Japan, this is an article for you.
What that means more specifically is that this article is an attempt to help you realize the error of your ways about censorship and self-(over)correction. Now, we’ve had some fights about waggling and other weird genres that North Americans may not understand in the past, and indeed we will probably fight about them again in the future. But at the end of the day, we like weird. We like cultures that we can’t neatly fit into pre-determined realms of understanding. So it’s ok to be strange.
What incited this article was an article that I recently read wherein Shinji Mikami apologized for having too much creative freedom. Now imagine any other industry where an artistic creator would apologize for having too much “freedom.” Can’t think of one? That’s because it doesn’t exist. We should be shouting God Hand’s praises from the rooftops, not chastising it because it “didn’t sell too well.”
That’s a problem that’s indicative of the gaming industry. The industry has become so interested in profit that when a truly unique game is released, players are actively against it because it’s too original. But this isn’t the first time this has happened, and what’s worse is that censorship has a big hand in this as well. Not just censorship in the form of a rating that says “Adults Only,” but a more crude and sadistic type of censorship, one that actively hammers down originality. What’s far worse is that this censorship is occurring willingly.
But Shinji Mikami isn’t the only one who’s being beaten on. The games industry itself has a clandestine sense of censorship built into it at this point. Yakuza 3 is another recent example of just how much content is being cut or removed outright. Here we see much of the objectionable content being removed, while Grand Theft Auto is perfectly happy to allow players to beat hookers into a bloody pulp. Japan seems to discourage North Americans from seeing the “darker side” of their games industry, but the reality is that we want to see it. Players are angry that Yakuza 3 had so much cut content, not happy.
Walk with me Japan. What North Americans, what “we” want is for you to be weird. We want you to be extreme. Because, well, you are (Google search Hentai, but be warned, definitely not safe for work). But we like that you’re strange. That’s part of why we buy consoles and videogames with plumbers who defeat evil turtles or beat each other up with Hadoukens. We like that you’re odd and unassuming about the culture within which you experience the world. That culture enriches our own experience when we can fully interact with part of it. But lately, the door that was once wide open, is slowly creaking shut.
Where all of this started was, ironically, Nintendo. The initial Nintendo “Seal of Quality” was intended to mean that a game was officially supported by Nintendo. The seal was originally developed as part of an anti-piracy measure, but slowly began to become associated with censorship. As new games came and went, more and more people recognized the censorship effort and how much it was encroaching on the game experience. Nintendo has long gone through that effort to take on rather draconian measures to censor their games, and the result has had a net negative effect.
But Nintendo is not the only one guilty here, clearly there is something deeper that has become a sort of “trend” in the gaming market today. With more and more people worried about the potential dangers of having to be exposed to the dreaded sexual misconduct of a hot coffee mod, the industry has insulated itself from interesting controversy. Sex is not something that the industry should be scared of. Games need a chance to grow up, and that is something both Western and Eastern developers should heed.
On the subject of Japan however, what’s occurring is a self-imposed repression. The industry is attempting to adapt to tastes that they don’t understand, and can never understand, and their own market viability is suffering as a result. The idea that Japan needs to sell North America “North American” games is ridiculous, but that is, in part, what’s occurring here. Yakuza 3 is censored because Japanese developers didn’t think it would fit our tastes. Shinji Mikami is apologizing because he didn’t think his game sold well. All of this is the wrong way of thinking about games.
Japan, all you need to do as developers is be yourselves. Let us, as players, decide what we like. Bring on the weirdness. We like what we don’t understand. As gamers, we’ve always been intrigued by the unknown. That’s part of what brought us into gaming. There’s nothing terribly normal about wanting to go inside a room and interact with a television, but all those nights of Duck Hunt allowed us to do just that. We would spend hours killing those critters, wanting to shout at that stupid dog as he smirked at our mistakes. We like cartoon plumbers, blue anthropomorphic hedgehogs, angry masterminds who kidnapped “our girl.” We want more of that.
We want more of that now. Don’t promise it in the future, or apologize for what’s been done in the past. Don’t worry if not every game is a huge success. Let the publishers bitch and moan over that, but maintain the integrity of your design decisions. Players have a hard time accepting decisions that fundamentally change a presented experience. The reason why is because foreign audiences expect the same experience. Foreign films don’t decide to cut content because some part of it might be objectionable to foreign audiences. In fact, if that were the case, most directors would probably just prevent it from being distributed to foreign audiences at all.
Part of that, in fact a lot of that, is pride. Take pride in the work that you do, don’t compromise because somebody’s telling you that it will sell better. If the only reason a decision is made has something to do with sales, it’s probably a bad decision. So Japan, stop policing when we, as a foreign audience, never asked for it. Yes, a lot of parents probably said stupid things in the past, things that related to how games were going to ruin the future of our society. In fact, people are still saying that now. But the thing is, decades have past. Society hasn’t collapsed, children are still foul-mouthed, and all the ills of society still largely have nothing to do with videogames.
So Japan, and to a lesser extent the videogame public who is ill-informed, relax. Censorship isn’t the way to go here, apologizing for the work you create isn’t the way to go here. Be strange, be odd, create original ideas that make us question our own. Because we like that. We like being able to have experiences that make us uncomfortable. The Hurt Locker didn’t win all that praise because it was making everyone believe that war was just a grand ol’ time. Yakuza aren’t the type of people who would avoid lewd behavior, and not presenting that in a videogame sells them short as a persona, as representations of a society we are interested in. So let’s get along, let’s see all the good and the bad, because Japan, at the end of the day, we like you. All of you.