It's something that's gotten a few people really worked up over the past few years--various Nintendo games getting altered in some way when they come to the US. Here's a brief list, but I might've missed some:

Fire Emblem: Awakening -- Tharja's swimsuit bottom covered by curtain

Super Smash Bros. for 3DS -- Tharja trophy removed

Fatal Frame 5 -- Underwear/bikini outfits removed, including in a story sequence (replaced with Nintendo character outfits as unlockables)

Xenoblade Chronicles X -- "Boob slider" removed, underage character outfit altered

Fire Emblem: Fates -- "Petting" minigame mostly removed except certain situations when married, purchasable "bikini" outfits removed

Bravely Second -- Native American style outfit changed to cowboy/cowgirl, some outfits covered up, art book pages modified to remove blood or scantily clad girls, bad endings for certain choice-driven sidequests removed (it's a little unclear if this is NOA or not, but they're publishing the game in the West so it might be)

Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE -- Covering revealing clothing

I thought it might be good to talk about the latest Nintendo controversy and see what you guys think. Is the localization team not doing their job well by altering content? Are the games better off without the extra sexuality? Is the principle more important than that? And is today's censorship any more or less acceptable than NOA's censorship in the 80s to mid-90s? Let's hear what you guys think! (and add to the list if I missed any recent examples)

URL to share (right click and copy)

Is there a reason you posted this in an old thread about NOA censorship? Let's stay on topic and not create another tropes thread here.

Yeah stache, that video has nothing to do with girls who rock boy haircuts.

@Mr_Mustache
@nate38

That has everything to do with clothes that look painted on / sexualizing a girl with painted on pants. Also, like this "variant" cover that caused such a stir, that "over the shoulder pose" is ALSO a variant. You can see it right on the Overwatch screenshot, there are multiple to choose from, and its not even the first one.

(Also, I'm not sure how "old" threads are when the most recent post was less than a week ago..)

Yeah but Overwatch wasn't the point of this thread, I only brought it up to show how a developer responded to the idea that they were "self-censoring" their own works or whatever, which WAS the point of this thread. It could have been anyone really, they're just one of the few devs who has been openly vocal about the process. Nintendo almost never makes public responses about the behind the scenes on this stuff.

If you can find a way to tie the video into the OP, fine, but you just kind of posted it without comment. We're trying to not have these open-ended tropes type threads anymore, keeping threads more on-topic.

@Zero

Yeah I dunno, that video seemed pretty relevant to the discussion(s) here. *shrugs*

Guy made some good points too, IMO.

It's a tough call but we decided awhile back and had talks about how to keep these kind of threads on-topic as best as possible. Matt and I talked about it in private and we moved forward with him specifically targeting Nintendo, instead of having a more open-ended thread. He asked some very precise questions:

Is the localization team not doing their job well by altering content?
Are the games better off without the extra sexuality?
Is the principle more important than that?
And is today's censorship any more or less acceptable than NOA's censorship in the 80s to mid-90s?

Staying on the topic of Nintendo is kind of important, unless we WANT another tropes thread, which I sure don't. And a video posted with no commentary to tie it to the OP or anything specific anyone was discussing a week after everyone stopped talking about it just kind of feels like someone wants to talk about the video, not Nintendo's decisions.

Stache can correct me if I am wrong, but he didn't add anything to tie it to anything in the conversation, and now that he is trying to add to it, he is only loosely relating it to a topic that was already a side topic. Which is sort of exactly how the tropes thread got out of hand... it stopped being about the OP (Anita) and started being about any random thing related to gender / feminism anyone felt like talking about at any time.

I guess I sorta moved the conversation away from Blizzard's statement that patching things due to internal and external disappointment is not "censorship," and more towards the undeniable sexiness of girls with boy haircuts who just dip their lower-halves in body paint instead of wearing pants. I apologize for making this thread way cooler than intended.

@Zero

When watching that video (and Nikki is a Spider-Woman fan, so I'm quite familiar with that cover. I didn't get it because I don't like the way its drawn, nothing to do with her ass being offensive), the first thing I thought of was your post in this thread, especially when the world-renowned artist was talking about painted on clothing. If your picture wasn't relevant, I guess the video isn't relevant..and if is, it is. *shrug* (Thats two shrugs now)

Half the posts on page 3 are related to the pics that were posted, and a number of them went into further detail about boy haircuts on girls..which has nothing to do with censorship or NOA or the OP.


Comics and videogames have similar audiences with similar fanbases, and this video is nearly two years old..but would you even know it? Its the same stuff we hear constantly. I thought the point about Spider-Man's ballsac outline was interesting.

nate38 said:

I apologize for making this thread way cooler than intended.

You are indeed a monster.

@Mr_Mustache You're right, my picture wasn't particularly relevant... by itself. Which is why I wrote about it and how it gives us a behind the scenes look into how a game company under similar scrutiny to Nintendo decided to make the decision to remove content. Some of the conversation before that was about whether people complaining and Nintendo changing things means Nintendo was pressured into censorship, etc. and the comments from the Overwatch dev gave an interesting perspective to that.

Your video might have some insight into that discussion, but you didn't SAY anything to tie it into the conversation we were having... a week ago. Felt to me like you just wanted to vaguely talk about Spider butt, which isn't really what this thread is about.

It might not be about boy cuts either, but that was a brief aside that addressed things people were talking about and has no danger of leading us back into TROPES TERRITORY.

@Zero

I tried to post something different (not that video) a few nights ago, and your site erased everything I wrote when I pressed "post." I didn't feel like writing it all over again, and that was that. Sometimes I go "UGH, LOST MY POST, HERE"S THE SHORT VERSION," but that one I lost, just wasn't feeling it that night. Sucks, because I had stuff to say. My thought train is long gone.

Did you watch that video? I think the stuff about "sexualization" being in the head of the beholder is important, and DEFINITELY ties into videogames stuff, and that picture you posted. Theres plenty of old art with naked women and humongous boobs, etc., but those are "works of art," and not viewed a certain way. Its weird that one person in a videogame can cause such a stir. He makes a lot of good points though, Maddox; you should watch some of this other videos. I don't want to post them on NW, but he's got good stuff on-- Yeah. I don't even wanna say, feel free to sift. He has some quick E3 reviews, and he really liked Mad Max, so maybe you'll like that one..which is interestingly enough, also an E3 review.

The picture I posted was about a developer's perspective on "self-censorship", the content was sort of irrelevant to the point that the developers agreed with the person criticizing their work and didn't think the change was going against their artistic vision. In fact as you can see in the OP this thread is about a whole variety of content, some sexual, some not.

I watched about a minute of the video and lost interest. Already seen that argument 100 times before.

@Zero

"Watched about a minute." Cool, then I guess you got the whole story.

Thats equivalent to reading the first 9 words of anyone's post before writing it off (which halfway explains why people seem to give tons of examples in posts -- T-Bun was recently talking about some lists he made that went largely ignored, for example -- and nothing is referenced or acknowledged.). Bad habit, and not very nice either.


This is a message board, not an echo chamber.

Sorry your video bored me and I've seen the same exact argument before. Not particularly interested in it.

Actually I'll try to clarify this more. When spiderbuttgate hit I watched a lot of videos, read a lot of articles, etc. On all sides of things. I've probably read and watched more than anyone here on spiderbuttgate. I don't think there are any new arguments on it that are going to sweep me off my feet, and Maddox started off looking like a complete rehash of arguments I've already seen on spiderbuttgate, which just mirror arguments I've already seen on other issues. It didn't make me want to spend more time watching this video, but that's not your fault Stache, I've just seen and heard enough about spiderbuttgate that it's all a big wash now.

Actually come to think of it Maddox as a whole kind of bores me though. Never found him interesting, even wayyyyyy back before I was super leftist and when his stuff was one of the few things on the Internet anyone talked about.

@Zero

Did you even get to the point when he went "oops?" Because the beginning of the video, he was doing EXACTLY what you were saying, and the last 5 minutes of the video was completely different stuff. That first part is called an "intro." Its designed to bring the viewer up to speed if they're unfamiliar with a topic. After you said you watched about a minute (and before my last post), I went back and watched the first minute...and NOTHING happened there. By design.

And I don't know how you can't be entertained by Maddox. Thats an entirely different situation. You'd be the first person I've encountered who DIDN'T enjoy him.

@DrFinkelstein

And this is ANOTHER problem with this place; so many people think GIGANTIC FIGHTS are just constantly springing out of nothing, like when Sexy_Conzo and JKR were talking about European politics, and people we like "JUST CALM DOWN, GUYS!!," and they're both like "uhhhh...what? Who ISN'T calm??" Its almost the same as egging on two people in a schoolyard who don't feel like fighting, in a sense. "Are we in a fight? I guess we are? Everyone thinks we are? So we are??" Dumb.

@Mr_Mustache

lol, Stache, you two as a couple just reminds me of like, The Odd Couple. And the song This Is Why We Fight came into my head from The Decemberists. So I posted some lyrics. Love that band.

I wondered if it would be taken into some greater context but eh, I dunno, I posted it anyway. You and Andrew aren't fighting here. Nor are you guys very heated at all. Luke warm really. We're all calm here brotha.

I guess so I can add a comment regarding something from before my post, I watched your whole video. The guy, while kinda off-putting how he presents himself a little to me, still made some interesting points. I can see where they would carry over into certain aspects of video games culture. I don't have any examples to cite regarding NOA's changes but still, I understood the gist of the video. So this guy is named Maddox? He has a series I'm guessing? Is he all about these kinds of videos or does he do others too?

@DrFinkelstein

He doesn't really do much on videogames, though he has some on E3 shows that he's been to, and he hates "story" in games nowadays and dumps all over that. Good watch. At the risk of tainting this thread, I'd suggest just hitting the little YouTube thing up there and go to his page instead. I posted one in the YouTube thread about a cricket that was in his house, and I just watched now (after watching last night) videos about horrible inventions that people like that actually suck (ie: bendy straw), ripping on people doing "life hacks," and things that he hates about modern horror movies. I guess? he's hit or miss. His "gimmick" is that he's super angry. He had a webpage way before YouTube stuff, read that crap way back when I was in college, possibly high school. maddox.xmission.com

EDIT- Link was being weird, so its just typed out instead of hyperlinked..

Mr_Mustache said:

And this is ANOTHER problem with this place; so many people think GIGANTIC FIGHTS are just constantly springing out of nothing

Ooooh. A Redneck bar.