Breasts, Blood, Swearing and 'DBs'

[Sabre]

Ok. I will make this quick to avoid a long wall of text. Once again, it's 'backwards' amarican values in the sence they are opposate to most of the world (or at least europe) as well as the issue of pointless censoring. So when I use the term backwards you know what I mean. I also have tackled each of these issues seperatly, but I'm going to lump them all together this time.

Basicly if you want to sell things internationally you have to cater to american values. As such, games and films made for a domestic market tend to include nudity, god, and so on, more often. A perfect example is JRPGs frequently have god in them, whereas WRPGs tend to focus more on tyranical mortals. Fallout 3 has alot of blood to the point you can make people pop, but to show a nipple or mention morphine by name has the censors going crazy.

Recently however I saw the opposate extreme. Someone was talking in comments about DBs, after re-reading a couple of times, I realised he was refering to dead bodies. The commenter has no problem with his furry yiff work, but his fantasy stuff had to tread lightly on the concept of death. It also brings up something from another forum, the issue of why swears are bleeped or even refered to as "the f word", because even kids know he means fuck, and if anything it makes you think about the word for a moment, rather the whats being said.

[Guest Julius Quasar]

Maybe it's those damn "puritan" relic standards we Americans are stuck to? 

[Robert Monroe]

Maybe it's those damn "puritan" relic standards we Americans are stuck to? 

Puritans made up a minority of North America's population, brah.

Anyway, I would hardly call it "backwards". It's just different. Violence flies better in the USA than it does in European nations (lookin at you, Germany), sex flies better in European nations than it does in the USA (lookin at you, Italy). As for "god" in vidya gaems, that is not an appeal to western markets. At all. The Japanese find Judeo-Christian beleifs to be foreign and exotic, and therefore enjoy using it as an inspiration in their fiction (and often incorrectly), because Christianity is an incredibly small minority over there. It's basically orientalism.

[Guest Julius Quasar]

Puritans made up a minority of North America's population, brah.

True, but that minority had their finger on the button for quite a while in the earlier days of broadcast TV and other mainstream mass media.  "Remember when they banned "Catcher in the Rye"?  That book is pretty tame.

Anyway, I would hardly call it "backwards". It's just different. Violence flies better in the USA than it does in European nations (lookin at you, Germany), sex flies better in European nations than it does in the USA (lookin at you, Italy). As for "god" in vidya gaems, that is not an appeal to western markets. At all. The Japanese find Judeo-Christian beleifs to be foreign and exotic, and therefore enjoy using it as an inspiration in their fiction (and often incorrectly), because Christianity is an incredibly small minority over there. It's basically orientalism.

There you go.

[Sabre]

Puritans made up a minority of North America's population, brah.

Anyway, I would hardly call it "backwards". It's just different. Violence flies better in the USA than it does in European nations (lookin at you, Germany), sex flies better in European nations than it does in the USA (lookin at you, Italy). As for "god" in vidya gaems, that is not an appeal to western markets. At all. The Japanese find Judeo-Christian beleifs to be foreign and exotic, and therefore enjoy using it as an inspiration in their fiction (and often incorrectly), because Christianity is an incredibly small minority over there. It's basically orientalism.

Although my first post was a bit of a mess due to wanting to keep it brief, I clearly say that in this context backwards means the opposate of most of the west.

I was going to say I disagree with your god argument because there is no western equiverlent that I am aware of. I did a quick search and this came up.

"Because Christianity is an uncommon religion in Japan, we thought it would be mysterious. None of the staff... are Christians... we just thought the visual symbols of Christianity look cool. If we had known the show would get distributed in the US and Europe, we might have rethought that choice."

- Producer Kazuya Tsurumaki, talking about Neon Genesis Evangelion.

So it seems to be less of a case of it being an exotic religion, but rather just exotic something. So the western equiverlent wouldn't be Budist, but rather those gits who think saying "Baka" is cool.

I couldn't find anything on the idea that eastern games having mortal enemies. Other then maybe Diablo I can't think of any western games where god was a villian.

[Robert Monroe]

Although my first post was a bit of a mess due to wanting to keep it brief, I clearly say that in this context backwards means the opposate of most of the west.

I was going to say I disagree with your god argument because there is no western equiverlent that I am aware of. I did a quick search and this came up.

"Because Christianity is an uncommon religion in Japan, we thought it would be mysterious. None of the staff... are Christians... we just thought the visual symbols of Christianity look cool. If we had known the show would get distributed in the US and Europe, we might have rethought that choice."

- Producer Kazuya Tsurumaki, talking about Neon Genesis Evangelion.

So it seems to be less of a case of it being an exotic religion, but rather just exotic something. So the western equiverlent wouldn't be Budist, but rather those gits who think saying "Baka" is cool.

I couldn't find anything on the idea that eastern games having mortal enemies. Other then maybe Diablo I can't think of any western games where god was a villian.

It is basically exoticism. It was much more prevalent in the west during the 19th and early 20th centuries, paticularly in theatre works (Madame Butterfly comes to mind). So yeah, there -is- a western equivilent of it, its just less practiced now than it has been. It can be religions, cultures, whatever. The basic idea is you take something foreign and exotic that interests you and use it as inspiration, even if its not true to the source material.