Ahh yes. Banning a game has been proven very effective in getting people to not play it. Totally not going to download this right now and check it out.
Good to know the UK has it's priorities straight in the protection of pixels arranged to form an indeed incredibly realistic depiction of a human being, as is usually the case with things originating from Japan
Damn those gamers killing those pixel people with their pixel guns and those japanese people abusing those pixel children that they themselves created with a stylus and a tablet
for once this government did something right, best to stem this plague of anime scum and villainy
It's not worth the time or effort. These things are at best bland game play wise and whatever amusement you gain from laughing at the pervy shit is gonna run dry real quick.
They're made to rope in horny otaku with fetish like content and one dimensional character design (OK, this is the girl for the glasses crowd, here's the obligatory tsundere with twin tails, this one has the mental capabilities of an elementary schooler combined with massive tits...). Once you get over the lewd all you have is a soulless, uninspired JRPG.
Anime was a mistake.
The Video Standards Council said the "likely harm" it would do to the young people it was aimed at meant it would not get an age rating.
Almost forgot this game was aimed at young people.
Surely all the kids at school would be rushing home to their PSvitas to play Omega Labyrinth Z.
I don't like when people ban content that they deem "harmful," but if you're going to do it then at least admit that the primary audience of these games are greasy acne-filled middleaged men living in their parent's basement's basement.
Shouldn't be able to ban anything, just put it into a ridiculous classification if you think it's so spooky, or bar its sale based on proven legal violations.
I don't think many people here want to have sex with children, what I am sure isn't popular here is punishing people for creating fiction.
i didnt realize fake things were real things
I didn't realize I was on ResetEra/Neogaf
It's scary to think people still can't tell the difference between video games and reality.
Are you equating drawn 2D images of alien eyed girls to actual child porn? Pretty fucked up man.
i think its pretty fair to not approve of a society/industry that normalizes violence and panders to those that like grotesque displays of violence
you have to realize when youre just being silly about it man. i dont even care about the game that much but its retarded to ban something thats entirely fictional, and honestly isnt even the worst of its "kind" when its just another generic ecchi game. actual CP is bad since its actively hurting people and is just all around fucked up (i shouldnt even really have to explain any further than that.) this isnt hurting anyone at any point in any way so just let it be.
Hey folks, wake up, haven't heard about gaming VPN???? It bypass all the gaming restrictions imposed by the regional authorities. Fetch it and get your gaming craze excelled now.
Ah yes, this game is obviously for pedophiles.
https://youtu.be/fXhTbKTeTHk
Look at these massive tits. Just like a child.
you can't fool me saville, oppai loli is still loli
Many of these challenges and mini-games had sexual themes, said the
VSC, involving players "touching" and "arousing" the characters and
removing their clothes.
The characters are described as "young
girls" and their voices and appearance reinforce this impression, said
the VSC. One, referred to as a "first year", is depicted holding a teddy
bear.
Now I've not played the game so I couldn't say for certain but that sounds like you'd be groping a first year student which is to imply that they are very young indeed.
"First year" students are 16, which is above the age of consent in Japan and many other countries, including some states in the US.
So in other words, if they change the location to a university it would be okay?
Again, I ain't played the game, I'm just saying that based on what the article says it sounded like a young student. In the UK "first year" could either be the first year of Primary School, Secondary School, College OR University. First year Students at Primary(aged 4-5) OR Secondary School(aged 11-12) would be below the age of consent even for Japan.
So basically yes, if they changed the location to a university (or clarified that the characters are above the age of consent) then I see no reason why there should be any legal restrictions to the sale of this game.
I imagine the classification board, based on how the artstyle made the characters apppear younger and how "school" in the UK generally refers to either Primary or Secondary School I can see how they might have drawn the conclusion that underaged children were being depicted in sexual acts.
However as dustyjo pointed
The characters depicted are of consenting age, which is something I didn't know beforehand and I doubt many people in the UK would know that this is the case. As a result I think this game was given its classification as a result of what is basically a cultural misunderstanding, the VSC reviewed this media at face value and made a decision as such.
Now you could say that they should have had a deeper look into it but its not in the job description of a VSC employee to do a deep investigation on the background of every piece of media that comes their way and they likely have never had to investigate anything deeper beforehand. What would make this game any different from any other movie or game that got pushed their way?
However to make a counterpoint, if a game gets a rating (or refusal of a rating) based on misinformation, a mistake or was affected due to lack of certain details then should they not at least re-review something once this information has come to light?
Whenever you hear stuff like "first year" and such in an anime context it's almost always a high school. The girls in this game are 16-18 years old.
I might've misspoke, what I meant was "why would they not use the same process of "taking the game as it appears to them" on this game like the do with other games."
Its rather interesting, and I could be wrong as my knowledge on how the BBFC and VSC issue (or in this case, don't) an age rating.
How I think it works is they are basically given the media in question and view it in a vacuum, either that or they jsut get given a transcript of the game, read that and make a judgement.
Its actually rather hard to "fully" classify a videogame if you think about it. A lot of what's bad and what's not is based on context, with a film its easy because context is given and events, scenes and imagery will be the same every single viewing for every single viewer.
In Deus Ex(The first one) I can give drugs to a hooker then beat her to a bloody pulp with my bare nano-augmented hands and if I used that to describe the game to some Age Ratings board I get the feeling that it would get a super-duper 18+ rating as opposed to the 16+ it currently has.
In games like Fallout you can carve a bloody swathe through the wasteland or go out of your way to be a power-armoured saint (after you break away from the near mandatory "Join the bigoted Brotherhood of steel" segment in Fo4) who only ever acts in self defence and does his best to bring peace and prosperity wherever he treads.
One players actions in a game would give it a much lower rating than another's.
whatever your thoughts are on the subject matter, I really have to ask
does anyone sincerely think that people are going to play this farcical soft core breast expansion fetish roguelike RPG with magic and fairies and then think "y'know the characters in this are underage, I should go molest some underage girls"
like is this really some great evil society needs to be protected from?
Some worry that it could have an impression on people, to suggest an example lets take the rise in alt-right propaganda that is leading to a rise in alt-right opinions.
Now a fetish isn't directly comparable to a fetish but this sort of thing does happen even if some people are smart enough to know that propaganda is fabricated there's something that does help it slip through the cracks and take root in a persons head. I've spoken with a person who indeed was considered to be smart and an independent thinker only for them to eventually fall prey to alt-right propaganda and genuinely believe in the various racist principles this particular group was upholding. People are more impressionable that you might think, not saying that a grown ass man will run out there and grab some underage titty the second they see it on screen but some people over repeated exposure might begin to see something as acceptable when they otherwise would not.
Then there's point two, in that the VSC (possibly mistakenly) think that this game, based on it's artstyle and general themes besides sexualization, was aimed at younger people. The most exposure anyone bar the beardiest of neckbeards has to anime over here is the likes of the child friendly Saturday morning cartoons like the Pokemon show, Dragonball Z and Yu-Gi-Oh, as such they may well have (and indeed the article suggests) that they believe the "cartoon art style" to be aimed towards children in the 7-10 age range as these cartoons are often aimed at over here. They think that these younger people might develop an unhealthy sexual attitude if allowed exposure to this medium and because of how easy it is to bypass age restricted sales they decided not to condone it at all and refuse a rating.
I mean the effect of alt right propaganda is closely tied to a lot of other factors. it isn't like otherwise unassuming people stumble into enough "rapefugees taking over our country" ads on facebook and start marching with identity evropa. Not only is the climate completely different, but the content itself is presenting itself in a completely different context. IE, one claims to depict reality, and the other claims to be as far from reality as it is physically possible to be.
I get that you're not necessarily endorsing their reasoning, but I find it really funny that anyone would think this is aimed at a young audience. I can guarantee you that there are more children under twelve who play GTA5 than there are who know the omega labyrinth series even exists. Maybe even more than there are people who know it exists.
Are there people who might be "inspired" by media to do bad things? Yeah, probably. People can be really fuckin crazy. People can be inspired to do almost anything for almost any reason. What I would ask is, is there anything to indicate that that's the case in this instance? Is there anything to indicate that this weeaboo titty game would have a deleterious effect on society?
Propaganda is a very different beast from honest fiction.
I don't think its reasonable for an age ratings board to change or slacken its own guidelines on the basis that "people might not play it" they review each game in a vacuum as far as I am aware. Their conclusion might be wrong but their method is certainly reasonable.
Secondarily modern media can have an impact on society, I would wager there are several yobby so-and-so's you've seen who dress like and attempt to imitate their favourite rap-artist and the image of a lifestyle they portray via their music. Anecdotal as this is but I saw the weedy wimp in my class go from quiet player of video games to hoodie wearing, backwards capped, gang-sign throwing foul mouthed yob over the course of a few years after he got into rap music in rather a big way.
To re-state, this game in particular, or so I've been told does not contain children below the age of consent depicted in sexual or sexually suggestive situations. So I don't think that this game in particular should be denied a rating as this refusal of rating was issued under a wrong assumption.
However I personally think that content involving children below the age of consent depicted in sexual or sexually suggestive situations is rather a moral line that people should not cross and while I do not actively support a government body in their decision to censor or restrict a medium for such a reason, I don't think that a decision to do so is unreasonable. It might be a "moral guardians" issue but I don't think that anyone should be creating any such content and it seems reasonable enough to condemn its creation buy forbidding its consumption. If the VSC genuinely believe that a piece of content might contain such images then I fully understand why they would refuse to issue it an age rating.
While society at large may not be harmed I still think its fine to not tolerate its creation or distribution on the grounds that it's in-line with commonly accepted moral principles. As for consumption, with regards to fictional drawn imagery anyway, the ramifications of this need only be social. If someone decides to play this game on their phone on the bus then I don't think they should be surprised if they get some funny looks and/or comments.
And yes, while morality is a matter of opinion, many morals such as the sexualization of children are widley held to the point where most every person agree with them and thus agrees to uphold them. These sorts of things have a habit of finding their way into law.
It's okay to find this gross, what I don't find reasonable is thinking that people should be punished for creating such content, you may not think someone should create content like this, but from my point of view they have the right to do it.
Yes it's weird, but it's their art, it's their vision, and they have all the right to express it as long as it doesn't cross into reality IMO.
This now goes right into "this is my opinion" territory but I do think there are some lines that should not be crossed.
I would say that "underage children in sexual situations" is one of them but context is important.
Say we had a game or a film where some scumbag kidnaps and rapes a young child and its portrayed as a negative thing, that's fine because this abhorrent act is being used as a device to show how evil this character is.
Say we had a comedian making jokes about how slutty children are dressing these days and its starting to become little wonder that paedophiles are becoming more apparent perhaps even making a cheeky "well theres no other action around in [insert town here] anyway" joke. Fine.
Say we had something that was basically just groping underage children, not portrayed as negative, not for any kind of joke or to make some kind of point, just as is. Yeah no I don't think thats ok.
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