Censorship

The release of Xenoblade Chronicles X in the West is only a couple of days away and with that in mind lets talk about a controversial topic. Censorship.

First things first. I'm absolutely against any form of censorship. That means I am against altering a game or work of fiction and I'm against banning games or works of fiction from store shelves. Of course the second action is the right of every store owner. You can decide what you want to sell, but nonetheless I'm not to fond of shops doing this and probably won't shop there.

And yes I'm also against the censorship of controversial topics or offending depictions. First of all everyone deems different things ''offensive'', and secondly it just limits the creation of new stories.

Censorship is never good. In the best case it blurs the intention of the creator, but in the worst it absolutely butchers the story.

I'm especially against the censorship of Japanese games. I'm not the biggest fan of those games. Of course I'm a huge Nintendo Fan, but I wouldn't consider their games to be classical Japanese. But even as not a Fan I see censorship of these games as problematic. Why would you want to ''Westernize'' such games and destroy one of their biggest appeals.

Yes Fanservice is deeply ingrained into many of these games, but what so wrong about that. All of these outrage towards Fanservice and sexy depictions of women in games, stems from the wrong assumption that those deceptions have a real world influence. It's practically the same nonsense as the Violence debate from several years ago. It has been proven time and time again that violence in video games doesn't breed violence in real life. And I don't see why it should be any different with Sexism.

But let's talk about two recent acts of censorship in Nintendo games.

Fatal Frame (Project Zero) 5:

Here the lingerie outfits for the heroines, which were unlocked after you beat the game, have been replaced by Zero Suit Samus and a Princess Zelda outfit.

Now one might say that a lingerie outfit detracts from the idea of a horror game, but so does a skin tight latex suit, which leaves nothing to imagination. The Problem with this act of censorship is that it's completely unnecessary and doesn't change a thing. It only makes the people, knowing about it, furious. People will always focus on the things, which were taken away. Even if you give them something in return. If they just had added those two new costumes, everyone would be happy.

Because people offended by this:

will also be offended by this:

Source of both Pictures: Fatal Frame 5

Xenoblade Chronicles X:

While the Censorship of lingerie outfits was unnecessary the removal of the boob slider in Xenoblade is truly a stupid move.

In the Japanese Version, when creating a women, you have the possibility to change the breast size of your Avatar. This feature has been removed in the western release.

Now you may say, that this is a needles feature, which would only be abused by teenage boys. And while this is certainly right, it also limits the immersion.

Xenoblade Chronicles X has a massive character creation. And many players will certainly create an Avatar in their image. Be it dream or real. By locking the females to one standard breast size you essentially lock out women with small or big chests. Neither of them can create a version of themselves if they wish. With this Nintendo practically tells them, that they don't exist. At least on Mira. A Planet where even Panda People can exist.

Picture Source: Xenoblade Chronicles X

And of course the feature would have been abused to create huge bouncing Titty-Monsters. But what's so wrong about that? Games should still be allowed to create mindless fun. Let people create women with balloons for tits. Just because there is the possibility for a feature to be ''abused'' in such a way, shouldn't tempt you to remove it. Or we will be looking at a bleak and boring future for video games, where all characers are genderless, amorphous blobs.

In the end I can only say that I prefer this:

Picture Source: Dead or Alive Xtreme 3

over this:

Picture Source: Community

Still: Go Human Beings!

So please developers and publishers alike. Don't censor your games. Don't be afraid of the things you create. Be proud. Show them to the world.

And as always

thanks for reading