Talk about the proposed edits to Mugen Souls US here

[Houk]

EDIT: This thread has been going strong for a while now, and a few questions have been asked and answered several times now. So in the interest of time and sanity, I'm going to put some general info here about the edits. If you ask us something that's already been answered here, you will be openly mocked.
___________________________________

Q: What's been edited, and why did you decide to edit it?
A: The Japanese version of the game contained a mini-game in which the player had to scrub/grope 2D depictions of female characters in a variety of bath scenes. The characters and surrounding audio/visual elements were extremely sexualized, and a number of the characters were depicted as potentially being pubescent or pre-pubescent. We decided to remove this content out of concern for the potential of receiving an AO rating from the ESRB, which would prevent us from releasing the game. In addition, as a company, we did not want NISA to release or be known for content that could be seen as sexualizing or objectifying children in this way. As this system contained no real story elements or gameplay (it was used to level up your characters, but the player's inputs had no impact on the final stats) we felt it was not a substantial loss of content. Note that your characters will still level up as if you had viewed the scenes, so no gameplay functionality is lost.

Q: Why didn't you submit it to the ESRB unedited first to see what they had to say?
A: Submitting a game to the ESRB takes substantial time and resources, and the potential of multiple submissions to the ESRB simply isn't feasible for a company working within the budgets and schedules that we face.

Q: Why didn't you just edit some of the pictures out, or change the art, or do XYZ thing differently?
A: After considering all our options and working closely with the developer, we came to the conclusion that this was the best approach if we wanted to keep things on schedule and within budget (which we did). Other options were considered, but the time/resource costs for those options were unfeasible.

Q: I hear Europe has really strict sexuality laws. Can we blame them for this? Can we have two different versions of the game?
A: Our decision wasn't based on the reception in any one particular region. It was a sum-total decision based on a variety of factors. Time and resources has made it unfeasible to release multiple versions of the game across different regions.

Q: Can you release the edited content as DLC, or release an "uncensored" version in the future?
A: No. If you release DLC that has material that is potentially "more pertinent" to the ESRB (i.e. objectionable) then that DLC has to be submitted for rating, and it can potentially change the rating of the game itself. In this case, we would be facing the same issue as we faced in the beginning. So this isn't an option. For the same reasons, we are also unable to release another version with all the content.

Q: Other than this mini-game, I hear one of the characters, Sadie, was censored to get a better rating. Is this true?
A: Not at all. For every character in every game we release, we choose dialogue that we feel best reflects their overall personality for the English version. Every game presents characters and situations that have to be modified to some degree to work in the English language version. This is the heart and soul of localization, and happens any time a creative work is translated from one language/culture to another. For this specific character, at times she was fairly blunt and crude in the Japanese version. When adapting her for the English version, we felt that for those few instances, it wasn't the best approach based on the overall tone of the game and her interaction with other characters. So we decided to tweak a few lines here and there to bring her more in line with what we felt her core personality was -this personality and the meaningful ways in which she expresses herself hasn't changed at all.

___________________________________

Okay, so a lot of people have a lot of opinions about the US version of Mugen Souls. We have mentioned that we will be making certain edits to the game for the US release, and many of you feel strongly about it. I don't have the energy to monitor the other threads for off-topic tangents, so if you want to talk about that stuff, do it here. And if you do it anywhere other than here, I will delete your posts for the sake of keeping the forum clean.

The one golden rule here is to be civil. Everyone has an opinion - respect theirs and they'll respect yours. And unless you work at NISA, try to avoid too much speculation about the inner workings of why we're doing what we're doing. We're not as evil as you may think - honest.

Oh, and if this topic starts to stray anywhere near less savory topics (specifically, anything regarding the presentation/objectification of minors whether real or fictional) and I don't like what I'm seeing, I will be deleting posts with maximum prejudice. Too much and the thread will get itself locked. This is not a board for discussing the morality of...all that.

[neonie]

Not only will this thread be good for discussing changes, but also if Lyner or anyone at at NISA want to let us in on anything else, this would also serve as a pretty good place to do it.

[ZekeFreek]

We're not as evil as you may thing

typo-alert.

To those who also don't understood what Houk was saying earlier. The fact is, ALL AO games are on PC, because none of the console manufacturers allow AO games on their consoles. Period. Since Mugen Souls is exclusive to PS3, Sony would not even let them release it if the ESRB deemed it AO.

maximum prejudice

What a coincidence, I played Bass for "Maximum Prejudice". We were pretty big in the 90s.

[Houk]

I have no idea what you're talking about. Please do not besmirch my good editor name.

[ArmyofDarkness]

We're not as evil as you may thing

typo-alert.

To those who also don't understood what Houk was saying earlier. The fact is, ALL AO games are on PC, because none of the console manufacturers allow AO games on their consoles. Period. Since Mugen Souls is exclusive to PS3, Sony would not even let them release it if the ESRB deemed it AO.

maximum prejudice

What a coincidence, I played Bass for "Maximum Prejudice". We were pretty big in the 90s.

But the thing is it would NEVER receive an AO rating. It does not have extreme violence, it does not have anything above partial nudity. That indicates an M rating max. No game has received an AO unless it has 1) EXTREME violence or 2) Nudity along the lines of actual sexual intercourse.

[ZekeFreek]

I have no idea what you're talking about. Please do not besmirch my good editor name.

It happens to the best of us.

But the thing is it would NEVER receive an AO rating. It does not have extreme violence, it does not have anything above partial nudity. That indicates an M rating max. No game has received an AO unless it has 1) EXTREME violence or 2) Nudity along the lines of actual sexual intercourse.

Your forgetting cultural differences again. Pasty white old americans who don't know shit about anime will assume it's some form of porn.

[neonie]

There are people who think anything anime is porn. Also people who think anything animated is for children. It's sad really.

[Darcnova]

This most likely would have got an AO rating if it was kept in for 1 reason, most of the characters shown in the bath scenes look like kids, to keep this clean, I won't go any further than that, but think about it for a second...

@neonie - but that's the thing, in this case, it isn't about people thinking it's porn, or only for children, it's most likely all about the character's appearance

[ArmyofDarkness]

I have no idea what you're talking about. Please do not besmirch my good editor name.

It happens to the best of us.

But the thing is it would NEVER receive an AO rating. It does not have extreme violence, it does not have anything above partial nudity. That indicates an M rating max. No game has received an AO unless it has 1) EXTREME violence or 2) Nudity along the lines of actual sexual intercourse.

Your forgetting cultural differences again. Pasty white old americans who don't know shit about anime will assume it's some form of porn.

You don't "assume" on an ESRB rating process. You judge the footage you are given, you don't speculate where it leads to. The fact is it ISNT porn, it doesn't show as much as a nipple. They are not changing this to avoid an AO.

[vampko]

I have no idea what you're talking about. Please do not besmirch my good editor name.

It happens to the best of us.

But the thing is it would NEVER receive an AO rating. It does not have extreme violence, it does not have anything above partial nudity. That indicates an M rating max. No game has received an AO unless it has 1) EXTREME violence or 2) Nudity along the lines of actual sexual intercourse.

Your forgetting cultural differences again. Pasty white old americans who don't know shit about anime will assume it's some form of porn.

Spoiler:

Child porn yet!

You don't "assume" on an ESRB rating process. You judge the footage you are given, you don't speculate where it leads to. The fact is it ISNT porn, it doesn't show as much as a nipple. They are not changing this to avoid an AO.

Yes, because the ESRB are a talented set of individuals trained to do this job and totally aren't picked at random

[Darcnova]

Like I said army, it is to avoid the AO rating solely based on character appearance, think about it, Agarest 2 has the same type of mini-game, and it is getting a T rating here, so what is the only difference? Character appearance, most Agarest characters are busty, and look obviously over 15...this, not so much

[ArmyofDarkness]

I have no idea what you're talking about. Please do not besmirch my good editor name.

It happens to the best of us.

But the thing is it would NEVER receive an AO rating. It does not have extreme violence, it does not have anything above partial nudity. That indicates an M rating max. No game has received an AO unless it has 1) EXTREME violence or 2) Nudity along the lines of actual sexual intercourse.

Your forgetting cultural differences again. Pasty white old americans who don't know shit about anime will assume it's some form of porn.

Spoiler:

Child porn yet!

You don't "assume" on an ESRB rating process. You judge the footage you are given, you don't speculate where it leads to. The fact is it ISNT porn, it doesn't show as much as a nipple. They are not changing this to avoid an AO.

Yes, because the ESRB are a talented set of individuals trained to do this job and totally aren't picked at random

They are undisclosed professionals employed by the ESRB. Its the same deal as with the MPAA Rating board.

[RonXSilva]

I have no idea what you're talking about. Please do not besmirch my good editor name.

It happens to the best of us.

But the thing is it would NEVER receive an AO rating. It does not have extreme violence, it does not have anything above partial nudity. That indicates an M rating max. No game has received an AO unless it has 1) EXTREME violence or 2) Nudity along the lines of actual sexual intercourse.

Your forgetting cultural differences again. Pasty white old americans who don't know shit about anime will assume it's some form of porn.

You don't "assume" on an ESRB rating process. You judge the footage you are given, you don't speculate where it leads to. The fact is it ISNT porn, it doesn't show as much as a nipple. They are not changing this to avoid an AO.

Then why did they do it? Was it to spit you? I doubt it. So why did they do it? Must be some reason!

[ArmyofDarkness]

Like I said army, it is to avoid the AO rating solely based on character appearance, think about it, Agarest 2 has the same type of mini-game, and it is getting a T rating here, so what is the only difference? Character appearance, most Agarest characters are busty, and look obviously over 15...this, not so much

I can't agree with you. If this were true, Meruru would be rated M and pushing AO solely for the hot spring scene.

[vampko]

They are undisclosed professionals employed by the ESRB. Its the same deal as with the MPAA Rating board.

I've heard otherwise. But, even so, HOW many times have you seen/heard anime or even anime style games referred to as 'child porn' or 'porn'? how many times did we get to read a review where Neptunia was all about showing off girls as whores? Or something similar?

People have their biases. And there's a HUGE bias against anime and anime-style in America right now, and in quite a few other countries. And that bias becomes even more strong when the characters don't appear full adults.