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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.

33 of 299 comments (clear)

  1. Re: fukkin merkin prudes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

  2. umm... ESRB ratings? by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    --
    Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
  3. Cover your ass by Sumus+Semper+Una · · Score: 4, Funny

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

  4. #MeToo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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!

  5. Sample of the "Sexually Explicit Content" by Ashthon · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

    1. Re:Sample of the "Sexually Explicit Content" by serviscope_minor · · Score: 2

      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.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
  6. Re: Who needs Sony? by tepples · · Score: 2

    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.

  7. Re:Think of the children by rogoshen1 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

  8. Re:Think of the children by rogoshen1 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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]]

  9. Because no woman ... by tdailey · · Score: 5, Insightful

    >>> 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

    1. Re:Because no woman ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2

      Where religious prudes failed, "progressive" prudes succeeded.

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

  10. Re:Think of the children by jwymanm · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  11. Re:Think of the children by Immerman · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    --
    --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
  12. So I can still pull my enemies spine out by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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.

  13. Re:Think of the children by rogoshen1 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.)

  14. Brings the wackos on the left and right together by KalvinB · · Score: 2

    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.

  15. Re: Who needs Sony? by Cito · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You actually enjoy censored games?

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

  16. Re: Think of the children by poity · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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...

    --
    your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
  17. Sony = hypocrites by nehumanuscrede · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  18. In Germany, showing tits is pro-feminist. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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!".

  19. Re:Think of the children by Pinky's+Brain · · Score: 2

    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.

  20. Re:Think of the children by fenrif · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  21. The left loves slut shaming! by Shane_Optima · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:The left loves slut shaming! by Shane_Optima · · Score: 4, Informative
      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

  22. Re: Think of the children by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

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

    But pixels are people too.

  23. Re: Think of the children by Opportunist · · Score: 4, Funny

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

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  24. Re: fukkin merkin prudes by Opportunist · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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.

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  25. Re: Who needs Sony? by Cederic · · Score: 2

    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.

  26. Re: Think of the children by Cederic · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  27. Re: Think of the children by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 2

    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.

    --
    Ezekiel 23:20
  28. Re:Who needs Sony? by stealth_finger · · Score: 2

    PS4 you just insert the disc and play.

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

    Because PC games don't need patching?

    --
    Wanna buy a shirt?
    https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
  29. TFS proves AmiMoJo is delusional or a spindoctor by Shane_Optima · · Score: 2
    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.

  30. Re:Who needs Sony? by Highdude702 · · Score: 2

    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.