This will be a long post and it will be my first genuinely negative post in a long time. Before I continue I'll say right now that this post won't be about consultancy companies like Sweet Baby Inc, Hit Detection, Black Girl Gamers etc, I consider the existence of those companies to be unnecessary and yeah, I don't like Sweet Baby Inc and those similar companies, however, this won't be about them. Anyway, this post will be a bit informative in nature but more than anything else, I'm doing this to vent...I have things to say and I have to write them in a public context, as I said, I'm tired of censorship in video games...ok, here I go.

I'll only briefly mention things I've discussed here before, at this point many people, including some users here on Vizzed, know that censorship imposed by the three big video game companies is very real. Omega Labyrinth Z cancelled in the west, the sequel Omega Labyrinth Life released uncensored only for Nintendo Switch and PC but not PS4 where it's censored and known as Labyrinth Life, Gal*Gun Returns originally planned for Xbox One but in the end it was released only for Nintendo Switch and PC and the Xbox One version was cancelled...I've discussed other instances of censorship here especially regarding the Omega Labyrinth games and there have been a lot of instances throughout the years especially on Sony consoles. For a long time, Nintendo looked like a trustworthy company when it comes to standards and guidelines or whatever, where the company more or less had a mentality of ''as long as the game isn't rated Adults Only, we don't care'' and yes, there are many, many examples of games censored on PS4 and/or PS5 but uncensored on Nintendo Switch or less censored at worst (The Nekopara games for example)...well, it shouldn't be a complete surprise that, in the end, none of the big companies are trusthworthy when it comes to content in anime style games that can be considered sexually suggestive, fan service...whatever...

I'll get straight to the point, recently the company qureate announced and released the game Prison Princess: Trapped Allure, a sequel of the game Prison Princess released several years ago. Prison Princess: Trapped Allure is available on Steam and it has a Nintendo Switch version...however, the Nintendo Switch version was released only in Japan, more than a week later...nothing, unlike the original Prison Princess, the Nintendo Switch version is only available in Japan, it's not available in the west, this is worth mentioning not only because of the fact that the Nintendo Switch version (the original version I might add) of the first game is available in the west but also because it was a simultaneous release worldwide...games published by qureate usually (always?) have simultaneous releases worldwide, if they really wanted to release the Nintendo Switch version of Prison Princess: Trapped Allure in the west, they would have done exactly that, using a bit of logic, do you really think that qureate would intentionally release the sequel of Prison Princess only in Japan even though the previous game was released outside of Japan? No, of course not, qureate has published a lot of digital games in the west and not publishing the Nintendo Switch version of Prison Princess: Trapped Allure doesn't make sense from a business perspective especially considering that the previous game for Nintendo Switch was released in the west, not releasing the Nintendo Switch version of Prison Princess: Trapped Allure in the west means less sales, and for a small company like qureate, sales should be important. What makes this worse is the fact that it's not the first...incident with a game published by qureate, this is already the third time that something happens with a game published by that company.

The first instance of censorship, Duel Princess was released on January 13, 2022 for Nintendo Switch...less than a month later the game is delisted worldwide...almost 3 years later, Duel Princess is still delisted and nowadays it's only available for PC. The second instance of censorship, rhythm game Massage Freaks (I refuse to call it ''beat refle'') was announced and the game was set for a release on August 4, 2022, you could pre-order the game for...9 days or less...the game was delisted from the Nintendo eShop and in the end, Massage Freaks was released only for PC. For a long time people thought that what happened around those 2 games was just a coincidence, maybe a mistake by qureate or Nintendo but nothing more than that, well...3 incidents with games published by qureate is a pattern, 3 times of anything is a pattern, what's more, there are comments saying that, yes, there is a Nintendo Switch version of Prison Princess: Trapped Allure in Japan but that version is a little censored compared to the PC version, supposedly the Nintendo Switch version doesn't let you touch the characters unlike the PC version...

All of the above is without even mentioning Eastasiasoft...Eastasiasoft will soon release new versions of Tokyo Clanpool, a dungeon crawler originally released for PS Vita a long time ago. Eastasiasoft will release Tokyo Clanpool for PC on GOG.com (not Steam) and also Nintendo Switch next month on December 19, 2024, however, in the case of the Nintendo Switch version that release is only for Asia...Eastasiasoft has plans to release the Nintendo Switch version in the west, but the company has only said ''2025 in the west'' and we are almost in 2025. When the game launches on December 19 for PC and Nintendo Switch in Asia, the game will have a translation, so, before the end of the year, the translation will be finished and everything, why not have a simultaneous release for Nintendo Switch or release the game in January next year? Well, because they can't, Eastasiasoft has implied and/or said in public comments on Twitter/X and Discord that Nintendo of America and Nintendo of Europe (NOA and NOE) are becoming more strict when it comes to content in anime style games...indeed, the recent problems with Prison Princess: Trapped Allure and Tokyo Clanpool this year are proof of that and I'm tired...I'm tired of censorship in video games with video games being censored one after another, where in the best of cases a video game does see the light of day but with modified or removed content...I'm disappointed in Nintendo because they let many games uncensored on Nintendo Switch unlike Sony imposing all that unnecessary censorship...I'm disappointed, I'm upset, but I'm not surprised, Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft are big companies and big companies cannot be trusted.

As a consumer, I can vote with my walltet but even that doesn't really work, people who don't want to buy a game because it was censored in some way are a minority...without going any further, Spike Chunsoft, Spike Chunsoft has published a lot of games for PS4 and in 2019 they published Zanki Zero: Last Beginning, Crystar and Conception Plus: Maidens of the Twelve Stars, all those PS4 games have something in common...they were affected by censorship, especially Zanki Zero: Last Beginning, but after the release of those games the company still published several games for PS4....Made in Abyss: Binary Star Falling into Darkness, Anonymous;Code, those two games (and more) were released after 2019, if those 3 games released in 2019 that I mentioned had failed, if those games had had low sales, then Spike Chunsoft would have said ''forget it, we won't publish more PS4 games'' and Made in Abyss: Binary Star Falling into Darkness (for example) wouldn't have a PS4 version, but no, the sales of those games must have been enough, Spike Chunsoft made money with those games, if that wasn't the case, they wouldn't have released more PS4 games after 2019...even though the people buying those games were aware of the censorship (Spike Chunsoft was very honest about the changes) many people still bought those games...even when it comes to anime style games and games like Mary Skelter, Senran Kagura etc, people who say ''I won't buy that game because it's censored'' are a minority, and that's not...encouraging...

As you can imagine, pretty much no one is talking about what's happening with Prison Princess: Trapped Allure and Tokyo Clanpool, at most, you can find public comments made by an Eastasiasoft employee on Twitter/X and Discord, a recent thread on GameFAQS, maybe an old post on Kotaku In Action and...not much else. IGN, Operation Rainfall, Siliconera, Vara Dark on YouTube...nothing, almost no one is talking about those 2 games and that's a little frustrating...

I don't have much more to say...I still enjoy playing video games and this year I had a blast with a lot of games, Astria Ascending, Neptunia Game Maker R:Evolution, Sand Land and Princess Peach: Showtime! are some games I played this year and I like those games, but seeing that Nintendo is becoming more strict when it comes to Japanese games, several years after allowing games with fan service without issues...I don't like that and as I said, I'm tired, I'm disappointed and I'm upset, I don't know what I can do, I was sure that 2018 was (basically) just the beginning of Sony censorship and yes, that never went away, but now Nintendo is following the same path, after what happened with Duel Princess and Massage Freaks, it's not a coincidence anymore...I don't want to end this post on a negative note but I guess I can't deny that I can't do much...we can't do much if people against censorship in video games are a minority...my next review will be of Shining Resonance Refrain, Odin Sphere Leifthrasir, Dragon's Crown, Lord of Magna: Maiden Heaven or Prison Princess (yes, I have the Nintendo Switch version of Prison Princess)...one of those games...see you next time...

It's always frustrating when you love something that only a minority does, and if such minority isn't part of the developing or publishing team (including the systems it releases on) then you're basically left for dead. And we don't even need to go to censorship for that, there are tons of examples where companies have done whatever they want ignoring the pleas of players. And I'm not talking about minorities, I'm talking about millions.

It's true that in the West there's not as much following for anime-like graphics in games. Remember how the first entries in the Dragon Quest franchise had their name and artworks changed for overseas releases, just to mention one example. And in the case of the so-called fan service, there's another thing that kicks in: laws and rating systems.

We've seen time and time again how certain games can be labelled as 12+ in one region but 16+ in another region. Beyond the cultural differences and other specifics, this also means that some games will have their sales affected by this to some extent. Add to that the fact that companies can get back what they said earlier because of failed expectations of how much revenue they can get out of those releases aaand... BOOM!

Nowadays, companies (developers, publishers, media...) only care for projects which are safe bets and will produce the needed revenue to stay alive. How many games have been cancelled because they were deemed a waste of resources, how many have been delisted after poor results or no longer being profitable (looking at you, Ubisoft)... That's how the world of videogames has changed: the costs of producing games means that they need to hit the jackpot, failing to do so can mean bankruptcy and as such no one dares to run any risk.

The media, like I said before, also plays a part. Why bother on articles that nobody will read even with a clickbait title? Why bother on a game that barely sells a few thousand copies? That doesn't make money, and in this world, money is everything. That's why the only people who talk about these things are "out of the system", so to speak.

Why would Nintendo change its mindset? Who knows. Profitability of those games, their public image by allowing them, trimming down what's available in the eshop, putting all the focus on their new console forgetting about other things they consider less important... Or maybe there was an internal reunion that declared such games would not be marketed elsewhere. Or maybe too focused on suing developers

If companies listened to what their players want, the world would be a much better place. I know that some do, though mostly on the indie side because they're not as corrupted for earnings as the big ones, but it would be great if we returned back to a time where companies would listen to players over more subjects than just bug fixing and cheating.

You are right, you make great points. I admit I feel a little better after writing all that, and trying to be positive, there are still games I'm interested in. It's true that if I have a policy of ''I refuse to buy a game if it was censored in some way'' (for the most part at least), I wouldn't play a lot of games, and sure, I don't want to buy Dragon Star Varnir and Mary Skelter Finale because of that (just to give 2 examples), but that doesn't mean I can't play anything. Next year I'll definitely get the physical versions of Triggerheart Exelica and Muse Dash. After venting and admitting that I can't do much, I guess I'll just try to enjoy what I already have and get a new game here and there.

Also, it's not like I only want to play anime style games so to speak, I briefly mentioned Princess Peach: Showtime! and I recommend it, I already did everything in that game (I beat it 100% already, yes) and yeah, not bad, I consider it a good game. I also recently got The Smurfs 2: The Prisoner of the Green Stone and I plan to beat it in the near future. I've said it before in real life, not everything in life is Japanese games...Tearaway is amazing...

It's easy to be negative about the future of the video game industry and I'm not just talking about censorsip imposed by Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo and even Valve...indeed, there are a lot of things wrong with the industry today, but I guess I'm not someone who wants to focus on what's wrong, especially if doing so is not going to have a significat effect, it's one of several reasons why I don't like the content made by Jim Sterling anymore, so much negativity but for nothing, he doesn't really provide solutions and maybe because Jim Sterling knows that said solutions wouldn't really work, like when he admitted that gamer boycotts don't work (and it's true, for the most part gamer boycotts don't work).

Anyway...we'll see, there are things wrong with the industry but not everything is bad, if that wasn't the case I wouldn't be able to enjoy video games, or at least not as much...I still love video games, playing video games is still what I enjoy doing the most and if anyone asks me, even 2024 gave us good games, Sand Land and Princess Peach: Showtime! are just 2 games released in 2024 that I have played...I really like those games.