Chaos;Head, Censorship, Xenophobia ~
When Tinfoil mentioned that he was looking for QC’ers for the Chaos;head RC2 patch, I went ahead and jumped on it. hanging out with them on their irc channel and listening to them talk about various problems and searching for workarounds, it really helps cement in your mind tha tthis isn’t as loose and as disorganized as many people seem to believe.
Some time ago, someone affiliated with a game translation group mentioned that wiki-driven and community-driven projects were doomed to failure, and that only dedicated groups with staff would be able to turn out any sort of … product. He went on to castigate everyone at TLWiki, wretched hive of scum and villainy, so on and so forth. Now, admittedly, I haven’t spent but one day with TLWiki, but there doesn’t seem to be the sort of disorganization, chaos, or what-have-you that he predicted.
Anyway, getting back to the central part, I’m QC’ing the RC2 with the expectation that I’ll be grammar-nazi-ing the text. this means I’ll be playing through it again, something I’ve been hesitant about doing. To be frank, I’ve been hesitant about playing any game, I’ve reached a point where a sabbatical is necessary. I love the game though, and I want to help, so it’s time I leave Elba and get back into it. I can only hope that I don’t end up returning to St. Helena to complete my exile, hahaha.
Coming back to the ren’ai/ visual novel/ eroge genre, the big thing that’s on the lips and hearts of the entire community is the rather … dramatic actions that have been going down. I can’t summarize very well- No, I can, but this sums it up succinctly, taken from sankaku complex.
An Irish rag on a slow news day picks up the story that importers have been selling Rapelay via Amazon. The theme is that the game encourages rape and is child pornography.
Amazon completely drops the product, including in Japan. Other retailers soon follow suit.
Feminist busybody group “Equality Now”, which organises spam campaigns to keep its members busy without actually having to deal with problems directly, targets the game, accusing it of human rights violations and telling the Japanese government it should be banning this sort of thing, like low crime paradises such as the UK.
The developers tell the foreign feminists to get lost.
Soon after the Rapelay developers cave in and completely remove the game from distribution.
Equality Now’s Japanese lawyer (the group has no presence in Japan) drums up anti-eroge media attention.
A Japanese diet member, an avowed feminist, picks up on the scandal and starts calling for a ban. Objections start with the opposition and minor parties and soon the ruling party jumps onto the bandwagon.
A “study group” is organised to decide how best to ban the games.
Broadcaster TBS falsely reports that the EOCS has banned the games.
The EOCS bans the games.
Personally, I think it’s a bunch of bullshit from a bunch of histrionic women that have nothing better to do than meddle in other peoples’ lives. I have low opinions of feminists as it is: a vocal group of women looking to work at cross-purposes to any other suggestion excepting their own agenda, namely that of the bitterly vengeful subjugation of the evil opressive patriarchy. A shame they can’t channel that energy towards more positive, constructive pursuits- after all, that sammich won’t make itself.
Getting back to it, though, my view is this: a woman in britainland arbitrarily decides that a fictitious game is the root of all evil, and campaigns for its removal. Any sane society would have told ‘Equality Now’ to get fucked. I’d like to point out the rough parallel Jack Thompson made with his (equally ridiculous) hate-parades on violent video games being the source of all the world’s sores. Unfortunately, Eroge makers have pretended to be good little dead goldfish and have shown their bellies, resulting in regulation and censorship on more or less, an unregulated industry. Now where will I find a game that lets me whip a pooping catgirl? Without caving to hysteria or running off the deep end, this sort of sets a dangerous precedent. After all, we’re talking about the censorship of fiction and fantasy. This is something to be concerned with.
The result of this censorship has been less than stellar. A few companies have started blocking non-japanese IP addresses. This is the wrong thing to do. It was japanese legislation, it was japanese politics, it was japanese corporate interest that censored them- however foreign fans feel the brunt. The Japanese should have told Equality Now to get fucked, get back to the kitchen, and then slapped them in the face with their right to freedom of speech. Foreign fans should not be punished because of local ineptitude. Instead, we get xenophobic statements like
Some foreigners seem to be having an antipathy against EROGE.
Therefore, We prohibited the access from foreign countries, to defend our culture.
And let’s not forget,
PLEASE PLAY THE GAME OF YOUR COUNTRY IF YOU PRAY FOR THE WORLD PEACE!:-)?
So the conclusion that can be drawn from this is… Gobots suck.
Adult Games, Dissertation, Games, Japanese Games, Rant, Sociology