The Witcher 2

[Tigranes]

It was something to do with sex/drugs as incentives - though I don't remember that in the game, really. Maybe it was smokeweed as a reward? Again, banning the whole game for that is stupid. I think the sex bit might be Risen's prostitutes - again, it's not like they were interesting in any way, wouldn't shed a tear if they were removed.

 

Censorship is only a problem when it removes worthy content - which it obviously is if the whole game is banned. I doubt any of the breasts and sex in TW2 will be worth the time.

[Volourn]

"Censorship is only a problem when it removes worthy content - which it obviously is if the whole game is banned. I doubt any of the breasts and sex in TW2 will be worth the time."

 

Disagree since 'worthiness' is different from person to person.

[Hell Kitty]

Censorship is only a problem when it removes worthy content - which it obviously is if the whole game is banned.

 

Not really. For whatever reason the developers/publishers of Risen decided against releasing a modified version, which is what most everyone else does when their game gets an RC. If the content is vital and cannot be removed without ruining the game as a whole then fair enough, but having played Risen uncensored I can say that isn't the case. Maybe they decided to take a stand, maybe they just didn't care and figured people could buy it online.

 

If CDP refused to alter this part of The Witcher 2, then it too would have to be Refused Classification. It's not stupid for the OFLC to rate games according to their rules, what's stupid is we still don't have an R18+ rating.

[Tigranes]

Yeah, I agree that having an R would solve a lot of problems.

 

Does anyone know how the preloading works for TW2 GOG? It seems strange to me that you can download it on May 10 but... you can't unlock until a full week later?

[Orogun01]

Censorship is only a problem when it removes worthy content - which it obviously is if the whole game is banned. I doubt any of the breasts and sex in TW2 will be worth the time.

Tig, this it's the entitlement age. Some gamers have the emotional maturity of a 7 years old that thinks that they are entitled to stuff. No matter how minimal the changes are, there it's going to be an outcry from them.

 

That said I did get an European version of the original Witcher, just because of the censorship.

[WorstUsernameEver]

Tig, this it's the entitlement age. Some gamers have the emotional maturity of a 7 years old that thinks that they are entitled to stuff. No matter how minimal the changes are, there it's going to be an outcry from them.

 

That's.. not how you use the word entitlement. Not at all.

[Lexx]

Yeah, I agree that having an R would solve a lot of problems.

 

Does anyone know how the preloading works for TW2 GOG? It seems strange to me that you can download it on May 10 but... you can't unlock until a full week later?

 

If I remember correct, you need to download the last bit on release, just like everyone else. But if you download the game from GOG after release, you do not need to patch it to make it run.

[Blodhemn]

Isn't there still boobs in the game otherwise? I'm pretty sure it'd be more than one quest. Ohh sex, boobs - so scary and corruptive to a 15 year old's mind. It's not like Australia doesn't have a huge alcohol and drug culture amongst youngsters...and furthermore I thought the views on sex was a bit more liberal there then here in the warped USA. I'm sure it's just a decision coming from a person or two that trickles down and affects everyone.

[Orchomene]

I still don't understand why is sex prohibited for children whereas violence is not. I think this is a misplaced social priority and a sign of social nevrosis.

So, in Australia you can't depict prostitution and drug usage having a positive aspect but you can of course depict murdering as a positive aspect. Where is the logic in this ?

[Hell Kitty]

I still don't understand why is sex prohibited for children whereas violence is not.

 

what

 

So, in Australia you can't depict prostitution and drug usage having a positive aspect but you can of course depict murdering as a positive aspect.

 

None of this is right, but I can't be bothered explaining why because something tells me it'll be a waste of time.

[Gorgon]

I makes perfect sense to me. I mean we are talking about depictions of sex being censored because they are thought to have negative effects on children, hence something gets to be for adults only. 16/18/21+.

 

The science suggests that sex and violence absorbed through entertainment media is not the cause for either crime or mental illness in adulthood, the damaging effect is very hard to pinpoint except as a sort of poorly defined parental idea that it's the 'right thing' to do.

[Orchomene]

I still don't understand why is sex prohibited for children whereas violence is not.

 

what

 

So, in Australia you can't depict prostitution and drug usage having a positive aspect but you can of course depict murdering as a positive aspect.

 

None of this is right, but I can't be bothered explaining why because something tells me it'll be a waste of time.

 

So, if this isn't right, that means that FPS are forbidden in Australia : All FPS depict murder as being positive.

[Tigranes]

There's a difference between getting sex as a quest reward and killing people to fulfill your goals, because most of the killing in, say, most FPSes are given specific circumstances, such as war, covert ops, global conspiracy, etc. Certainly the Aussie board would have a second look if the killing was overtly gratuitous, or killing as an act rather than a means was glorified or incentivised in extreme ways - which is of course why Postal 2 was banned outright in NZ. You can't argue that there's a difference between playing a marine who shoots people in a war setting and a man who gets to sleep with a prostitute for finding her family heirloom, in our current cultural norms.

[Orchomene]

And in games where you play an assassin ?

Sex doesn't harm anyone if it doesn't have a violence component. On the other hand, killing people, even in socially accepted circumstances (war) is harmful by essence.

Of course there is a difference in both your situation : the marine is essentially making a lot of people suffer, even if it's in a legal way and the man that sleeps with a prostitute doesn't.

The same is true with drugs, of course. It remains a misplaced orientation of our societies to be so prudish.

[Sannom]

I still don't understand why is sex prohibited for children whereas violence is not.

what

Look at any cartoon or movie that are aimed at young children : slapstick is a big component of the humor. It's something universal and not limited to Australia or the US though.

 

And in games where you play an assassin ?

It's probably rationalized as 'It's his job and his victims are **** anyways'.

 

Sex doesn't harm anyone if it doesn't have a violence component. On the other hand, killing people, even in socially accepted circumstances (war) is harmful by essence.

Some rapes don't involve any kind of physical violence, yet they're still rapes, and killing or letting someone die is sometimes seen as an act of mercy.

 

Of course there is a difference in both your situation : the marine is essentially making a lot of people suffer, even if it's in a legal way and the man that sleeps with a prostitute doesn't.

 

The man who sleeps with a prostitute still promote a system that is harmful to most of the women in it. It is still not a good thing.

Edited May 5, 2011 by Sannom

[Gorgon]

We want those things in our games precisely because they are taboo and exciting. And yes, an angel dies every time a customer porks a hooker. (honestly who cares, prostitution is a fact of life, just concentrate on the worst attendant problems, like human trafficking and drug addiction)

Edited May 5, 2011 by Gorgon

[Hell Kitty]

I still don't understand why is sex prohibited for children whereas violence is not.

what

Look at any cartoon or movie that are aimed at young children : slapstick is a big component of the humor. It's something universal and not limited to Australia or the US though.

 

That "what" was aimed at the "I still don't understand why is sex prohibited for children" bit of that post.

[Tigranes]

It remains a misplaced orientation of our societies to be so prudish.

 

Perhaps, but the task of a censorship committee is not to challenge the social norms, but to protect them and respond to them. It is essentially a tool of the norm itself to regulate the media industry so that its commercial logic does not violate the said norms excessively. In that respect it makes perfect sense to smack down on prostitution as quest reward and not so much, say, Assassin's Creed or even Hitman.

 

If we're talking about it more generally, of course we have this huge mess with sexuality. But at the same time, I'm deeply suspicious of gamers that use that as an argument to say we should get boobs and sex and brothels in our games. Even less than other stories or issues that games deal with or reflect, their depiction of sex and sexuality has been generally terrible. As it stands this is the last place that we are going to see a healthier and more open representation of sex and sexuality - the truth is that most of the 'maturity' in TW1 or elsewhere is decadent, carnally indulgent and shameless marketing tricks. Sex sells, but it seems silly for the customer to defend it by arguing that the society's prudishness is flawed.

 

(That is sort of a strawman because I don't think anyone's arguing that in this thread - it's more of a general thing, e.g. on people that want to kill children in the FO3/NV. At least the earlier ones had a child killer reputation thing.)

[Orchomene]

It remains a misplaced orientation of our societies to be so prudish.

 

Perhaps, but the task of a censorship committee is not to challenge the social norms, but to protect them and respond to them. It is essentially a tool of the norm itself to regulate the media industry so that its commercial logic does not violate the said norms excessively. In that respect it makes perfect sense to smack down on prostitution as quest reward and not so much, say, Assassin's Creed or even Hitman.

 

If we're talking about it more generally, of course we have this huge mess with sexuality. But at the same time, I'm deeply suspicious of gamers that use that as an argument to say we should get boobs and sex and brothels in our games. Even less than other stories or issues that games deal with or reflect, their depiction of sex and sexuality has been generally terrible. As it stands this is the last place that we are going to see a healthier and more open representation of sex and sexuality - the truth is that most of the 'maturity' in TW1 or elsewhere is decadent, carnally indulgent and shameless marketing tricks. Sex sells, but it seems silly for the customer to defend it by arguing that the society's prudishness is flawed.

 

(That is sort of a strawman because I don't think anyone's arguing that in this thread - it's more of a general thing, e.g. on people that want to kill children in the FO3/NV. At least the earlier ones had a child killer reputation thing.)

 

Well, of course I wasn't challenging censorship commities who just apply the law, more the politicians that vote the law.

We want to protect our children from something that is natural and even more than natural, that is a necessity for our species. Like eating, drinking and sleeping. We shouldn't forget that for the major part of our history, children were confronted to sexual relationships of their parents because of the lack of space in houses (just a single big room). Yet, there was no special sexual deviations that kept being mentioned in texts. On the other hand, sadism and other perverted sexual forms are rather recent (XVIIIth century and after) and arose mostly in prude socienties.

It's the same thing with sex in video games (not that I'm interested specially in this since it's not something that is well abstracted in any media because it's based on sensations and emotions and very few on intellect, but it's another subject) : the more this is hidden, the more it's absurdly caricatural when seen.

 

About children and sex : I'm not the only one that had sexual relationship when still not being an adult. It wasn't even rare when I was around 15 or 16. I've heard that now it may even seen before, like at 13 or 14, but I doubt it's may be that often. Of course, I don't talk about relationship between an adult and a child.

It's thus highly hypocritical to forbid any metion or image of it for children.

 

Also, last point : rape is more an act of violence than a sexual act. It's psychologically a way to physically constrain someone. It may not be physically harmful (yet, in most of the cases, it is on the related body parts of the victim), it is highly psychologically hurting. The way I wanted to present the comparison between sex and killing is that sex is generally between consenting persons whereas it's rare when this is the case with murder. Of course, it's not always the case for both,

Prostitution, on the other hand is a complex issue where the limit between commerce and abuse is not sufficiently defined to consider it a legitim job. Yet, in some countries, prositution is authorised and controled to avoid abuse, but it's very rare.

 

P.S. Sorry for the digressions, I won't go further with the subject. Else, the topic would slip to much out of the subject.

Edited May 5, 2011 by Orchomene

[Tigranes]

The problematisation of sexuality in children, accompanied by attempts at a discursive erasure of infantile and childhood sexuality, runs parallel to the 18th/19th century and the medicalisation of society, yes. I don't have a lot of time now, but my point, as it pertains to games and TW2, is this - perhaps it would have been better in various ways for our society to have developed a more open and frank understanding of sex and sexuality, especially in relation to children. But in the current climate, the current context in which sex is commercialised, I don't think video games that feature 'mature' content really do anything positive to society and representations of sex/sexuality. That's why I'm not averse to some censorship, keeping the current context in mind, not an idealistic view of what sex/sexuality should have been / could be in the future.

 

TW1's sex bits made me feel like I was sitting through a 13 year old's uncomfortably indulgent fantasies, and I expect TW2 will be a bit better, but not fundamentally. It would be nice if, by not being afraid to show sex and nudity as it might happen in the setting, TW2 can help the gaming media get over the big titties and thong armour crap - but I don't know if it will.

 

edit: true enough, this is going pretty OT.

[Malcador]

Well, I guess that sucks for Australians. Oh well.

[HoonDing]

Sex can be avoided as much in a CD Projekt game as combat can be avoided in a BioWare game.

[Gorgon]

The problematisation of sexuality in children, accompanied by attempts at a discursive erasure of infantile and childhood sexuality, runs parallel to the 18th/19th century and the medicalisation of society, yes. I don't have a lot of time now, but my point, as it pertains to games and TW2, is this - perhaps it would have been better in various ways for our society to have developed a more open and frank understanding of sex and sexuality, especially in relation to children. But in the current climate, the current context in which sex is commercialised, I don't think video games that feature 'mature' content really do anything positive to society and representations of sex/sexuality. That's why I'm not averse to some censorship, keeping the current context in mind, not an idealistic view of what sex/sexuality should have been / could be in the future.

 

TW1's sex bits made me feel like I was sitting through a 13 year old's uncomfortably indulgent fantasies, and I expect TW2 will be a bit better, but not fundamentally. It would be nice if, by not being afraid to show sex and nudity as it might happen in the setting, TW2 can help the gaming media get over the big titties and thong armour crap - but I don't know if it will.

 

edit: true enough, this is going pretty OT.

Your academic career is starting to affect serious environmental damage to your language.

[Hell Kitty]

TW1's sex bits made me feel like I was sitting through a 13 year old's uncomfortably indulgent fantasies, and I expect TW2 will be a bit better, but not fundamentally.

 

Same. The Witcher features a hero that doesn't have to worry about disease or kids and has women throwing themselves at him. That's not a mature take on sex, it's the fantasy of the typical hetero teenage boy. If you claim to be offering up a mature product, expect to be called out when you deliver an adolescent power fantasy. The Sims features a more mature take on sex and relationships.

[Mamoulian War]

TW1's sex bits made me feel like I was sitting through a 13 year old's uncomfortably indulgent fantasies, and I expect TW2 will be a bit better, but not fundamentally.

 

Same. The Witcher features a hero that doesn't have to worry about disease or kids and has women throwing themselves at him. That's not a mature take on sex, it's the fantasy of the typical hetero teenage boy. If you claim to be offering up a mature product, expect to be called out when you deliver an adolescent power fantasy. The Sims features a more mature take on sex and relationships.

 

 

Ehm... I did not knew that sexual-disease prevention programs and contraception was promoted during medieval... So I don