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[kunonabi]

Lol at the dogs running away. The regression on display these days is freaking bonkers.

 

[The Mad Draklor]

The dogs are a bunch of pixels. The game is fiction. And the game is also not encouraging any type of animal cruelty. Some folks just need to chill out and stop making a huge deal out of nothing.

 

[danielberg]

Ah do not misunderstand me, of course there are bunch who still defend censorship but at least no 100% echo chamber like before. And the mod not freely banned the one who voiced their dissatisfaction like before. I wonder something must be changed from their moderation policy.

Maybe it finally hit a game the idiots actually like... its always suddenly oh sooo different when it hits stuff you want, stupid era fuckers lol

 

[Pot Meet Kettle]

Lol at the dogs running away. The regression on display these days is freaking bonkers.

I have to agree on this one.

When you know Nintendo of America in the nineties sticked to just downplaying the more graphic expressions of the idea of death (visual gore, the words "die"/"kill") but knew better than to chase even implied implications. You didn't see them telling Squaresoft for Final Fantasy VI to say every NPC who appeared during the cataclysm was whisked by time-traveling Cid to the esper's home planet and totally didn't die.

This example is more ridiculous than those instances because despite the cartoony graphics and smoke effects, even the implication of death is still too much and the 4Kids excuse HAS to be visual to comfort the "audience".

Weirdest argument in favor of this went like "It's important because dogs are represented as one of the commanders, and this means a lot for dog lovers" and i was like wtf, even by censorship apologist standards this is otherwordly. Or the one that complained the animation looked too abrupt and sudden... yeah, you don't say.

 

[Senhua]

My best guess here is Sony doesn't see Japan as a market worth dealing with. The PS4 didn't sell that well in Japan from the last numbers I saw. I think it was like 7-8 million? The Switch is around 5 million already. Correct me if I'm wrong.

I think it's a mistake to burn bridges with Japanese developers like this but Sony probably doesn't want the games anyway, they bring negative attention due to our gaming press. A similar thing happened with Nintendo being accused of sexualizing children with Xenoblade Chronicles X. I don't know if this will last as Nintendo seems to have stopped the censorship of their games in the west but Sony isn't Nintendo.

This also makes me wonder what counts as a slippery slope. From my perspective this is the middle of a slippery slope. The first point things started to slide for me was when I heard Super Seducer was blocked from release back in February. Since then multiple games I was going to buy have been edited, some delayed for edits, or straight up blocked from release. It's progressively gotten worse so I see no reason to believe it will get better, especially with no statement from Sony.

With Nintnedo's recent censorship issues it went the same way. First it was a few outfit changes in Xenoblade and Fatal Frame (and some other games like Bravely Default) but it kept escalating up to things like removing the head petting mode from Fire Emblem Fates and changing the story around in Tokyo Mirage Sessions. The amount of changes in those games are hard to follow since there's so many. It ruined them for me. Sony has already surpassed Nintendo's censorship by blocking games. The slipery slope is already in effect for me, the results of Sony's policies have been disastrous for the games I buy. I don't trust Sony and have pulled my support.

I think at best for now is switch can completely take over Vita market.
One thing sure is Vita will 100% die because of this cause 99% of vita games heavily depends of fan service element. Lets see if Sony dare to extend the censorship to "normal games"

 

[Enygger_Tzu]

OK this is just peculiar.

Kingdom Hearts 3 is being censored in China. The victim this time: Winnie the Pooh!

https://www.oneangrygamer.net/2018/...innie-the-pooh-being-censored-in-china/72263/

 

[Pot Meet Kettle]

OK this is just peculiar.

Kingdom Hearts 3 is being censored in China. The victim this time: Winnie the Pooh!

https://www.oneangrygamer.net/2018/...innie-the-pooh-being-censored-in-china/72263/

The character was censored (either visually or in text) on all Chinese sites and media. This doesn't extend (yet) to the game itself.
While Square Enix did Chinese versions of Final Fantasy games (the Lightning trilogy) they know better than attempt to localize this particular game there.

In other news...

Gameindustry.biz is deeply upset that Ubisoft reversed course on the censorship of Rainbow Six Siege, calling that "pandering to unreasonable players" and, of course, defending the changes. It also claims pleasing the player base "should never be at the expense of your business strategy".

It feels like every week we're reading headlines along the lines of 'Players outraged over X', 'Game Y gets review-bombed' - most often over something utterly trivial. It's becoming tiresome how much upset can be caused by minutiae, but at least we could take solace that the 'backlash' was usually a vocal minority with demands that would ultimately never be met.

Or so we thought.

Today, Ubisoft announced it was reversing the aesthetic changes it had planned for Rainbow Six Siege after "our community and players raised concerns". Which, as you'll no doubt have guessed, is putting it mildly.

Within a couple of days of these changes originally being announced, the game's Steam page was besieged by negative reviews bemoaning the decision. Even this week, a smattering of harsh ratings continue to be posted, motivated purely by this alteration.

And what was Ubisoft's heinous crime? Adjusting some minor visual elements and art assets to prepare Rainbow Six for a Chinese release.

Choice quotes:

A few icons were replaced with inoffensive alternatives. O, the horror of it all.

Review-bombers complained that this affects their enjoyment of the game, that it taints their very memory of it. Now, granted, I have personally not played this particular iteration of Rainbow Six, but I fail to see how such minor aesthetic changes would have any impact whatsoever on the gameplay and therefore the actual experience of playing the game.

I understand that, for some, the bare wall where a slot machine once stood might be a permanent visual reminder that this game was not solely developed for them, that they are not the center of Ubisoft's universe, that this is a world with other people who would also appreciate things that cater to them - but these lessons are hard learned, and where better to learn them than from the comfort of your favourite video game?

The problem is this reversal has given those review-bombers a 'victory', as they'll no doubt see it, and furthered an expectation and a precedent the industry could certainly have done without.

It is impossible to please these people without holding back your business and video games as a medium. What if Disney had succumbed to call for The Last Jedi to be struck from the canon and replaced with a film that was more in line with what fans expected?

The slippery slope isn't just real. It's now an "expectation" and a "standard".

 

[Enygger_Tzu]

Thanks for the more info Pot Meet Kettle damn, Gameindustry is really converged from top to bottom if their writers and editors think like this.

Ubisoft should not address their main players regards with the game over...feelings!

Video Game journalism is a dead horse at this rate.

And to call out Ubisoft of all people, who is behind Bioware in catering to the SJW crowd is appaling, no matter how hard you cuck, if you move one step out of the line you will be attacked.

 

[iconmaster]

What a strange article that is. The author has never played the game, but is confident that bowing to Chinese content standards is the way forward for "video games as a medium."

There's a nuanced discussion to be had on the tension between keeping your base happy and making product adjustments to push into new markets, but that article isn't even in the ballpark.

 

[danielberg]

Stop giving these garbage peddlers clicks and they will disappear, dont make the mental issues they are having "news", dont spread the articles about their insanity and dont give them a voice.
A single stupid pewdiepie video gets more views than all these pretend vidjajurnalists with reports on their own fucked up mental state disguised as gaming news, as soon as they became worse than jack thompson they lost all legitimacy anyway.

 

[Pot Meet Kettle]

Stop giving these garbage peddlers clicks and they will disappear, dont make the mental issues they are having "news", dont spread the articles about their insanity and dont give them a voice.

While I agree that rage clicks became those website's business model and checking those articles reward them financially, I disagree that ignoring the problem is gonna make it go away.

The changes in Rainbow Six weren't reverted because they were ignored and people just "voted with their wallets" in silence like good consumer whales who aren't naughty (wo)manchildren disturbing the game's PR cycle. Shedding a light on the incident, and exposing the ridicule within it and its apologist's arguments is what really made the defense of those practices untenable.
"No one is calling for games to be censored" is a very common catchphrase. Maybe instead of ignoring those bloggers with privileged access to the companies they have an incestuous PR shill relationship with who use that position to lobby for all kinds of censorship, even the one that "should" meet "their definition" (but we know it won't), that should be exposed the many times it does happen for the spectacle of indefensible ridicule it is.

 

[The Mad Draklor]

Stop giving these garbage peddlers clicks and they will disappear, dont make the mental issues they are having "news", dont spread the articles about their insanity and dont give them a voice.
A single stupid pewdiepie video gets more views than all these pretend vidjajurnalists with reports on their own fucked up mental state disguised as gaming news, as soon as they became worse than jack thompson they lost all legitimacy anyway.

Either archive the articles so you can read them without giving them clicks or simply refute the arguments without citing the writers making them.

 

[danielberg]

While I agree that rage clicks became those website's business model and checking those articles reward them financially, I disagree that ignoring the problem is gonna make it go away.

The changes in Rainbow Six weren't reverted because they were ignored and people just "voted with their wallets" in silence like good consumer whales who aren't naughty (wo)manchildren disturbing the game's PR cycle. Shedding a light on the incident, and exposing the ridicule within it and its apologist's arguments is what really made the defense of those practices untenable.
"No one is calling for games to be censored" is a very common catchphrase. Maybe instead of ignoring those bloggers with privileged access to the companies they have an incestuous PR shill relationship with who use that position to lobby for all kinds of censorship, even the one that "should" meet "their definition" (but we know it won't), that should be exposed the many times it does happen for the spectacle of indefensible ridicule it is.

Sounds reasonable enough kind a sad that the industry even needs help to see that these kinda clowns dont represent gamers anymore and in fact have become a "third opinion" that only speaks for themselves and what they want while disguising it as "us gamers durr" but yeah. Still, dont link directly to the garbage and give them clicks lol

 

[JunkerWoland]

The digital nature of games has made these industry commentators completely bonkers. Imagine something similar to the Rainbow Six Siege situation and the consumer response in any other industry; no owner would stand for being told their existing product has to be unnecessarily altered, because the company needed to make changes to sell the thing in some other market.

Sure, it's Gameindustry.biz and not RainbowSixFan.com, but again we have an instance of the media defending large corporations, instead of the interests of the consumer. We're actually at the point where increasingly the media's line is businesses should make all the money, all games should be homogenized garbage so they can be sold to the largest possible audience, and fuck any consumer who complains. Welcome to Hollywood, baby!

As for the whole Wargroove thing, while I think the change is ridiculous, the alteration seems in line with my impressions of the developers (or at least the people who I've seen representing the game). Ultimately, they'll just have to deal with their consumers, if other elements of the title are deemed "problematic."

 

[Helios]

#nodoggosharmed . Except for the part where they get hit in the head with an arrow.
I know this is Twitter but do these people think before posting trash like this?

 

[CatCouch]

The comments on the Game Industry article are quite a good read.

The last paragraph in that article says a lot. Bigger and bigger changes are definitely coming, they know they will get backlash so they label all backlash as "entitled" and "baseless".

How can all backlash be "baseless" over things that have not happened yet?

It seems James Batchelor, the writer, is arguing all future debate is wrong because gamers are inherently wrong. How horrible.

 

[kunonabi]

The comments on the Game Industry article are quite a good read.

The last paragraph in that article says a lot. Bigger and bigger changes are definitely coming, they know they will get backlash so they label all backlash as "entitled" and "baseless".

How can all backlash be "baseless" over things that have not happened yet?

It seems James Batchelor, the writer, is arguing all future debate is wrong because gamers are inherently wrong. How horrible.

We've been inherently wrong for awhile. The games media and corporations treat us all like the dregs of humanity who need video games to educate us while we blindly hand over our money regardless of what we actually want out of the hobby or basic standards of corporate decency. I've never seen any other industry aside from maybe comic books so painfully and vocally disgusted with it's actual consumer base.

 

[Senhua]

Crymaria Levin (Valkyria in VC4)
This is the design by original artist ( Honjou Raita )

Spoiler: Raita Art

While this is in game art:

Spoiler: In game Art

Much2 tamer than the original Raita vision, and thanks to that the games bombed everywhere. Even already 50% discounted at Steam and PSN.
Get Woke get broke.

 

[The Chairman]

Crymaria Levin (Valkyria in VC4)
This is the design by original artist ( Honjou Raita )

Spoiler: Raita Art

While this is in game art:

Spoiler: In game Art

Much2 tamer than the original Raita vision, and thanks to that the games bombed everywhere. Even already 50% discounted at Steam and PSN.
Get Woke get broke.

They also angered the SJWs because there is still some sexual stuff in the game, they should have followed what Monolith Soft did with Xenoblade 2, they unapologetically designed the female characters and the blades with the most sexy revealing outfits and with the biggest bounciest boobs in any game i have ever saw despite continuous shrieking from the SJWs in all of their social media. and guess what, XB2 sold more than 1.5 million and its the most successful game in the franchise.

 

[Pot Meet Kettle]

Valkyrie Chronicles 4 specifically was said to be designed to target Western audiences, like a different character design and backstory for the main protagonist (to make him less of a shonen anime hero) and other smaller details. Ultimately it looked closer to the more grounded feel of the first game and it's a somewhat nice compromise.
Even if it's to toe down to market research (but not too badly, if they were really listening to an activist the choengsam leg window would have never been allowed either) at least it wasn't to please localization "editors" and their demands and could be attributed to a creative choice (replacing the boob window with a leg window, or emphasizing different aspects of the character design, or a tone similar to the first game rather than a fantasy D&D attire)

It's no good to take glee at VC4's "bombing" over ideological reasons, The other side also says the same shit because the game supposedly didn't censor enough and missed some mythical audience. The game wasn't promoted competently, period. It did quite well for a niche console RPG as well, and probably will have legs considering it's one of the few major JRPGs on the Switch now.

 

[Senhua]

It's no good to take glee at VC4's "bombing" over ideological reasons,

Ah true, it's more because of promotional reason, like the absence of the remaster of the 2 &3, etc. But for me and some others because the absence of the usual Raita art.
Even the first game valkyria (Selvaria) better than this.

 

[Pot Meet Kettle]

Videogames are interactive mediums which is why I feel the gameplay loop itself, and the ranges of experiences the developers are "allowed" to use are worth discussing.

This time with an archive.fo link to ensure no rage clicks ever reward that site (an unfortunate oversight I made earlier) I present...
The Verge - Making classic games more approachable should be the norm

This article advocates that retro games from thirty years ago being re-released on modern consoles must be made easier. The examples to look up to as inspiration as suggested by this article are:

• The Legend of Zelda SP (NES Online) - a save state with almost all enemies on the map killed, and most items hacked into the inventory.
• Gradius SP (NES Online) - a save state that begins from World 5 (out of 7) with all powerups already acquired.
• SNK 40th Anniversary Collection (Switch) - specifically a "watch mode" where the game is on auto-play from beginning to end (like an emulator movie file used for longplays and speedruns) which can then be picked up by the player anytime to play.

Mercifully (?) the article still tolerates for now the existence of an original mode in the re-release, but still mandates the existence of these "updates".

There was also Mark Brown, who did a series about disabilities and how to cater to them in videogames (colorblindness, hearing impairments, etc) which is an incredibly useful and laudable effort to inspire more developers to implement features to help disabled people, if they want to... But there's always a catch, sadly.

In the series proper, he suggested things like the God Mode in Celeste should be standard features in videogames. He also suggested that games that offer disabled people to skip game content not appropriate for their condition is a bad, immoral, exclusionary choice. The implication being of course that 100% of the game content must be adapted to their condition or not exist, and that it's not enough that disabled people can play the game from start to finish, but the existence of an alternate content path no matter how minor that's made inaccessible by the accessibility options is intolerable until it's removed for everybody.
The final straw was an article he wrote about Nintendo and how they are mosters because... of their focus on non traditional gaming control schemes, not readily mappable to traditional joypads, which makes them monsters and spiteful to disabled people.

Someone said before this, but I never expected it to be taken to its literal natural conclusion:

For instance, a SJA will try to get a ramp added to a building for easier wheelchair access. A SJW, on the other hand, will insist that the stairs be removed because they might offend people who can’t use them.

On the other side of the debate, there are developers who design games around a higher level of challenge and are forced to tone them down, move it to a hard mode no one will use, or be penalized by the gaming press. The Cuphead situation is but one of many ongoing for years (some like God Hand were attacked by a scorched earth 2/10 review) and was only noticed because the reviewer's video (originally with a title that attacks the game) went viral. The many different ways videogames are compromised due to gaming media go far beyond simply how much skin is exposed and how much feels are hurt.

 

[Danjin44]

Sure, she looks much more tamer here compare to other design but I still liked her design a lot. I wish Saga advertise VC4 more, the game was fantastic and deserves to sell more.

 

[Senhua]

Next I predict God Eater 3 will suffer the same fate too:

Spoiler: GE3 Art

Generic anime char design which pandered for the west audience.

While on the second game:

Spoiler: GE2 Art

The only one who look interesting in GE3 is"

Sure, she looks much more tamer here compare to other design but I still liked her design a lot. I wish Saga advertise VC4 more, the game was fantastic and deserves to sell more.

Yup thats way this game is so sad, good gameplay and story with a slightly censored art.

 

[petran79]

Sure, she looks much more tamer here compare to other design but I still liked her design a lot. I wish Saga advertise VC4 more, the game was fantastic and deserves to sell more.

We have the swimsuit dlc fortunately. Besides no matter the sexy design, with all that ice and winter around her, male stimulation would be zero
I liked the two assasins much more

 

[guggnichso]

There’s actually one, and really only one instance where I liked the censored version of a game more than the original, and that’s in the case of Probotector vs. Contra. The Probotector designs are leagues ahead of the Contra Rambo-Rip-offs. I wish Konami would just put them as optional skins in a 60hz version of Contra 1-3.

https://goo.gl/images/cyZu3Q

Also, note the robotic penis bulge.

 

[Pot Meet Kettle]

Rock Paper Shotgun and their Final Fantasy XIV coverage.

"Nice cult you've got there, Yoshi P. Mind explaining your position on erotic roleplaying through crude text messages sold for fictional money in Final Fantasy XIV? You aren't doing enough to distance your game from this. What kind of FILTH are you running here, are you okay with prostitution in this game? ... "Our official position is that all acts against real or fictional laws are bannable offenses" you say? A surprisingly sober response from the dancing drunkard developer I see. So calculated. How utterly unamusing. But I am still annoyed. Haven't you considered the angle that you are denying the right of two consenting adults to have sex?

Also look at this unsettling lady with her cosplay. I tell her it may unsettle people and she dismisses me... bunnies as a new playable race... the horrors of the Final Fantasy XIV fanbase."

This is the quintessential RPS article, and I love how much of a trainwreck it is. Censorship demands for player chat a regex word filter can't hope to cover anymore, but would take an advanced AI, and the sheer contempt for the developers, the fanbase and the game alike, and a huge ego.

From this twitter topic, it doesn't seem either the fanbase, the developers, the interviewed cosplayers, or even fellow game journalists who had 10 minutes out of 60 allocated for interviews devoted to this much needed call-out for Square Enix not policing chat hard enough, were thrilled by this journalist's performance.

 

[Enygger_Tzu]

The Twitter messages really portray a picture here. The guy is a loser in life, and like all good losers, he wants everyone to stay loser.

A soy vinegare drink would do him wonders, methinks.

 

[kunonabi]

I noticed something funny. Some transgender flick is being released in theatres and on Netflix with the theatrical release having the nudity removed. Now a certain group of people have come around to it being a reasonable cut due to the actor being underage after decrying it at first. They instantly jumped to referring to it as censorship. Now this isn't at all different from what happens in video games but these same people always go out of their way to always argue that it isn't censorship when these situations occur in that medium. But of course, as soon as it's something they're invested in they have no reservations about pulling a complete 180. Hypocrisy at it's finest.

 

[The Cartographer]

Crymaria Levin (Valkyria in VC4)
This is the design by original artist ( Honjou Raita )
Much2 tamer than the original Raita vision, and thanks to that the games bombed everywhere. Even already 50% discounted at Steam and PSN.
Get Woke get broke.

Crymaria is still okay in-game and SEGA always tweaked RAITA's design for VC so I don't really see the problem here.
And what's this about the game bombing? There's simply no way VC4 was a commercial failure.

 

[squarealex]

SCEA should die

 

[Doczu]

SCEA should die

They already did, and from their corpse rose something a lot worse

 

[The Mad Draklor]

SCEA should die

I think you mean SIEA.

 

[Aranea]

This is most likely a mistake by Sony but one visual novel that got released on the PS4 recently somehow managed to bypass Sony new policy. You can see for yourself the comparison between the uncensored (the stuff that managed to through) and the censored edition which never became a thing. NSFW warning.

Spoiler: NSFW

 

[Filben]

I remember the time when GTA III, VC, and, I think, also San Andreas were censored in Germany: People didn't leave money on the ground, so you couldn't kill them for that or get rewarded with it; you couldn't attack someone who's on the ground, which changed the gameplay sometimes dramatically because you had to let them get up, often giving them a chance to attack you instead of preventing this by stomping on them. They also removed the rampage mini game completely. They also removed the mission "Messing with the Man" wher you had to destroy as much as possible in the city. Another mission completely cut was "Dirty Lickin's" where you had to kill Cuban gang members. Furthermore: no blood, no gore, no dismembering.

Nuditiy is in many cases completely fine here, no one bats an eye, but when it comes to brutality, gore or sometimes 'normal' killing scene, it was cut heavily. Today it's a bit more relaxed. But even back then all of my buddies and myself were trying to get the uncut version or so called "blood patches"; there was a whole board and website dedicated to those patches, patching the cut version back to the original, sometimes even change/swap the video files, e.g. for Commandos 1 where Nazi symbolic were changed to neutral symbols (and dead bodies were shown as a grave instead of a dead body). No one, even when we were kids, wanted to play a censored version. We didn't know why or discussed it on an elaborated level or the context and implication of this and that; we just wanted the uncensored version how it was 'supposed to be'.

 

[squarealex]

This is most likely a mistake by Sony but one visual novel that got released on the PS4 recently somehow managed to bypass Sony new policy. You can see for yourself the comparison between the uncensored (the stuff that managed to through) and the censored edition which never became a thing. NSFW warning.

Spoiler: NSFW

Hmmm
How works ? Two version, like Resident Evil 7 ? (Cero D & Cero Z) or just an update / DLC ?

 

[Aranea]

Hmmm
How works ? Two version, like Resident Evil 7 ? (Cero D & Cero Z) or just an update / DLC ?

No. The censored edition would be only one made available but Sony was ok with the uncensored one and allowed it.

 

[Pot Meet Kettle]

No. The censored edition would be only one made available but Sony was ok with the uncensored one and allowed it.

Half expecting a resetera user to take notice and alert Sony to that on twitter so that they "fix" the mistake, probably by pulling the game altogether.

 

[MayauMiao]

Rock Paper Shotgun and their Final Fantasy XIV coverage.

"Nice cult you've got there, Yoshi P. Mind explaining your position on erotic roleplaying through crude text messages sold for fictional money in Final Fantasy XIV? You aren't doing enough to distance your game from this. What kind of FILTH are you running here, are you okay with prostitution in this game? ... "Our official position is that all acts against real or fictional laws are bannable offenses" you say? A surprisingly sober response from the dancing drunkard developer I see. So calculated. How utterly unamusing. But I am still annoyed. Haven't you considered the angle that you are denying the right of two consenting adults to have sex?

Also look at this unsettling lady with her cosplay. I tell her it may unsettle people and she dismisses me... bunnies as a new playable race... the horrors of the Final Fantasy XIV fanbase."

This is the quintessential RPS article, and I love how much of a trainwreck it is. Censorship demands for player chat a regex word filter can't hope to cover anymore, but would take an advanced AI, and the sheer contempt for the developers, the fanbase and the game alike, and a huge ego.

From this twitter topic, it doesn't seem either the fanbase, the developers, the interviewed cosplayers, or even fellow game journalists who had 10 minutes out of 60 allocated for interviews devoted to this much needed call-out for Square Enix not policing chat hard enough, were thrilled by this journalist's performance.

This should be a new topic by itself concerning RPS so called journalism.

 

[Zambatoh]

For some unknown reason, Nekopara had it's E-rating changed back into an M-rating on the store. Strange.
https://store.playstation.com/en-us/product/UP0287-CUSA12297_00-NEKOPARA010000US

 

[CatCouch]

For some unknown reason, Nekopara had it's E-rating changed back into an M-rating on the store. Strange.
https://store.playstation.com/en-us/product/UP0287-CUSA12297_00-NEKOPARA010000US

I honestly think Sony just doesn't care about games like this enough to check if the ratings are accurate. It doesn't sell (they made sure of that) so it's not high priority. If it was mistakenly rated E just the fact it stayed that way for so long shows no one is paying much attention.

 

[The Chairman]

New day new game getting censored by Soyny.

https://www.oneangrygamer.net/2018/11/death-end-request-cleavage-censored-in-japan-on-ps4/72384/

Here is a Let's Play of the new Nintendo Switch Senran Kagura game to wash the bad taste of Sony censorship news.

 

[Zenaku]

They're a bit mixed up. That's Arc of Alchemist, not Death end request.

 

[JunkerWoland]

For some unknown reason, Nekopara had it's E-rating changed back into an M-rating on the store. Strange.
https://store.playstation.com/en-us/product/UP0287-CUSA12297_00-NEKOPARA010000US

The "M" rating has been on PSN for at least two weeks. Back when the game was still "E" on PSN, the ESRB website only had it rated for the Switch; chances are, the "E" rating was always a (dumb) placeholder. Someone should have had the common sense to at least stick a "T" on the title, but whatever. Funnily enough, now on the ESRB site, the game is only listed for the PS4, so its entry continues to be borked.

Regarding Arc of Alchemist, here's the direct link to the forum post at the Idea Factory site, showing the game's art alteration:
https://forum.ideafintl.com/post/show_single_post?pid=1306238526&postcount=48&forum=327411.

It's hard to imagine Idea Factory suddenly wanted to stick the character in a poorly-drawn tube top. The question is whether this change is the result of direct Sony meddling or are we already seeing games being proactively altered to avoid Sony's Censorship Division.

 

[The Mad Draklor]

New day new game getting censored by Soyny.

https://www.oneangrygamer.net/2018/11/death-end-request-cleavage-censored-in-japan-on-ps4/72384/

Here is a Let's Play of the new Nintendo Switch Senran Kagura game to wash the bad taste of Sony censorship news.

Sony is acting like Stewie when he saw Hustle Magazine for the first time.

Women have cleavage. Boobs are a thing. I don’t see how it’s such a big deal as Sony is making it to be.

 

[Pot Meet Kettle]

"There won't be any mysterious white lights. We will try to go as far as we can without them." Then... game is censored in ways that don't involve white lights. When pressed on it, developers clarify that

1. they didn't technically say it "won't be censored", they just confirmed it wasn't with white lights
2. they sympathize with the fans, didn't do this out of their own volition, don't agree with this and will try and find other ways to release the game uncut

Happened with Arc of Alchemist (no prior version released, but existing pre-release images and a suspicious delay), Nekopara (existing PC/Switch version)... and now...

https://gematsu.com/2018/11/atlus-r...ony-regulations-affecting-catherine-full-body

I will report this here for everyone.​

There are no mysterious lights in Catherine: Full Body. (We went as far as we could go without the light shining.) To everyone worried about that, we love you. (We received about 10 more of the same question.)​

– Studio Zero Sheep Man No. 1​

It's the exact same style of avoiding denying outright that censorship happened at all (compared to an existing PS3 version) and the part "as far as we could go" was used in Atlus' damage control about Tokyo Mirage Sessions' infamously butchered US release (that tried to clarify the situation honestly, without also throwing Nintendo Treehouse, where the blame lies squarely for the censorship)

It doesn't seem Japanese players are very happy about the situation. The game sure seems to be "missing" stuff from the trailers for the PS4 version that some fans tried to explain away with the different story structure for this version (which is apparently like what Persona 4 Golden was to the original Persona 4) but the situation will eventually sort itself out whenever the game releases. It also bears mention that the US release for Catherine's remake got delayed indefinitely, which sure seems suspicious, and that Persona 5 (out in 2016 in Japan then 2017 worldwide) had some story content cut from both versions very likely at the behest not of CERO or internal suits, but Sony (seeing most of those lines made it to the anime adaptation on public channels that have traditionally very conservative content guidelines)...

Another fun fact: Catherine on PS3 was released unaltered in Saudi Arabia.

Some say Atlus isn't very enthusiastic about Sony due to their treatment in the PS2 era, but it remains to be seen how they will react to these new developments. The Shin Megami Tensei series is already no longer on the PlayStation ecosystem (which might be as much corporate politics as Sony guidelines about offensive content, the religious as much as the sexual kind, since it's on their PS4 guidelines list from 2013 for indies, and Final Fantasy XV had a major story rewrite pre-release for "sexist tropes regarding Luna" from the same leaker for the game's entire plot, and something about "evil organized religions" to "fit western regulatory body requirements" that was also corroborated by the developers)

As always, wait and see. But you know what to look out for.

 

[Pot Meet Kettle]

One more thing about white lights...

The one game that used them got an update patch that replaced all scenes that used them with redrawn CG that doesn't use them. As for why would the developer even update that content for that censored version, many possibilities raise to mind

• Sony hates the Japanese market for these games (why there's a policy at all, that doesn't use the local CERO guidelines that the Japanese public was involved in suggesting improvements for, and shaping in general) and hates their developers (why the approval process is in English suddenly while other countries have it in their local languages like German or French or whatever, why only Japanese developers have to worry about rating the game TWICE, why it's drawn out with unexpected delays and no appeal process to cause as much damage possible to developers than depend on those releases to survive, and why Western developers get away with more)... but not enough to hate their money, so they don't want the censorship to be too obvious.
• The white lights were always a temporary measure until a "proper bug-fix" was implemented in an update in a grace period that's usually a month (guess what, it checks out) or else the developer faces legal retributions from whatever exclusivity contract they signed with Sony already ("you're not supporting the game's release enough") and the game pulled down from stores with all the money spent on that port down the drain.
• Sony is aware that "white lights", "sorry for this intermission, we'll be back", "black mist", "oversized chibi heads covering parts of the screen", or screens with a disclaimer that says "this game was censored to meet sony's demands" (if it was CERO or PEGI, it would be fine) are an obvious telltale that this version was compromised, and now saying or giving away the game is censored might be also not allowed whether in-game with subtle hints, or outside the game (developer statements) The takeaway from this is that the South Park tactic isn't probably allowed either.

 

[JunkerWoland]

Even taking into account the tendency of Japanese developers to be purposefully ambiguous, the ATLUS staff must know how consumers will interpret their decision to only respond to their being no mysterious rays of light in Catherine. It'll be interesting to see whether they choose to make any clarifying statements, prior to the game's release. At least the Western market will have some idea of where the game stands, once the company finally gets around to announcing international release dates.

 

[JordanN]

Saw this funny fanart satirizing the new censorship.

Looks like California and China have a lot more in common than we think.

 

[Senhua]

Censorship update:
PS4 version of Sengokuhime7 got nipple under bra censored (white bikini girl):

Bigger image at the site:
Vita
ps4