) [some retard posted it for sale on Amazon and people who know nothing of Visual Novels decide if one is bad, all are bad!], might be turning into an alienation campaign, as some Japanese companies have begun to IP block all foreign websites... Because politics got involved things have a chance to spiral out of control.
(it started with complaints from a London-based (kind of extremist?) feminist group Equality Now! which publically complained to the Japanese government about a few extreme bad example eroge games... Then next thing you know there are talks of bans and restrictions... and then there suddenly is talk of Japanese government discussing if they should get involved... Basically I think, some politicians are using this "common enemy" as a scapegoat to push political agendas, and now Japanese have the impression that a lot of foreign people hate these games or something... Best part in all this is the lack of any evidence... Wouldn't be so bad if it was on a case by case basis; no this is just the big hammer of justice hitting anything that gets labeled eroge.)
Doesn't affect mainstream/popular games much... But, if something like the export of eroge were to be banned in law...
This sums up a worst case scenerio...
If something like this happened I guess worst case would make stuff like the following games would be illegal in some places (US, Australia...) And you'd get in trouble for owning/downloading it... Tsukihime, Utawarerumono, Fate/stay, School Days, Clannad, Kanon, etc etc
Sounds like jumping to conclusions, but soon as it became political things have gone a bit heywire...
Here's part of the redirection message from one of the sites that are blocking foreign access :
Why be bothered with this at all? Well, personally I don't care about the hentai! *gasp* The problem is that some of these Visual Novels have really great/enjoyable stories! Throw out the hentai and you are still left with a great digital book, that is fully voiced, includes art, animation and various types of interaction like strategy game or just choose your own path and but usually with much longer stories than most mainstream games.. Some have anime/animation parts too...
And then there are all the spinoffs... games like Melty Blood... or the anime counterparts and manga based off the original game... Yet, if the worst comes to pass, the original games could become "illegal".
And, you can't just censor the game by ripping the "socially offending" media out of the original game disc; like you can with a book (ugh just suggesting it gives me an image of bookburning censorship...)
No, instead you'd have to destroy the entire work; all the art and animation (even if the game might contain like 1% of "offending art"), all the text, all the music, all the voice acting would be destroyed...
...
hmmm ... deciding one day the stuff you own is Bad and Unlawful, and must be destroyed or you can be punished by law...
Interesting... Well at least people seem to be focusing on Real problems like works of fantasy.
Some examples :
"Hello, world."
(story of a robot built around 2010, spends time studying human interaction, starts off simply a robot but becomes much more... Story is supposed to be quite long, where you'd think most eroge games would end, this one just begins. I'm hoping this one gets translated by a certain fan-group ...)
With my interest in robots and games like Cave Story this one sounds pretty interesting...
[obviously the game is irredeemable and should be banned to foreigners
]
Fate/stay night
(Story about the War of Magi, a timeless battle for the Holy Grail or something similar... It is called a war because of the abilities the few people involved are on a completely different scale from normal people. Supposed to be an epic game...)
The demo and this song helped sell me on visual novels
[obviously the game is irredeemable and should be banned to foreigners]
Utawarerumono
(Story of a man who loses his memory and goes on to change a nation... Personally one of my favorites!)
[obviously the game is irredeemable and should be banned to foreigners]
Certainly there are bad "eroge" games but games like these must suffer as well?
Guess only time will tell...
Basically, what started as a foreign protest against some nasty hentai games (a game with rape mess) [some retard posted it for sale on Amazon and people who know nothing of Visual Novels decide if one is bad, all are bad!], might be turning into an alienation campaign, as some Japanese companies have begun to IP block all foreign websites... Because politics got involved things have a chance to spiral out of control.
(it started with complaints from a London-based (kind of extremist?) feminist group Equality Now! which publically complained to the Japanese government about a few extreme bad example eroge games... Then next thing you know there are talks of bans and restrictions... and then there suddenly is talk of Japanese government discussing if they should get involved... Basically I think, some politicians are using this "common enemy" as a scapegoat to push political agendas, and now Japanese have the impression that a lot of foreign people hate these games or something... Best part in all this is the lack of any evidence... Wouldn't be so bad if it was on a case by case basis; no this is just the big hammer of justice hitting anything that gets labeled eroge.)
Doesn't affect mainstream/popular games much... But, if something like the export of eroge were to be banned in law...
This sums up a worst case scenerio...
"Nargrakhan" said:
If something like this happened I guess worst case would make stuff like the following games would be illegal in some places (US, Australia...) And you'd get in trouble for owning/downloading it... Tsukihime, Utawarerumono, Fate/stay, School Days, Clannad, Kanon, etc etc
Sounds like jumping to conclusions, but soon as it became political things have gone a bit heywire...
Here's part of the redirection message from one of the sites that are blocking foreign access :
Why be bothered with this at all? Well, personally I don't care about the hentai! *gasp* The problem is that some of these Visual Novels have really great/enjoyable stories! Throw out the hentai and you are still left with a great digital book, that is fully voiced, includes art, animation and various types of interaction like strategy game or just choose your own path and but usually with much longer stories than most mainstream games.. Some have anime/animation parts too...
And then there are all the spinoffs... games like Melty Blood... or the anime counterparts and manga based off the original game... Yet, if the worst comes to pass, the original games could become "illegal".
And, you can't just censor the game by ripping the "socially offending" media out of the original game disc; like you can with a book (ugh just suggesting it gives me an image of bookburning censorship...)
No, instead you'd have to destroy the entire work; all the art and animation (even if the game might contain like 1% of "offending art"), all the text, all the music, all the voice acting would be destroyed...
...
hmmm ... deciding one day the stuff you own is Bad and Unlawful, and must be destroyed or you can be punished by law...
Interesting... Well at least people seem to be focusing on Real problems like works of fantasy.
Some examples :
"Hello, world."
(story of a robot built around 2010, spends time studying human interaction, starts off simply a robot but becomes much more... Story is supposed to be quite long, where you'd think most eroge games would end, this one just begins. I'm hoping this one gets translated by a certain fan-group ...)
With my interest in robots and games like Cave Story this one sounds pretty interesting...
[obviously the game is irredeemable and should be banned to foreigners
]Fate/stay night
(Story about the War of Magi, a timeless battle for the Holy Grail or something similar... It is called a war because of the abilities the few people involved are on a completely different scale from normal people. Supposed to be an epic game...)
The demo and this song helped sell me on visual novels
[obviously the game is irredeemable and should be banned to foreigners
]Utawarerumono
(Story of a man who loses his memory and goes on to change a nation... Personally one of my favorites!)
[obviously the game is irredeemable and should be banned to foreigners
]Certainly there are bad "eroge" games but games like these must suffer as well?
Guess only time will tell...
