The Age Old "Unrequired Censorship" Argument.

ZerachielThalos Profile Options #171

0
0
Neutral
SlackerCS on 05/03/2012, 10:54 AM - view
Lots of silly arguments in this thread. A few points:

- The ESRB has nothing to do with this discussion. Tons of games that are much worse (more violence, nudity, and language) than TERA and are still rated M.

- It's not toned down all that much. My mystic looks like she's wearing a prom dress in to battle. The Elins are still there, just modified slightly. And huge bouncing breasts are everywhere.

- There is no "censorship" going on here, really, as that implies outside forces suppressing what BHS/EME/Frogster/Whoever wants to do with the game. What we're talking about is adaptation. EME rightly decided to tone down some of the visuals in the game to appeal to the western audience. Their job is not to fulfill some artistic vision, it's to make money. They determined that the game would sell better here (North America) if they made a few changes, so they made them.

You can disagree with their reasoning, but look at it from their perspective. There are two groups of potential customers in play here: Those who think the visuals are unappealing for whatever reason, and those who are unhappy with the changes made. I'd be willing to be that the former group is vastly larger than the latter. It only makes sense to work to win them over.


+1. Pretty sure slacker wins the arguement.
Malamasala Profile Options #172

0
0
Neutral
There always seems to be so many brilliant minds on these forums that argue against censorship, and then just fools trying to defend it. It tends to make me wonder if I'm biased, but in the end I can't really agree with stupidity just to try and be neutral in the topic.

1. Hypocrisy

You simply can't say sexualizing children is wrong, and defend the censorship EME did, without claiming killing children is wrong, and demanding PvP to exclude Elins. It is impossible without labeling yourself a hypocrite and lose all your respect in the discussion.

I respect all of you who want censored Elins, if you are disgusted by the PvP scene. Else I just find you all to be hypocrites that just act randomly without any consistency.

2. Censorship popularity

It shouldn't come as any surprise that not a single company has created advertisement proclaiming "Product X, now censored!". This is because any and all censorship is considered negative, even by the companies themselves that perform them.

With that knowledge, it should be a no-brainer to avoid censorship at all cost. Ever hear someone say "Oh director's cut? Not buying it because I want a censored version"? I doubt you have, and it will not happen because censorship is not desired by anyone.

3. Customer is always right

It is of course an exaggeration. Naturally if you have one customer saying no censorship and one customer saying yes censorship, both can't be right.

But that doesn't prevent you from actually catering to both, by giving the option to choose censorship or not. It is like at McDonalds. If someone wants a fish burger and another a hamburger, you don't need to say "Sorry, I like the hamburger guy more, so I won't give you a fish burger". You can give them one each, just as you can give both textures for Elins.

As far as I know, companies never perform their best without catering to customer wishes.

4. Get your facts straight

Censorship had no impact on pedophiles. If you happen to be one of the very rare pedophiles that have as a goal to play Tera all day, you still downloaded the KTera textures and circumvented the censorship.

There are hundreds of games featuring the same thing as Elins and none of them are censored. There was no gain to be had by censoring Elins, unless someone wants to claim Tera is a unique butterfly that is vastly different from everything else.

All shared stories with "I showed my co-workers" or "I showed my mother" all ends with them thinking it is just a game, why censor it? And that is normal people. Just as those normal people who want the KTera textures restored. The people who are not normal, are those who are obsessed with pedos hiding behind every corner just to ruin their days.



It is a shame that EME does not realize how negative it is to ignore customers for half a year. It has cost them a lot of customers that care about the company they pay. Getting the "I don't care, just let me play" people were never an issue, they were already guaranteed with or without the changes. When a company ignores a whole of their race players for over half a year, it sends very bad signals to those who think a second time before buying a product.


I hope EME will live long on their luck, because they clearly are not trying to run on strategy and knowledge.
SlackerCS Profile Options #173

0
0
Neutral
Crumplecorn on 05/03/2012, 10:58 AM - view

Now, I'm pretty new here, so could someone fill me in on how many threads there were complaining about the Elin costumes before they were changed, asking for censorship? To compare to the endless threads complaining about the changes that we've had since.

I WONDER WHICH THERE WERE MORE OF

That's not a reasonable measure because the game was never presented in both forms to players here.

Look at it this way. Take 100 people from a lucrative demographic, say adult males age 25 to 45. Show them a picture of an elin with the flowery panties showing, and one modeled as they are now. Then ask the people whether the change makes them more or less likely to play the game.

Then take 100 more people from the same group and ask them if this exact question: "Are you more or less likely to play TERA Online because of the changes made to the North American version?" The results would look something like this:

50% - "What is TERA Online?"
40% - "What did they change?"
5% - "More likely or don't care."
5% - "Less likely."

If the results from the first group finds more than 5 people agree with the change, they made the right call.
Edited by: SlackerCS about 1 year ago
Kiregean Profile Options #174

0
0
Neutral
You're all "+1"ing someone who is ill-informed.

1) The ESRB has A LOT to do with this discussion as all major retailers REQUIRE an ESRB rating to sell a product.

2) It isn't the toning down that's the issue, it's the censoring of all basic mature themes and still marketing the game to mature audiences. It's like labeling Scream as R and replacing the killer's weapon with a rubber knife and having the victims be stuck in time out for the rest of the movie.

3) There is censorship as En Masse ISN'T Bluehole, they are a subsidiary and not the core company, they make independent changes to the game and seek approval for the final product; all texture modifications were done by En Masse (as is evident by the poor texture quality).

Am I missing anything?

Pyrolight Profile Options #175

0
0
Neutral
Kiregean on 05/03/2012, 10:58 AM - view
Tizuby, the only thing En Masse must seek approval for is changes to the game's core code. Texture changes, alterations to quest text, feature addition and removal are all on their own discretion. In the end all they do is hand Bluehole a copy of the finished product and say "This alright boss?" most likely Bluehole (being a Korean studio and unfamiliar with American/European studio practices) didn't do much in depth digging to see all the changes, they probably just gave a brief overview to ensure the game was fundamentally the same product and said ship it.


You are 100% absolutely unequivocally wrong on that point.

BHS makes the calls, EME just makes suggestions. BHS also did all the texture changes. This was confirmed by EME.

EME was created by and is owned by BHS. EME is not simply saying "do this and do that or else".


Anyway BHS themselves have been censoring some aspects of the game.

Armour and breast size (not Elin), and the nipples/hair were a mod.

The underwear and elin were the two censoring "issues".



Edited by: Pyrolight about 1 year ago
TrueElin Profile Options #176

0
0
Neutral
Kiregean on 05/03/2012, 10:37 AM - view
Tizuby, I'm going to point this out once again that this is NOT En Masse's property, they are a subsidiary which means they are merely affiliated with the core company and as such, like with Frogster, they can make changes without the consulting of Bluehole.



Firstly, the idea that En Masse doesn't make changes unless Bluehole tells them is laughable because if that were the case then the game would most likely have been released as is and only translated. Your argument fails dismally at that point.



Secondly, do you even understand what a subsidiary is? I'm noticing this a lot that many of you are unfamiliar with what that actually entails. A subsidiary company is an independent company that is affiliated with a larger core company (the key word here is independant, they report their final changes but don't seek approval), in this case it is Bluehole. Subsidiaries are required only to report changes made and then Bluehole has the right to review and veto them if they deem necessary. This is the same as with all Publisher/Developer arrangements, this one in particular is just fundamentally reversed from the normal situation (Normally the publisher purchases the developer not vice versa.)



I completely disagree with you on your second point.

"A subsidiary company, subsidiary, or daughter company[1] is a company that is completely or partly owned and wholly controlled by another company that owns more than half of the subsidiary's stock.[2][3] The subsidiary can be a company, corporation, or limited liability company. In some cases it is a government or state-owned enterprise. The controlling entity is called its parent company, parent, or holding company.[4]"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidiary

EME was founded by BHS and is fully controlled by them. BHS supplies the money, they make the final decisions.

Not to derail this topic, but as further proof of the organizational structure that exists between EME and BHS, In the brief that NCsoft filed against EME line 14 reads as follows:

“En Masse Entertainment, Inc. is a corporation organized and existing und the laws of Washington, with principle place of business at 1301 2nd Avenue, Suite 2550, Seattle, WA 908101. En Masse is a wholly owned subsidiary of Bluehole.”

http://tsi.brooklaw.edu/sites/tsi.brooklaw.edu/files/filings/ncsoft-corporation-et-al-v-bluehole-studio-inc-et-al/20120109ncsoft-corporation-et-al-v-bluehole-studio-inc-et-alcomplaint.pdf

When a company is “wholly owned by another” the parent gets the final word. The buck stops with BHS.
SlackerCS Profile Options #177

0
0
Neutral
Kiregean on 05/03/2012, 11:10 AM - view
You're all "+1"ing someone who is ill-informed.

1) The ESRB has A LOT to do with this discussion as all major retailers REQUIRE an ESRB rating to sell a product.

2) It isn't the toning down that's the issue, it's the censoring of all basic mature themes and still marketing the game to mature audiences. It's like labeling Scream as R and replacing the killer's weapon with a rubber knife and having the victims be stuck in time out for the rest of the movie.

3) There is censorship as En Masse ISN'T Bluehole, they are a subsidiary and not the core company, they make independent changes to the game and seek approval for the final product; all texture modifications were done by En Masse (as is evident by the poor texture quality).

1) It really doesn't. Yes, major retailers require an ESRB rating. What I'm saying is that the rating is not in jeopardy. Much worse games still get an 'M', and I'm pretty confident that TERA would have gotten the same without the changes.

2) I can't make sense of this one.

3) We're just defining the word differently here.
ZerachielThalos Profile Options #178

0
0
Neutral
Malamasala on 05/03/2012, 11:09 AM - view
It tends to make me wonder if I'm biased


Yeppp, that's called bias. When you're certain your side is brilliant and the other side idiots because they don't agree. All sides would lose due to the fact that everyone is arguing about irrelevant opinions and trying to sound more intelligent than they really are. Intelligence doesn't matter when it comes to opinion, and this is such a stupid thing to argue about even if there could be fact supporting it. Seriously, I cant believe how staunchly these 3-5 people argue over something that's done and should be behind us.
Crumplecorn Profile Options #179

0
0
Neutral
Nyss Lvl.60
Mount Tyrannas (PVP)
Elin Warrior
SlackerCS on 05/03/2012, 11:09 AM - view
If the results from the first group finds more than 5 people agree with the change, they made the right call.
That pretty much sounds like what we're measuring by counting forum threads. And even in the threads themselves (which are, I'l stop being rhetorical now, all anti-censorship), where are the hordes of pro-censorship people? It's always idiots getting school by more intelligent anti-censorship people, with random peopel popping in to comment on the absurdity of the censorship.

This idea that they have appeased some significant but silent majority who are deeply offended by bikini bottoms but will stare at hotpants until the cows come home is ludicrous.
Kiregean Profile Options #180

0
0
Neutral
You failed to read what I said, they are a subsidiary, Bluehole must give them the go-ahead for the final changes but En Masse isn't responsible for alerting them of every change as they happen.

"Wholly controlled" does not translate to "under constant moderation" it merely means they own the controlling stake of the company. En Masse is for all intents and purposes a separate entity from Bluehole in this discussion and the claim that Bluehole made the changes is preposterous, Bluehole would not release substandard textures that have been added, not after putting that much effort into the game. En Masse may be trying to "pass the buck" off to Bluehole for the changes but it is clearly not the case.