Sony Cracks Down On Sexually Explicit Content In Games (engadget.com)

Slashdot reader xavdeman writes: Hot on the heels of its announcement of the specifications of the next PlayStation, Sony has revealed a new crackdown on explicit content. Citing "the rise of the #MeToo movement" and a concern of "legal and social action" in the USA, Sony has said it wants to address concerns about the depiction of women in video games playable on its platform as well as protect children's "sound growth and development." The new rules were reportedly already responsible for puritan cutscene alterations in the Western PS4 release of the multi-platform title Devil May Cry 5, where lens flares were used to cover up partial nudity.

Comments

Think of the children

[jwymanm]

Seriously. If we become a sexless society we will have less and less children. Add that with more pent up assholes like religious figures we'll see even more pedophilia. Blocking sexuality is actually hurting children because they will simply just not be born. Any ones that are born have future endless humanity self loathing/personality neutralizing laws to look forward to. Like giving up eating steak so you can live 5 years longer on a 70 year boring life. Thanks poundmetoo

Re:Think of the children

[gweihir]

Have you ever learned anything about the effect of porn exposure on kids sex lives? It's not good.

Citation needed. Seriously. Because all the studies I have seen say something else (basically: "no effect") and the only sources for your claims seem to be rather problematic, mostly religion and its demented disciples.

Re:Think of the children

[rogoshen1]

Men: "dang, geralt is ripped, i wish i looked like him. I'll do trial of the grasses (read as: hit the gym) and stop stuffing my fat fucking face")
Women*: "that outfit is too skimpy, and it sets unrealistic standards for women's bodies. Hey, mcdonalds sounds good, i haven't ate in 2 hours"

*the type who bitch about video games and how women are depicted, while COMPLETELY missing that men are idealized in these games too. Oh, and somehow missing that they are god damn works of fiction. If you wanted to see average, chunky people just go outside and hang out at bus stops or the local K-mart.

Re:Think of the children

[rogoshen1]

However, if Sony doesn't have the infrastructure and procedures in place to protect children as they'd like and still offer the material, it's up to them to remove it.

You almost had it. Here:

However, if Sony doesn't have the infrastructure and procedures in place to protect children as they'd like and still offer the material, it's up to [[THE PARENTS]] to remove it [[from their children's reach]]

Re:Think of the children

[jwymanm]

Because a girl or guy in a skimpy outfit vs not skimpy outfit while impaling another character with their sword is the same as a fist pounding someone's ass. Thanks for the education. Parental control is exactly that. PARENTS CONTROLLING THEIR KIDS. Not the media being controlled by SJW or any other knee jerking triggered idiot. This is simply the eradication of provocative material for the mistaken attempt at controlling sexual behavior or misbehavior as defined by a minority of religious zealots. It's not up for Sony to remove or censor it. It's up to you to not buy the game for their kid if you find it offensive. Why don't we just go ahead and whitewash all material. Why is graphical material always the target? What is in pictures or moving pictures that people trigger so easily when written word is rarely (but still) banned. A ton of females read very graphical sexual novels but we're supposed to believe they are harmed or feel ashamed because some other girls decide to be depicted showing their skin/human shape. It's bullshit. Animals go naked every day with their schlongs hanging out and hump each other in front of each other. We're the only species to cry about it when we even see a glimpse of it. Like we're some precious frigging fragile beings that can't handle our own breeding/hormonal stimulation from visuals.

Re:Think of the children

[KingStannis]

Fewer.

Re:Think of the children

[jwymanm]

I completely agree with this. But I think it's already done. The men almost always have huge muscles and fight in what could be considered loincloths in quite a few games. Men go bare chested but because women have larger mammary glands they seem to trigger sensitive people so it's a horrible thing to show them. By fighting and prohibiting nudity in damn near any setting that is the entire reason why it is such a sensitive subject. Aborigines hang all their stuff out in the open from early age to death. Nobody seems to find each other in their group offensive. You can watch National Geographic and not consider it porn! Imagine that.

Re:Think of the children

[Immerman]

That's power-fantasy objectification though, not sexual objectification.

Ask yourself (better yet, ask your women friends) - are Conan the Barbarian, Superman, etc. characters created for men to fantasize about being, or for women to fantasize about fucking? Then ask yourself the same (gender-flipped) question about the women portrayed in the same medium.

The two fantasies tend to be very different, and you only need to look at the target audience (and gender of the character designers) to get a pretty good idea which it is.

Re:Think of the children

[suutar]

Certainly the men are idealized in the games too. But they're still aimed at male ideals - what men want to be like, more than what women want to look at.

Re:Think of the children

[bobbied]

However, if Sony doesn't have the infrastructure and procedures in place to protect children as they'd like and still offer the material, it's up to them to remove it.

You almost had it. Here:

However, if Sony doesn't have the infrastructure and procedures in place to protect children as they'd like and still offer the material, it's up to [[THE PARENTS]] to remove it [[from their children's reach]]

I as assuming that Sony was reacting to what they thought was a good business decision. Maybe they understand that parents like me would be tossing Sony products out of the house to remove the material from their children's reach and thought that they'd be better of if they remove the material and keep that market share?

Maybe this is about keeping market share and not about censorship of material with specific content. Maybe Sony is just trying to keep their customer base and they see this as the best way?

Re:Think of the children

[rogoshen1]

Is it unheard of for women wanting to be what men want to look at? (not that they'd ever admit to it.)

i'd wager basketball shorts and a loose fitting T-shirt are JUST as comfortable as yoga pants and a halter top.

(inb4 weak ass incel comments.)

Re:Think of the children

[bobbied]

Maybe, just maybe, Sony is making a business decision, not a moral one?

Maybe they think that by removing this kind of material they will keep parents who see the issue like I do from tossing their PlayStations and keep them as customers?

Nintendo had quite the following with the Wii family of games. Seems to me they kept strict control of the kinds of games and content allowed and it worked well for their business model. MAYBE... Just, maybe, Sony is thinking that it will be better for their business to do this and are not passing moral judgment on anything themselves.

Re:Think of the children

[gweihir]

What studies have you seen?

Wrong question. You are the one with the claim here, not me.

The studies I've heard about pretty much indicate that exposure to porn at a young age can lead to addictions to same and a difficulty to successfully establish and maintain healthy sexual identities. It *can* lead to the inability to actually interact with *people* in an appropriate sexual way as most porn is unrealistic on many levels. I heard a guy the other day complaining that he could not have a normal (to him) sex life because of his early porn addiction had made arousal impossible without porn, and the women he was in relationships with found that to be unacceptable.

"Porn Addiction" is a myth. It is used by people to excuse behavior towards others that these others find unacceptable. It is also a lie pushed by diverse religious groups to justify their anti-porn (and anti-sex) stance.

We don't let them drink for a reason. We don't sell them cigarettes for a reason.

You are mixing fact and fiction here. Alcohol consumption and smoking in humans too young is solidly scientifically known to cause life-long negative effects. For porn that is not known and when you look at actually neutrally funded (!) studies, they have not found anything. Same as with violence, incidentally. But, as I already said, you are the one with the claim here, please provide proof.

Re: Think of the children

[poity]

Scantily clad women in irl slutwalk: Good
Scantily clad women in vidya games: Bad

So the skin factor isn't the honest reason. I think it might just be jealousy. Them well-poportioend polygons, man...

Re:Think of the children

[Anonymous Coward]

So what? It makes sense to give the buyer what the buyer wants.

Re:Think of the children

[UnknownSoldier]

If we tell you it will no longer be a secret. :-) /s

Re:Think of the children

[Anonymous Coward]

Tons of those games exist. They don't get marketed much here because there's still a strong perception in the west that anything to do with computers is Boy Stuff. But you can find them if for some reason you want.
Likewise there's no real shortage of pretty guys in speedos throughout movies, anime, whatever. You aren't getting the ads for it because they're not targeted for you. They still exist, no matter how much the lefties want to pretend they don't just to score political points.

Re:Think of the children

[Pinky's Brain]

Nintendo is publishing the Bayonetta sequels, normies don't care about objectification.

Sony are just making themselves a juicier target by showing weakness and creating animosity towards themselves. Get woke, go broke is hyperbole ... but there are only net negative gains to be had by value signalling like this.

As a rule a gaming company should simply not give social justice any attention and make sure gaming websites realise that asking them questions to take a stand in that regard will just earn them no future interviews.

Re:Think of the children

[Anonymous Coward]

I am a man with no kids, and your plan will not motivate me to have kids.

I'm the original poster and a man with no kids nor a wife/girfriend. My suggests weren't aimed at people who had already decided to not have kids for non-economical reasons. People in that category can't reasonably be satiated of their needs, nor should efforts be made to do so*. The point I was making is that there are plenty of people who want children and even have them with all the adversity that companies and society places on top of the actual child-rearing. It doesn't make sense to further that burden if the goal is to increase the number of kids otherwise successful parents want to and will have.

4) The necessary involvement of a woman invites even more legal and financial risks that can completely destroy a man's life (false rape/abuse accusations, palimony, divorce, not to mention being on the receiving end of emotional abuse).

So, you're an incel prick.

1) Change our laws and culture such that divorce, false accusations, etc. are so rare that they simply aren't an issue.
2) Change women to be appreciative, supportive, and respectful rather than demanding, expensive, and abusive.

Uh, fuck you. The only part I'd agree with is divorce, especially when it comes to things like child support and who raises the children. The rest of it, you're just proving how much of a prick you are. You make it sound like most the men you know were false accused and are constantly abused by the women they know. If they're in such unhealthy relationships, they should seek help.
  There's no part of what you say, though, that explains why you personally can't seem to find a woman who is reasonably appreciative, supportive, etc; my personal guess is you over imagine what is reasonable and/or you're a magnet for asshole women. I mean, it makes sense give you come across as an asshole men.

3) Change earning power such that we can actually afford to raise kids without giving up our retirement savings.

There's no way to do that. The most one can do is make reasonable considerations (dependent deductions in the tax code already exist). What I suggested were reasonable additions to the employment code to grant parents reasonably access to their child on a gender-neutral standard to reduce sexism in the workplace. If you live in an area with a lot of two income (or more) households, you simply need to move elsewhere to have any chance of having decent buying power--earning power is not the issue.

1) Give me a legal and morally acceptable way to hand the kid off to a lifelong boarding school at an affordable price, and make me actually innocent until proven guilty if my girlfriend decides to join the #metoo movement out of revenge for me not becoming her slave.

I hope you die alone without children. You sound like by all standards you'd be a horrible parent. No effort should be made to support you in procreation. The whole notion that you invoke a phantom girlfriend to justify your horrible mindset is just disgusting.
  If you have so many issues with the girlfriends you want being such horrible assholes, the problem is almost certainly that you're an asshole who's horrible at choosing girlfriends.

* I agree with the part about children being a substantial time, money, and emotional commitment. I can respect people who are unwilling to put the effort into those areas. Blaming women as part of that is absolutely absurd. Similarly, if you want to be totally independent you probably can't be married to anyone. That's not a fault of women. Being in a long-term committed relationship is about not wanting to be that independent because that's not what having a long-term committed relationship is about. In short, I realize I'm too selfish to be married, so I haven't tried to burden someone else.

Re:Think of the children

[fenrif]

I think Conan is created for both fantasies, just as Barbie is. I also think you are being sexist in assuming women do not fantasise about being beautiful and don't fantasise about well built men. And vice versa.

Re: Think of the children

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll tell you a shocking secret. The sexy women in videogames are made up are not real!

But pixels are people too.

Re:Think of the children

[Anonymous Coward]

Men should respect their wives and not make false accusations and abuse them - wooooh, yeah, damned right.

Women should respect their husbands - YOU FUCKING CIS PIG INCEL. PATRIARCHY! PATRIARCHY! WOMEN SHOULD BE FREE TO BEHAVE ANY WAY THEY LIKE.

This is the modern west. I hope you die in a fire.

Re: Think of the children

[Opportunist]

Hey, hey, hey, over here in Europe you can let your tits swing freely, man or woman!

Re: Think of the children

[Opportunist]

Yeah. One make a fuss and one let me wank in peace.

Re:Think of the children

[Opportunist]

Then I'd guess they're making the wrong kind of game. Because one thing's certain, nobody who has an alternative will get DMC5 on a Sony console now. And DMC games aren't exactly the "family friendly" kind of game series, ya know...

Re:Think of the children

[thegarbz]

I think Conan is created for both fantasies, just as Barbie is.

You've never been to a cinema with a woman if you think that Conan was in anyway targeted towards that fantasy.

Re: Think of the children

[Cederic]

Given that many female video game characters are created by women your point is wrong.
Given that many female video game characters are enjoyed and welcomed by women your point is wrong.
Given that sexy women in video games are supposedly taboo yet are no more sexualised than the apparently perfectly acceptable male characters in the same fucking games, your point is wrong.

It's just people determined to take offence getting irate that they're not in control of someone else's hobby. Fuck them.

Re:Think of the children

[Cederic]

they're still aimed at male ideals - what men want to be like

Nonsense. I've seen no video games at all in which the men are depicted as Japanese schoolgirls.

What? You think all men have identical desires? No. You don't think women impose unrealistic expectations on how men should look? They do.

Re:Think of the children

[Cederic]

"Porn Addiction" is a myth.

I doubt that's the case. People get addicted to pretty much anything (in the common use of the term 'addicted').

It's one reason video game addiction could be declared a mental health issue. It does actually exist.

It's just that its prevalence is (along with porn addition, sock addiction and talking common sense on the internet addiction) extraordinarily low and most people manage to avoid it becoming the sole thing in their lives.

Re: Think of the children

[K. S. Kyosuke]

It's because women on a slut walk choose to dress that way and choose to be there. They have agency, they are empowering themsleves by protesting against what they consider to be a harmful myth.

Exactly! Only in religion must be bearded geezers allowed to tell women what they can wear. For anybody else, it's absolutely haram.

Many of them have no real personality or story

I'd argue that the same goes for male characters, too. Hell, a cynic might even say it's the same with real-world people.

Re: Think of the children

[K. S. Kyosuke]

what men want to be like, more than what women want to look at

I'd rather trust real-world data than your naive idealism. I'm pretty sure most people will. And real-world data says that women are on average significantly more demanding.

Re: Think of the children

[K. S. Kyosuke]

If modern gadgets are prone to causing addiction, why would you ban only one extremely specific thing they can get you addicted to? Isn't that, like, a massive hypocrisy?

Re:Think of the children

[Anonymous Coward]

Bro if you think "video games and comics" are the worst offenders than have I got a fucking lmgtfy for you.

This is UTTERLY irrelevant. Women are not being objectified in games. Your Sarkeesian nonsense is hilarious though.

Re:Think of the children

[Anonymous Coward]

Women get their overt unrealistic sexualization of men already in media. They're called romantic comedies.

Where the male object of affection who builds furniture from reclaimed wood during the day, or collects records, or paints, or runs a foster home for abandoned dogs, is able to afford an ultra luxurious loft apartment in a highly desirable neighbourhood, is sweet, caring, takes care of his appearance in accordance with modern trends, showers the female protagonist with lavish gifts, overwhelming public displays of affection, and promises to be a perfect partner for life.

Re: Think of the children

[AmiMoJo]

There are indeed a lot of 2D male characters. They tend to at least have agency, but often have a fairly generic personality too.

Re: Think of the children

[Cederic]

The sexy women in video games are mostly just created by men to give other men some sexual gratification.

What difference does the gender of the creator make?

Hypocrite.

It's just people who won't even take the time to understand the most basic aspects of any criticism, and instead just go off on an unrelated rant every time. Fuck them

Hypocrite with no self awareness.

The male characters in games are mostly power fantasies, not sex fantasies.

The power of a character comes from its actions and options, not from its aesthetics. Male and female characters are often both designed to be aesthetically pleasing and stop pretending otherwise.

Re: Think of the children

[AmiMoJo]

The power of a character comes from its actions and options,

Did I say otherwise? You are just inventing imaginary arguments to rail against.

Get woke go broke

[Anonymous Coward]

People want it.
Don't feel like providing it?

No worries others will. Simple as that. Small minority throwing down hash tags and screaming offense were never going to buy jack from you in the first place.

Re:Get woke go broke

[Z80a]

And once they win on this, they will demand for more.
I bet sony will put game difficulty next on the chopping block, given how those screaming things are all demanding and trying to force from software to implement an easy mode on sekiro.

And given that nintendo of all people are just riding on the sony wave, it will end up with a bizarro world thing where nintendo pull a sega does "Nintendoes what wussony don't" kind of commercials.

Re: fukkin merkin prudes

[Anonymous Coward]

Except now it's done by the "liberals". But essentially, it's back to a puritan state with enhanced surveillance technology.

umm... ESRB ratings?

[Gravis Zero]

This completely dismisses the parental responsibility to use ESRB ratings. Kids with shitty parents who ignore the ratings aren't going to be saved because Sony said "no boobs" to developers.

Re: umm... ESRB ratings?

[TimMD909]

They are not going after what kids are playing. Now they're going after what they consider inappropriate for adults. That's a line they should not have crossed.

Re:umm... ESRB ratings?

[Opportunist]

And they think they accomplish this by alienating gamers? Because one thing's sure, there WILL be a patch for the PC version (if it's censored there altogether), so people will think twice whether to buy a PS5 or a PC instead.

Re:umm... ESRB ratings?

[thegarbz]

This completely dismisses the parental responsibility to use ESRB ratings.

Not quite as badly as you missed the point. This has nothing to do about game ratings.

Re:umm... ESRB ratings?

[AmiMoJo]

Most players don't care. They aren't going to not buy the game because the arse crack show on screen for 2 seconds was covered up. And they aren't going to spend 3-4x as much on a gaming PC and deal with all the shit that comes with Windows and PC gaming in general when they want a pure, simple games machine.

For proof just look at the long history of Japanese games being censored for the west. Nintendo was notorious for it.

The stupidest thing about this is that the example given isn't even an example of the decision Sony has made, it's something the developer did on their own for their own reasons.

The only real danger is that some people get an XBOX instead, assuming Microsoft don't follow suit and developers bother to make two different versions.

This is a Shame

[hduff]

WTF is wrong with people? Why do they insist on foisting their own insecurities on everyone else?

Re:This is a Shame

[Opportunist]

Why? What shame, anyway?

Re:This is a Shame

[Opportunist]

You don't want your kid to see it, great. It's your kid. Not mine. You get to deal with it.

Good bye Sony

[aliquis]

You stinking piece of shit. ... well, until United Socialist States of Europe decide this HAS to be the case and the playing field is equally shit for all.

Re:Good bye Sony

[serviscope_minor]

Right so a Japanese company does something because they're worried about legal action in the US, and somehow it's Europe's fault...?

WTF, dude.

Re:Good bye Sony

[mrfaithful]

Sony moved headquarters to California and by their own admission it's them that calls the shots now. So it's an American decision. Europe was referenced as speculation that they will turn one company's business decision into a legal requirement.

Re:Good bye Sony

[Opportunist]

So ... Japan is in Europe now?

The US school system is worse than even I could imagine.

Are they still selling LIfe of Black Tiger?

[RyanFenton]

Let's see:

https://store.playstation.com/...

Looks like they are. Seems like they're actually just doing the Steam two-step, where they stand there bobbing their head along to the money, until something starts making noise about being restricted in some market. At which point, they shuffle things around, until that noise stops, then resume doing as little as they can.

Which is fine as far as I'm concerned - but don't count on them for whatever standards you might hold for quality content - as long as it doesn't throw glaring error messages during an official play session loop, it's OK for the store, plus whatever the content ratings groups decide to do on their side for each regional jurisdiction.

Ryan Fenton

Cover your ass

[Sumus Semper Una]

Always amusing to see a company both figuratively and literally covering their asses at the same time.

#MeToo

[Anonymous Coward]

Wasn't the #MeToo movement about sexual abuse and harassment?

I don't know of anyone, man or woman, who with a straight face and a sane mind can walk up to the podium in front of the cameras and say "I was sexually abused by my Playstation." Please join me in the fight against it!

Sample of the "Sexually Explicit Content"

[Ashthon]

Here's an example of the vile and shocking "sexually explicit content" that Sony had to censor:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nupFJPaAn9s

Most of the other examples of Sony's PS4 censorship are equally absurd. It should be noted that Sony moved their headquarters to California, which is why we're getting these utterly deranged decisions.

Of course, there's a simple solution - don't buy anything from Sony.

Re:Sample of the "Sexually Explicit Content"

[serviscope_minor]

Of course, there's a simple solution - don't buy anything from Sony.

Sony have always had a callous disregard for their customers up to and including rootkitting and breaking their computers but it was *this* that finally pushed you over the edge? I've not bought anything from Sony since 2005.

Re:Sample of the "Sexually Explicit Content"

[Opportunist]

If you suck on a tit the movie gets an R rating. If you hack the tit off with an axe it will be PG.
– Jack Nicholson

Re:Who needs Sony?

[Anonymous Coward]

I haven't bought a GPU in 5 years and I can still play the latest games just fine. What are you on about? (And the CPU is 10 years old at this point)

PC gaming IS cheaper in the long run if you buy a lot of games. (Not to mention EVERYTHING else you can do with a PC that you can't with a walled garden console)
If you're a casual gamer who buys maybe one or two games a year, console will be cheaper. But never better.

Re: Who needs Sony?

[tepples]

Sony puts out great [exclusives]

PC exclusives outnumber PlayStation 4 exclusives. Practically all fan-made mods to a game's single-player or co-op campaign, such as quality-of-life mods and total conversion mods, are PC exclusive as well.

Re: Who needs Sony?

[Anonymous Coward]

"PC exclusives outnumber PlayStation 4 exclusives."

That doesn't really factor in. If I specifically want to play Spider-man, a PS4 exclusive, that there are more PC exclusives is irrelevant.
(But I have a PC and a PS4)

Because no woman ...

[tdailey]

>>> Citing "the rise of the #MeToo movement" and a concern of "legal and social action" in the USA ...

Because no woman, anywhere in the USA, also enjoys nudity and sex. /s

Re:Because no woman ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Where religious prudes failed, "progressive" prudes succeeded.

What Jack Thompson did wrong wasn't what he tried to do. It was his gender.

Re:Because no woman ...

[thegarbz]

Because no woman, anywhere in the USA, also enjoys nudity and sex. /s

Unless you're attempt at sarcasm is pandering to the lesbian crowd I fully agree with you. No women don't generally enjoy having female tits and arses paraded around in front of them.

Re:Because no woman ...

[Riceballsan]

Well I think the arguement isn't that women do or don't enjoy it in the games. The only way this would connect to #metoo, is the modern revival of "acting murder in games makes kids want to murder real people, and the games tell them it's ok". IE so the #metoo effecting adult content would be, "When men can see tits in games when they want to, they will demand real women to show tits using whatever means they have". Which IMO is so obviously stupid, and easy to disprove. I don't think anyone can deny that sexual harassment was significantly more common in the 50s than it is today, IE back in the days when married couples on TV had to be depicted as having 2 small beds, because even implying 2 people sleeping together even married was considered too taboo for TV.

Re:Because no woman ...

[tdailey]

Women like sex too. Some women like sex even more than the average man does. Censoring sex does not benefit women. Censoring sex implies that sex is bad and shames the women who like sex.

Re:Who needs Sony?

[dunkelfalke]

Who the hell buys a retail Windows license when the OEM ones are far cheaper?

So I can still pull my enemies spine out

[Anonymous Coward]

So I can still pull my enemies spine out though their neck? :D
Will I still be able to spend a ton of money on "loot boxes" after having paid for the game?
I am guessing we are still cool with violence and gambling, just not a bit of tits and asses on display.

The usual

[Actually, I do RTFA]

Sony was behind Betamax, the VCR format that wouldn't allow porn. Totally in character for them.

Re:The usual

[Opportunist]

And also totally in character to repeat past mistakes.

Sony is a company that somehow enjoys reaching for hot stoves and burning hands repeatedly.

Brings the wackos on the left and right together

[KalvinB]

Who knew it would be the leftists that would turn into a bunch of Puritans and try to impose their worldview on the rest of us.

A compromise to make everybody happy

[bug_hunter]

Cut out the creepy Japanese underage sexualising stuff, leave the rest.
Seriously, cut that stuff out.

but that's not... I mean okay?

[thewolfkin]

The #MeToo movement is about real girls so it doesn't really apply as much to video game characters. I mean it would apply to female players. But the treatment of female characters is a different topic all together, but it does need to be address so... good on Sony for trying something?

Re:but that's not... I mean okay?

[thewolfkin]

In before /. shoots out bricks to complain about leftist/sjws/feminist and combinations of all those with nazis even though actual nazis are the polar opposite.

Re:Who needs Sony?

[rtb61]

The devils choice for gaming. Windows anal probe 10, Sony censored Playstation, Apple Walled Garden and Nintendo nothing beyond gaming (if Sony wont do a Linux distribution so you can do other things beyond gaming and thus get rid of Windows for the Majority, how about Nintendo doing a Linux Distribution that you can run FOSS software with).

Sony if you are not allowed to look at women's boobies, equal rights demand, you are not allowed to look at men's boobies and the same goes for the crotch, no camel toe for women, not crotch bulge for men, not even in armour. Also if you cannot hit women in games, you cannot hit men either. It's called equal rights and the flip side, what you allow for one by the laws of equal rights you can allow for the other.

Re:Who needs Sony?

[Yosho]

I've never understood why so many people buy playstations.

The only thing that matters is the games.

Which system has the games you want to play on it? You buy that one. That's it.

For anybody who is so strapped for cash that the cost is a deciding factor, they're better off playing games on a previous-gen system they got at a pawn shop. Graphics, ease of use, versatility, battery life, branding -- none of those things actually matter. People look at what games are out, decide which games they want to play, and then buy the system they need to play them. "But multiplatform games", you say -- but almost nobody plays exclusively multiplatform games. The deciding factor is still which system has the exclusives you want.

Why do people buy Playstations? Persona 5, God of War, Bloodborne, Utawarerumono (if you're me). There are more, but I feel like that's enough to make the point. There you go.

I hate Sony's censorship policy, and if I have the option to buy a multiplatform game for another system, I'll do it, but at the end of the day, if my favorite developer makes a game that's PS5-exclusive, I guess I'm buying a PS5.

Re: Who needs Sony?

[Cito]

You actually enjoy censored games?

I'll stick wihh my "pc elitism" then, you enjoy your censored nanny box

Were you prepared..

[waspleg]

for the avalanche of dick pics?

Re:'for adults' is a line not to cross?

[sexconker]

"Adults" don't spank it to video game cartoons

Of course they do. I dare you to get between a weeb and his/her waifu/husbando.

PC gameing for ever!

[Joe_Dragon]

PC gameing for ever!

App store lockin needs to be banned just think if

[Joe_Dragon]

App store lock in needs to be banned just think if games like

Leisure Suit Larry / Softporn Adventure (back in the day)

Custer's Revenge

Chiller

Night Trap

Mortal Kombat

Doom (Violence back in the day)

Duke Nukem 3D

Carmageddon

Postal

Grand Theft Auto

Re:Because an equivalent PC

[hairyfeet]

Oh BS, you don't need to build a brand new system to easily do 1080p 60FPS. You can go on eBay right now and pick up a 4c/8t Xeon workstation for sub $200 with a 1Tb drive and Win 10 Pro, grab an SSD for sub $50 along with an R9 380X or RX 480 and tada! A Win 10 Pro system that will kick the shit out of a console and which can easily go up to 12c/24t later on down the line if you just want to go ludicrous power.

Re:Who needs Sony?

[Luckyo]

FYI, Utawarerumono was on PC many years ago. Still is. It's a PC original. You can still find it on anime torrent sites.

Re:Who needs Sony?

[Pseudonym]

PS4 you just insert the disc and play.

After a 50GB day-one patch download, anyway.

Sony = hypocrites

[nehumanuscrede]

To protect children's "sound growth and development" Sony is going to censor content deemed to be too sexy on their Playstation platform.

While, at the same time, titles with a violence level right off the charts like:

Hitman
Grand Theft Auto
Mortal Kombat
Manhunt

seem to be just fine for the same audience ?

( Good thing Timmy can't see any video game skin, imagine the mental trauma it would cause. Now go eviscerate that Dark Elf ! They deserve it ! :| )

Both Violence / Gore and Sexual Themes are designed for the Mature Audiences ( hence the M rating ).

If you really want to protect children's "sound growth and development", be a fucking parent.
Understand what the M rating is and make the decision to let your kids play it or not.

If you're too lazy to actually be a parent, perhaps you shouldn't engage in activities that create the conditions where you become one in the first place.

Re:Sony = hypocrites

[Anonymous Coward]

While, at the same time, titles with a violence level right off the charts like:

Hitman
Grand Theft Auto
Mortal Kombat
Manhunt

seem to be just fine for the same audience ?

Nope. Sony is now run by the people who think Grand Theft Auto is "not a real video game" (that's a quote from one of them), Gone Home was the best game of the year, and Depression Quest was one of the best games around. They also run the New York Times. Same people. So when they're censoring bikinis it's because they're "feminists" who think women should be wearing hijabs and burkas. Yes, they are all that M-word: MORONS.

Re:Sony = hypocrites

[grumpy_old_grandpa]

> If you're too lazy to actually be a parent, perhaps you shouldn't engage in activities that create the conditions where you become one in the first place.

Well, here your argument came full circle: Sony is playing the long game, not protecting the currently young, but rather the yet to be conceived ones. Research shows that less nudity in computer games lowers the reproduction rate. This in turn leads to fewer children seeing nudity as well.

Obligatory: /s

Re:Sony = hypocrites

[geekymachoman]

They're not doing it because they want to do ban stuff, they're doing it to appeal to the interest groups ... and in 2019, the strongest group of twats that go around telling people what they can do, say or create is the SJWs and the mutated monstrosity of Feminism that we have today. Things start noble, then they distort and starts being used as a reason to oppress ideas and creations of people they don't like. So, boobs in the game ? No way. #MeToo movement.

Violence ? Sure, why not .. there's nobody with any sort of influence going about and preaching Anti-Violence .. so we'll allow that, besides... humans thrive on violence, what we gonna sell, if not violence ? Sex ???

In reality... everybody should be anti violence, not anti sex... or anti tits.. but that's the irony of it. Violence used to suppress everything ...

Re:Sony = hypocrites

[Opportunist]

So I guess what makes or breaks a game is whether it does tell a compelling story, if it's a story driven game, and whether the characters are responsive if it's a fighting game and nobody really gives a flying fuck about "agency"? Could it be?

Re:Sony = hypocrites

[AmiMoJo]

Surely a compelling story is going to involve characters with agency most of the time? I mean "bad things happened and no-one could do anything about it" probably isn't a great plot for a game.

Re:Sony = hypocrites

[cascadingstylesheet]

Both Violence / Gore and Sexual Themes are designed for the Mature Audiences ( hence the M rating ). {...} Understand what the M rating is and make the decision to let your kids play it or not.

While I don't disagree, I find the internal contradictions in the Slashdot zeitgeist amazing.

1. Be a parent! Censor what your kids do if you care about them. Lazy idiot parents!

2. What, you want to censor things for your kids?? That's a human right violation, not to mention technologically impossible, and stunts their mental and emotional growth, you idiot!

Re:Sony = hypocrites

[Opportunist]

True, but you cannot simply turn any plot around to fit gender equality ideas. Especially if you try to go for a historic setting. Female soldiers in WW1 trenches are most likely going to ruffle some feathers with those that enjoy their games historically accurate.

Fantasy settings are more adaptable, but even there it usually takes quite a bit of suspense of disbelieve to see the princess rescue the knight as a valid scenario unless you first somehow manage to establish a narrative that makes it credible.

In Germany, showing tits is pro-feminist.

[Anonymous Coward]

Women here see the freedom to be able to show their tits in public without being harassed as a women's rights moment.

The fact that they harass us with that, eludes them.
Sexual triggers? Men should repress them, and not be "animals". (Like that won't leave lasting damage in men who believe in such unnatural contortions...)
Nevermind that seeing somebody naked; wanting sex with them; trying to get to know them due to attraction; and harassing them without respecting if they want too, are four different things.

Let's see *them* repress *their* reactions when I whip it out in front of them, imagine my gilfriend, who is way sexier than them, and start masturbating!
My actions will be completely unrelated to them. Yet they will imply that 1. they are the center of my universe, 2. I'd want sex with them, and 3. sex equals perversion and harassment, and is mutually exclusive with good manners in men. (Tootally not sexist and prejudiced and with a perverted mind ... --.--)
Helly even if a guy or girl furiously masturbates TO me right in front of me... asking if they can fuck me... why exactly should I be bothered? As long as they don't ask again or try to touch me, or don't keep a comfortable (read: hygienicL distance, what's th harm? I'd only think "Thanks for the compliment, I guess..." and "Have fun!".

Re: Who needs Sony?

[tepples]

And there are people who buy a Nintendo Switch just for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. But I don't see how your PS4 will help you play any PS3, PS2, or PS1 exclusives.

Re:'for adults' is a line not to cross?

[Pinky's Brain]

We can concentrate on spanking it, or on what we perceive are real problems ... think carefully about which you prefer.

Not sure about the Xenon workstation

[rsilvergun]

but you'll pay $100 bucks for that RX480 or R9 380X. I spent a few months trying to snipe one. I did eventually get an older 580 of all things, but it took a while.

The trouble with those workstations is making sure you get one with a PCI-E slot. A lot of them don't have one because they don't need them. Or if they do they're a severely cut down slot because the assumption is you're not putting anything in there except a basic card. The point of those workstations is usually the CPU and RAM.

And plan on doing a lot of research/hunting. The Xeon naming convention is a mess processors numbers don't give any indication of performance. Finally, do not plan on just moving components around willy nilly. Power supplies in those units often have weird specs or requirements.

I looked into an old workstation before the Ryzen's came out and CPU prices were still jacked and it just didn't seem worth it. Even now a console is still, dollar per frame, the cheaper option. That should be expected, since they're heavily subsidized and the games often write to bare metal.

Re:Not sure about the Xenon workstation

[hairyfeet]

Uhhh I paid $60 for my R9 380x, shipped to my door. Its not hard if you are willing to bid to get a decent deal on a GPU, hell some of those Xeon Workstations come with nice 2Gb Quadro cards that will play most games at 1080p OOTB.

And there are a ton of Dell and HP workstations that are quite cheap and which will take CPUs well beyond anything a normal desktop will take (short of a top gamer board).Just look at something like an HP Z420, most of those come with a Quadro 2Gb, win 10 Pro, and can take 12c/24t CPUs that can be had quite cheaply which would be nice for video rendering as well as streaming games at 1080p.

More censorship

[AHuxley]

Why not let game developers and game buyers find what sells and what the market wants?
No need to go full SJW and tell the consumers what they should be doing.
A great new game will sell well.
A game that was altered might not sell as well.

Don't use SONY

[themusicgod1]

Sony is part of the RIAA, fuck 'em.

This is why we [the left] can't have nice things

[Shane_Optima]

Citing "the rise of the #MeToo movement" [...] concerns about the depiction of women in video games playable on its platform as well as protect children's "sound growth and development."

See, I am completely on board with women speaking up against the "minor" sexual harassments and assaults that millions have been shrugging off because they don't want to cause a fuss.

But no, that's not good enough. It has to be leveraged into some goddamn neopuritan horseshit. What the hell is wrong with the left? It's sort of like how the Occupy Wallstreet movement lost sight of its laudable goal (that actually would've had a lot of bipartisan support, at least among the populace) almost immediately in favor of turning it a generic leftist gripefest.

Actually, this is considerably worse than that. It stealthily slut-shames millions of women (for daring to enjoy or even worse wanting to participate the same risque stuff that men stereotypically enjoy.) A lot of women, the majority in my own experience, enjoy sexy showing off stuff.

The left loves slut shaming!

[Shane_Optima]

I think that our culture has finally reached the point, at least on a corporate and governmental and celebrity level (though not on an average family unit level), where the left is much more concerned with and vocal about slut shaming and other assorted neopuritan bullshit.

The fact that they do it under the guise is protecting women just makes it all the more reprehensible. I listen to self-identifying progress/"liberal" women make public statements about how much they regret doing nude scenes (Yeardley Smith,voice of Lisa Simpson) or participating in wet T-Shirt contest (Kristen Schaal) earlier in their lives because years later they realized that it degrades and objectifies women and I'm like... who is more going to listen to a statement like that and feel more ashamed? The millions of men who see such things and smiled? Or the millions of women who have participated in such things and smiled?

It's straight up slut shaming and they try to disguise it by pretending that really they're slut shaming men, but really women are far more likely to feel bad about this criticism they're hearing.

It is a normal, typical aspect of female sexuality to enjoy showing off. It's not a male conspiracy; it's a perfectly natural inclination (that is frequently encouraged by men, yes.) And if you tell them they're making objects out of themselves when they do that, you're a slut shaming neo-puritan asshole.

This needs to be pointed out more frequently.

Re:The left loves slut shaming!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yet it's left leaning progressives who have coined the term slut-shaming and campaigned against it.

That's kinda the GP's point. The left has changed. They used to be cool, but now they've become the very thing they fought against.

What's worse is that many of the left don't acknowledge this. Making almost any criticism of the left gets you grouped with the alt-right anti-sjw Trumpsters. *That* is what makes discuss hard.

Expressing regret is not intended to shame anyone.

And pixels expressing arse cheeks or whatever is not intended to degrade women, but that seems to fall on deaf ears.

Or, if the other side accuses the left as having nefarious intent, they're dismissed as fake news conspiracy theories.

Funny how only one side gets to decide the intent of others and what intents are acceptable.

That seems to be a fundamental error that many people are making,

No it isn't. That's a strawman you're beating up. That seems to be a fundamental error on your part. You rail about these "people" without any specifics.

Strike 2

That's another fundamental error on your part: you're condescending to people you talk to. People generally don't like having discussions with condescending assholes.

Yes. That is not the thing they are complaining about. It's the coercion

Funny then that when people bring up the idea that perhaps #MeToo and other feminist movements are exerting coercion when they pressure companies with their protests and campaigns ("sorry but if you want to keep doing business you gonna have to kowtow to us"), that notion is dismissed as alt-right triggered anti-sjw trolling or whatever.

Just like the "intent" thing above, this is another fundamental error on your part. The double standards.

Re:The left loves slut shaming!

[Shane_Optima]

No, sensible sex-positive second wave feminists originally coined the term "slut shaming". Modern SJWs might borrow the term whenever a woman is being mocked, but they aren't using it in a sex-positive manner except perhaps by accident (they're primarily using it as part of a nonsensical identity politic narrative of all members of group A oppressing all members of group B. If This sounds like hyperbole, go read the first draft of the Contributor Covenant, one of the most popular CoCs circulating among software projects right now, recently adopted by no less than Linus Torvalds. Yes it's true that language was eventually removed, but it reveals the mindset of the architects of that document, and those same people are still some of the most active SJWs in OSS and indeed maybe the most active in in STEM right now.)

There are a few reasonable sex-positive egalitarians left in the world who still embrace the term "SJW" as a self-descriptor, but they don't yet realize they are in the minority. You may be one of them; I don't know. I haven't seen particularly egregious out of you, but I've not been paying super close attention.

Expressing regret is not intended to shame anyone.

Yes it most likely is. Women tend to rely more on implication than men, particularly techie men.

And even if there was no intended undertone there, even if they have nothing but the purest of feelings for women who participate in wet t-shirt contests and love it, as self-decribed progressive women who are ostensibly holding themselves up as role models (a fairly obvious implicit part of their narrative that young girls are lacking good role models), they're being (at best) extremely reckless. They should be aware of the value judgments they are vocalizing.

It's been years since I read the interviews, but as I recall neither one said "oh, I regret doing that because *personally*, I didn't really want to do it but I let myself get talked into it anyway." It was no, this is *inherently* objectifying and bad.

Have you ever talked down a mortified drunk girl after she's putting her shirt back on at a party? I have. More than once, in fact. And it was pretty clear to me that it wasn't the presence of males that bring out this feeling of embarrassment and regret. If she's not regretful, the guys go "woooo" and she goes "woooo" and life is good. It's only when there's a group of girls (and/or their boyfriends) there that don't go "woo" and she catches a look on their faces that leads to her regret.

(Don't come back at me with some anecdote about a girl who was assaulted at a party. Yes that happens and it's a major problem that needs better pushing back against. But it's totally beside the point. Assault is assault and yes that can lead to shame, but "slut shaming" is something quite different.)

That is not the thing they are complaining about. It's the coercion, the Weinsteins, the "sorry but to advance your career as an actor you are going to have to get your tits out".

The movie Yeardley Smith was topless in was a nothing of a shit independent film (and not of an artsy sort) that did nothing for her career.

More importantly, the wet T-shirt contest Kristen Schaal participated had nothing whatsoever to do with her career. She didn't give some big story about being pressured into it or impressing someone or anything. She just said man, that was such an objectifying thing to do, I wish I hadn't done it. In what way does that not pass value judgment on the hundreds of thousands if not millions of women who've let loose and had fun in a wet t-shirt contest at some point? If you don't think that's a value judgment, man you don't understand how women typically interact.

Complaining about the coercive casting couch is fine. Cultural slut shaming is not. There is widespread demand for sexually suggestive media because this is both an accurate reflection of reality and it caters to basic human hungers. If wom

Re:The left loves slut shaming!

[Shane_Optima]

Yeah I'm not thrilled with the level of effort in his replies so far, but I still detect a weird quasi-earnestness at times.

You know, with the amount of time I put into *some* of these posts (not all of them, as evidenced by some really ridiculous typos), I really should have some moddable socket puppets lying around so they get seen. Alas, I do not.

But what if ...

[Qbertino]

... someone enjoys looking at scantily clad women fighting demons in videogames? Especially if it's their only chance to get close to such an experience with women?

Re:Who needs Sony?

[djinn6]

For anybody who is so strapped for cash that the cost is a deciding factor, they're better off playing games on a previous-gen system they got at a pawn shop. Graphics, ease of use, versatility, battery life, branding -- none of those things actually matter.

If cost is the deciding factor, PC wins hands down. You'll need a computer for school or work anyways*, so the hardware is already there**. As for the games, there are lot's of cheap ones on Steam during a sale. Then there's GoG with lots of classics at $1-2 each. Of course, piracy is always an option too. I doubt even the cheapest previous-gen console can beat $0.

* I've never tried to make presentations or write essays on a console, but I imagine it's rather tedious.
** Most games don't need an expensive PC. Integrated graphics works just fine for many popular games.

Re:Who needs Sony?

[Mashiki]

A high quality gaming machine that could compete with the PS4 will set you back well over $1000.

I think you mean it will cost you $500 or so. It was even cheaper a few years ago before the change to DDR4, and prior to the gigantic clusterfuck with mining that drove video card prices through the roof. And the prices are coming down rather quickly, on top of that you're already setup for the next-gen titles and if you have a dislike of windows, you can take your pick of any 'nix variety. Especially since nearly all upcoming titles support vulkan out of the box.

And you don't get the PSVR which is relatively cheap and a perfectly decent intro to modern VR gaming.

Considering VR is such a tiny minority of gaming ranking on par with 3D TV, I don't think that's an issue for most people.

And if they want to censor it, it wins over parents. There's a reason Nintendo is doing so well.

That's not the reason they're censoring. And nintendo has been selling adult themed games for quite a while. Give you a single reason why Sony is censoring: They moved the HQ from Japan, to San Francisco and the old CEO that supported everything under the sun quit.

Nothing is stopping independent developers from making whatever games they want and releasing them however they want for the PC.

Mostly true. Until you discover the legions of western feminists, numale allies, and various review sites that are so prudish they make the 1910's look progressive. And if you don't think so, then just look at the reviews that the 'mainstream' sites push, crying over things like cleavage, bellybuttons, and the absolute moaning over the 'golden ratio' for thigh high to skirt length, and how much they echo the bullshit coming off of regressive sites like resetera.

Re:Who needs Sony?

[Opportunist]

To be fair, if you only want a mediocre experience you can just start the game and play on a PC, too.

Re: fukkin merkin prudes

[Opportunist]

That's the punchline here. It's not the religious right that gets worked up over tits, it's the alleged liberal left that is.

Please stop the world, I want to get off.

Re: Who needs Sony?

[Cederic]

If developers stopped doing exclusives, Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo would have no power, and nobody would buy their systems.

I disagree with that. If you want to buy your children a device that lets them play computer games, requires minimal maintenance, offers relatively lower up front cost and fits easily under the TV then the consoles are an ideal solution.

Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, Google and anybody else can differentiate their devices on cost, capability and other features (e.g. built-in blu-ray player, non-gaming uses, etc).

Exclusive games are not required. You don't have exclusive TV programmes for your LG TV.

Sealand is what was an illegally constructed fort in international waters outside the UK

The fort was legally constructed.

Re:Same for other things

[Cederic]

Why is it so bad here?

Him: in game bad, RL good
You: in game good, RL bad

That's a false equivalence, so your question is entirely moot.

Re:Extreme Violence and Gore AOK for the Kiddies

[Opportunist]

Tits ain't for kids! When will the people finally get that!

Re: Let me help you understand

[stealth_finger]

Just look on another thread, or even probably on this one he attaches it like 3 or 4 times to every post. Something about that supreme court guy this time.

Re:Who needs Sony?

[stealth_finger]

PS4 you just insert the disc and play.

After a 50GB day-one patch download, anyway.

Because PC games don't need patching?

Meanwhile...

[hermi]

Meanwhile, shooting people in the face with a shotgun or shooting them in the knee with an arrow is totally A-OK since especially the former never happens in life AFK.

Exclusive for XBox!

[Salo2112]

Leisure Suit Larry is now an XBox exclusive!

Re:And people forget Half Life 2.

[Highdude702]

Half-Life 2 was released for ps3. How was it steam exclusive?

Re: Who needs Sony?

[Highdude702]

Sorry, there is no corporation locking down my PC. That is my job, the system administrator.

Re:Who needs Sony?

[Highdude702]

If you're a casual gamer who buys maybe one or two games a year, console will be cheaper. But never better.

I would think it would be the other way around, the PC would be cheaper as you would be able to use it for a multitude of other things, and it doesn't just collect dust 90% of the time when you're not playing your one or two games a year. Plus Steam Free-to-Play section. Increasing the amount of games you can play for the same budget..

Re:Who needs Sony?

[Highdude702]

No launchers, no DM's, no daily-deals, no discord, no e-mail, no alt-tabbing to a web browser during loading screens, just me and the game.

The fact that you're not smart enough to turn that shit off, I don't believe your opinion on this is needed. Better luck next time.

Re:Who needs Sony?

[Highdude702]

No, but you make them money. Because if you lose the disk or scratch it too bad, you no longer own the game and have to go buy it again. Or well that's how it used to be last time I even touched a console. I'm sure not a lot has changed.

Re:And people forget Half Life 2.

[Cederic]

How many people were playing Half Life 2 on a Playstation - with or without Steam - in 2004?

Re: fukkin merkin prudes

[Highdude702]

Bro, we're not going to stop and watch you wank it. Go to your damn room!

Re: Who needs Sony?

[Wulf2k]

Not that I'm a huge fan of how they do it, but don't they release a bunch of PS1-3 exclusives for PS4 on PSN?

The market should decide.

[Slydog1663]

Why is this needed? The market should dictate what the market wants. Games that consumers want will do well, games that consumers don't want will go to the discount bin. I guess the same can be said on the game console market too. If Sony decided to not allow certain types of characters in their games and Microsoft does then consumers will get to make a choice. If Microsoft follows Sony in restricting certain types of characters then there may be a spot in the market for another game console without those restrictions.

Re:And people forget Half Life 2.

[Highdude702]

I dont know , not me. I was just pointing out it was released for ps3..

So - Amy Schumer is going to be the bikini model?

[pecosdave]

I mean seriously, any time they want to kill male sex-drive these days they tend to inject her into it.

In all seriousness, it's a good time to consider building (or buying) your own Steam Machine. I built my own Wintendo, since everything else I have runs Linux anyways, but Steam is every bit as smooth as the modern game consoles when it comes to navigating with a controller. (I still suggest a PS4 controller over a Steam one - fortunately that works). Unlike the consoles your library stays good as the years go by.

I'm working on coworkers to convince them Steam is a good console alternative, this can catch on. At the price of modern consoles an APU or low to mid range gaming system is reasonable alternative to a console. All we need is to get GOOD non-gaming apps on the console . A Netflix app, a Hulu app, that sort of thing (really - Linux versions is what I'm saying).

TFS proves AmiMoJo is delusional or a spindoctor

[Shane_Optima]

I responded in greater length in my other reply, but a simpler way to decide which one of us is delusional here is to simply examine TFA.

So put aside everything I said about regret and female peer pressure and wet t-shirt contests... how do you justify your interpretation of (what I call) the left's slut shaming in the context of *this* article? Sony is removing sexually explicit content in games supposedly as part of a cultural response to #MeToo.

Yes. That is not the thing they are complaining about. It's the coercion, the Weinsteins, the "sorry but to advance your career as an actor you are going to have to get your tits out".

But this is *uncritically* removing media *only* because they contain "tits out". It's in no way examining the process to see if any women were coerced into doing something they didn't want... and indeed, in this case the tits are far more likely to be computer generated. So what does any of this have to do with the casting couch or sexual assault? No, this is explicitly, overtly passing judgment that sexual content in media is bad and TFS says they chose to adopt this attitude because of #MeToo.

I maintain that this sort of across the board, un-nuanced demonization of sexual content in media is a form of slut shaming that harms women even if it's being done in their name, because on some level it makes millions of females feel guilty about ever behaving in a way that they've been told leads to the objectification not just themselves, but also somehow all women in general.

The in-practice goals beign pursued and the paternal (a word I use advisedly), sanctimonious tones of voice are extremely similar to the Christian right. The religious right has always attacked female sexuality by talking about self-respect, and the narrative of objectification has the same message at its very core--"don't you want to be more than just a set of tits? if you take your tits out, aren't you afraid people will think less of you?"

This is all candy coated with a narrative of evil masculinity and other identity politic warfare nonsense, but the implications are clear enough. Sony is not concerned for exploited actresses. The issue here is not sniffing out coercion. Sony doesn't care where the tits came from (and indeed, we're most likely talking about 2d cartoons and 3d models with jiggle physics here, not live actresses.) Sony is only concerned with the end product. And (whether rightly or wrongly) they're doing this in the name of the most popular form of modern feminism, #MeToo.

You're twisting yourself in knots and setting off chaff to avoid the real issues here.

Re:Who needs Sony?

[AmiMoJo]

Console is a decent experience. Game locked to 60 fps, tuned to your exact hardware. Plus you know the guy kicking your arse is just better, not using a wall hack or 144Hz monitor or something.

Re:TFS proves AmiMoJo is delusional or a spindocto

[AmiMoJo]

Well in this case the issue would be Sony not taking context in to account.

You can hardly blame other people for Sony being lazy.

They never learn.

[jcr]

Porn is why Beta lost to VHS.

-jcr

Re:Brings the wackos on the left and right togethe

[cascadingstylesheet]

Who knew it would be the leftists that would turn into a bunch of Puritans and try to impose their worldview on the rest of us.

A lot of us knew, decades ago. We were called nuts ...

Re:Who needs Sony?

[Kyr Arvin]

Yup, I backed up my old floppies as well. Who knows if I'll ever use them.
I've had plenty of discs go bad though -- mostly movies since I haven't played the old console games in ages.
These were regular movies professionally pressed and sold through stores, and they were stored either in their original cases or in a binder. They just degrade and go bad faster than people want to give them credit for.

Re:TFS proves AmiMoJo is delusional or a spindocto

[Shane_Optima]

What about blaming you for you being lazy?

Re:This is why we [the left] can't have nice thing

[Shane_Optima]

Oh, it's definitely in line with what the rest of the left is doing. You should work harder to stay abreast of current events in the post-Contributor Covenant world, like what happened to the Python dev.

Re:Who needs Sony?

[jjbenz]

PC gaming is more of a pain in the ass for me. I don't really enjoy the constant upgrade treadmill. I just want something that works and allows me to sit on the couch and game for a few hours at a time. I don't tend to get most games when they are released and by the time I do get around to them they are usually in the $20-30 range which doesn't really break the bank.

Re: Who needs Sony?

[Can'tNot]

The PC isn't much better. Steam doesn't allow AO-rated games, or anything with sexual content too explicit (though it is better than Sony in this regard). The largest PC platform which allows sexually-explicit games is itch.io, but their market share is still less than 1%. There's no way you can fund any sort of serious development with that.

The PC may be the best, but it's still a censored nanny box.

Re:Who needs Sony?

[Highdude702]

Well lucky you. I have had games that never left the ps2 come out scratched. So I'm gonna guess you didn't too much use cd's in your life. And good luck getting your kids to not scratch and lose shit. Or you 'rem the perfect person.. Only way pull that off.

Re: And people forget Half Life 2.

[Highdude702]

It was a while, maybe 2 years? But that would make it not an exclusive. It was just a computer game. Steam is 1000x better than the shit they used before it, cant remember. But it would drop connection in the middle of updates and was just horrible all around. Went to wiki to try to find the original services name was.. Blueshift was apparently released for PS in 2001. NFI what the original service was, but it was horrible. And steam, for the most part kicks ass...

Re: Who needs Sony?

[Highdude702]

Sure old games... PS1 and such im sure. But as someone else said, there is always torrents. Combine that with a modded rig of that era, or an emulator is fine for most now a days.

Re:You did not answer

[gweihir]

The one making the claim here is not me. But you are as dishonest and manipulative as you are arrogant. Your reference to kiddie porn is just a slimy attempt to fling feces.

Re:Who needs Sony?

[Paradise Pete]

a decent gaming PC that will blow it out of the water.

You keep your playstation in the water?

Re: Who needs Sony?

[tepples]

Rereleases on PlayStation Store help a few gamers. But they don't help those who own a disc and don't feel they ought to have to re-buy every 6 years when the new console comes out, or those who own a copy of a game that happens not to have been rereleased, or those who have a metered Internet connection due to living outside the fiber, cable, and DSL service footprint. (Viasat still sells 12 GB/mo Internet plans.)

Re:And people forget Half Life 2.

[tepples]

True, vanilla Half-Life 2 eventually became no longer exclusive. But not all publishers of other games have the money to make that leap. And which mods of that game worked on PlayStation 3?

Re:Who needs Sony?

[tepples]

I was aware of patches needed to add things like multiplayer. But I wasn't aware that disc games' single-player or couch co-op campaigns would fail to run if inserted into an offline console.

Re:And people forget Half Life 2.

[Highdude702]

No idea I didn't play it. But I think TF was part of it too. not too sure been way too long.