Today, I wanted to talk about censorship in gaming! It’s the most debated topic in recent memory, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned from observing and speaking on it myself, is that no matter what you do, you’ll be dammed for sure!
Let me give you an example. A lot of censorship discussion in gaming among gamers revolves mostly around one topic, women! Specifically, how a woman is represented in games as of late! This happened in Mortal Kombat, SkullGirls, most anime games etc! You get the idea. Boobs and butts! 2B or not to 2B! I’ll give you another example:
Recently, Jill from Resident Evil and Tifa from Final Fantasy both came under “fire” for their recent changes! Jill lost her skirt and Tifa’s boob got “reduced”! I put that in quotation because I honestly can’t tell if they got smaller because to me they’re still huge but people can, apparently! Many fans who were upset argued that these characters should have been replicated exactly how they appeared in their respective games. Seeing as these changes didn’t affect their appearance or are even noticeable by the average gamers, those gamers were labeled as “bottom-dwelling losers incels”. Don’t quote me in that, that’s just an insult that came to my mind.
Yes, I will agree that Jill losing her skirt or that Tifa boobs not being as big are not that big of a deal, and under normal circumstances, I’d be making fun of these people too, however, they may have a point in being so overly cautious with everything that’s happening in today’s games! It’s like that old saying “give them an inch, they’ll take a mile”, maybe these guys are fearing that if they let this slip, then eventually, more aspects of gaming will start to get censored as well. I mean Tencent is currently & slowing invading the gaming scene, and since it’s a Chinese company, we know how they’re like when it comes to censorship! No seriously, Tencent has their hands in almost every aspect of gaming now and it’s scary!
Hate to say it, but these people are a necessity! It’s true that some of them are just anti-SJW advocates, that hate anything remotely perceived SJW, however, we can’t pretend that there aren’t those who are concerned or annoyed that a character they like had a slight change that seemed unnecessary to them. Some are also calling out the clear hypocrisy on how women in fighting like Mortal Kombat are (in their opinion) fully clothed while the men have been left relatively unscathed. You see what I mean? I get their point but when you say it out loud, you kinda sound silly worrying about whether virtual codes are showing boobs or not. No matter what you do, you’re dammed either way!
Still, a fight’s a fight and these gamers have chosen a hill to die on! It’s kinda admirable at the very least, kinda! Despite the fact that the mainstream gaming media will eat them alive, they still continue to speak their mind!
For me, I’m less concerned with anime panties being removed in Skullgirls or jiggle-physics being removed in DoA and more focused on the ever-advancing presence of Tencent and the influence of the Chinese government they’ll bring with them. China is notorious for censorship and if left unchecked, they could bring an end to how we consume our games. Trust me, if China influence for Blizzard to remove a dark-skinned character in Diablo because it’s a culturally “safe” option for China, Taiwanese developer Red Candle Games removing Devotion from Steam for an image that referenced Chinese President Xi Jinping and Winnie the Pooh in the game, or remove gore in general then we have something to be fearful!
Whether we fight the small boobs/butt fights or the large scale corporate invasion from the East, we can all agree that any form of unnecessary censorship is the enemy!
