Poll of the Day > Sony censoring horror game "Martha Is Dead", devs not happy about it

(+) Yeah! (+)

PC and Xbox versions unaffected

**Spoilers** in the article describing the censored content

https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2022/02/12/why-playstation-is-censoring-horror-game-martha-is-dead

https://twitter.com/wiredp/status/1492156908861591556?s=21

Pretty silly considering the level of violence in mature-rated games. On top of the fact that this is a mature-rated game... Why have a mature rating if you can't use it for shit like this? Why not censor all games with interactive dismemberment?

Oh, so basically Sony is babies

I bet they won't even drop the price to adjust for the missing content. Fuckers!

Veedrock- posted...

I bet they won't even drop the price to adjust for the missing content. Fuckers!

I can't tell if this is a parody post or not.

pretty bad look considering TLoU 2 was first party this comes off as super hypocritical

People complained about the visceral torture scene in GTAV. Just as described, this sounds worse. I can easily see Sony being afraid of Twitter drama bullshit and deciding to try and defuse it in advance by asking the devs to take it out.

Of course, because the Internet is a machine fueled by outrage and stupidity, attempting to prevent Twitter drama often just causes Twitter itself drama anyway.

Once again PO uses a lot of words to say absolutely nothing.

Archaea_Ottoia posted...

Once again PO uses a lot of words to say absolutely nothing.

So which shitposter are you again? I lose track when you all keep getting your accounts banned and have to keep making new ones (or digging out forgotten old one) to keep shitposting with.

More words with absolutely no substance? Not from our dear friend, PO!?

Thanks for proving my point.

I would suggest you did the same for me, but that would require going back to when you started your account.

you can easily say this from a main, you sound soft as hell saying this from an alt lmao

TheSlinja posted...

you can easily say this from a main, you sound soft as hell saying this from an alt lmao

Cool. Glad it matters to you. I could point out how the inverse is true of me, but I don't know if you'd understand.

Who hides behind an alt to say PO talks a lot? That's like the least controversial opinion ever.

PO Junior over here defending his daddy.

I said pretty much the same thing you did. That's not much of a defense.

It's okay, one day you'll be able to spout as long as he can, while saying just as little. I believe in you.

this is clearly a sony exec trying to distract us from the topic at hand

Archaea_Ottoia posted...

Once again PO uses a lot of words to say absolutely nothing.

you couldn't wait until PO made a post that was more than one paragraph to start your new bit huh

chelsea_wtf posted...

you couldn't wait until PO made a post that was more than one paragraph to start your new bit huh

El Woosh.

can you please try harder. i would love to have a good troll here

chelsea_wtf posted...

can you please try harder. i would love to have a good troll here

I'd love to treat you to a dissertation on how my existence isn't for your benefit, but you already know you'd just give a half baked response as to why you don't care. Now, if you could actually troll, instead of just spewing the same half baked nonsense...

Well there's another account to ignore. I never cared for gimmick or troll accounts. The crazy part is, most of us don't even disagree with the general message there.

On topic, Sony has been hell bent on becoming what Nintendo was a decade ago, in terms of censorship.

I blocked that Archeaia whatever the fuck I don't need that bullshit in my topic

Probably Zangulus anyway.

keyblader1985 posted...

The crazy part is, most of us don't even disagree with the general message there.

-I- don't even entirely disagree with the general message, considering what I've had in my sig for like 18 years now.



Revelation34 posted...

Probably Zangulus anyway.

Don't know - Zang's never really had a raging hate-boner for me or anything that I've noticed. We've disagreed on stuff in the past but it's usually been relatively civil.

I've got a couple suspects in mind, but it doesn't really matter which shitposter it is when they're too afraid to admit who they are, and I've already blocked them.

Revelation34 posted...

Probably Zangulus anyway.

Zang doesn't really make a habit of hiding behind alts to say slightly inflammatory things.

Yeah when has Zang been shy about speaking his mind lmao

Or about his identity when on an alt. The only alt of his I readily know of is just "Zangulus" backwards.

We're all Soma adjl I thought you knew this

SmugRickMoranis posted...

We're all Soma adjl I thought you knew this

nah, i returned control of your bodies to you years ago

More Sony shenanigans

https://mobile.twitter.com/HoegLaw/status/1493341485550428160?s=20&t=RWEDRHHXQRtYXfPgKgNzlQ

Both listings contain exactly the same thing, but one is ten dollars extra. Guess which one is more promoted and which one doesn't even show up in the PS5 store?

I fucking knew it lol that's so shitty

My brother and I gameshare on PlayStation. He's got a PS5 and I have a PS4 Pro. I preordered the cheaper version of Forbidden West because in the game description it says "to use this game on PS5... blah blah blah" but it's not at all clear and certainly not titled or advertised as being usable on PS5. Still, went ahead with the cheaper version anyway because I figured worst case scenario my brother would have to pay a $10 upgrade charge or something.

This is bullshit lol

BlackScythe0 posted...

Normally I'd be upset about it... but While there may be a few instances of too far violence, the one that keeps getting brought up is that a player cuts off the face of their dead sister. And its not just that they cut it off, its that the action is actually a minigame where you have to move the blade around and peel the face off.

What the fuck.

You should spoiler tag it

Fucking annoying, thanks for reminding me about that ignorance.

Including an option in the menu to play through it or skip it would've been better. Sorta like No Russian

This is California's fault

chelsea_wtf posted...

can you please try harder. i would love to have a good troll here

What really is a good troll though? There have been some here that Ive enjoyed more than others, but ultimately theyre not very good especially when one of their main purposes is to annoy and antagonize others.

I was expecting this topic to be more about the game at hand, and less about ummm GFAQs drama . That said, this is pretty absurd. I had never even heard of this game until right now, but watching the clip of the censored scene, it's not exactly photorealistic. It very much looks like a fake video game. Not to mention the already endless amount of overly gorey games available, and a society that has been exposed to shock websites and content for a lonnnng time now on the internet.

What's even more funny is if you go the Twitter page with the censored scene in question, there are actually highly rated comments defending Sony's censorship. I'm sorry, but even as someone who sticks with PlayStation and refuses to buy an Xbox, there is no defending this. I'm sure COUNTLESS people and parents are just flocking to buy a niche horror game called "Martha is Dead", while also expecting that it isn't TOO gorey .

Sony still proving it's willing to censor games.

Fuck off Sony

GameLord113 posted...

What really is a good troll though? There have been some here that Ive enjoyed more than others, but ultimately theyre not very good especially when one of their main purposes is to annoy and antagonize others.

One that's entertaining to watch, mostly. There's no small amount of subjectivity to that, obviously, but there's still room to call trolls good/bad without needing to explicitly acknowledge that.

It is a horror game, the purpose is to gross you out and make you uncomfortable. I could point to a dozen or so instances in the Silent Hill games from 20 years ago that are just as if not more disturbing. Hell, the movie has even more disturbing scenes than this. And Sony was more than happy to let those go without incident.

This just reeks of Sony going "Hey guys, look how progressive we are!"

Sony has been bullying small Japanese developers over "lewd" content for 3 years now, and most people ignored it. Figured the puritans in the California HQ would never come for them.
Well, now they're going after a small western dev for violent content.
Still feeling smug that their "policy" (which they're too chicken shit to even post publicly, because then it'd be open to scrutiny and expected to be applied fairly to all devs) will never affect your games?

Don't buy a PS5. Don't support Sony. Between PC, Nintendo, and...cripes, even Xbox is better than them now... plenty of alternative gaming platform options. Or just buy stuff for PS4 if you must, there's still no PS5-exclusives worth shit anyway.
I have PS 1-4 and it has been my favorite and primary console for decades. PS4 was the last Sony console I'll ever buy.

After watching (some) of the video, I think that the questionable content is a little too much, so I just won't buy/play the game. I don't see why it needs to be censored. If people want to play the game for that reason, let them.

Arguro posted...

After watching (some) of the video, I think that the questionable content is a little too much, so I just won't buy/play the game. I don't see why it needs to be censored. If people want to play the game for that reason, let them.

Were it me I just wouldn't be willing to have the game on my platform personally.

Arguro posted...

After watching (some) of the video, I think that the questionable content is a little too much, so I just won't buy/play the game. I don't see why it needs to be censored. If people want to play the game for that reason, let them.

The thing is people like that kind of stuff. Things that horrify them make them experience intense emotions. There's a point in which vanilla horror just doesn't trigger the same disgust it used to.

Personally, it's not for me and I'm good with dead space levels of gore horror but I understand why people like it.

Veedrock- posted...

I bet they won't even drop the price to adjust for the missing content. Fuckers!

They should raise the price for the extra expense of censorship.

Archaea_Ottoia posted...

Once again PO uses a lot of words to say absolutely nothing.

Nah, it was pretty straightforward. You must have a hard time with words

This is stupid. This is just like OMORI without the truth or Black Space. You know, LOSING THE ACTUAL MEAT OF THE GAME due to censorship. Just flag the game BEFOREHAND.

Dikitain posted...

I could point to a dozen or so instances in the Silent Hill games from 20 years ago that are just as if not more disturbing.

You kind of can't, though.

People generally overlook this point, but I already brought it up earlier with the GTA thing - like it or not, people do see a difference between creepy horror and gore and the like presented passively, versus something that is seen as being actively disturbing in a way that requires direct player immersion.

The GTA games are "murder simulators" where you shoot hundreds of people, plow through innocent civilians in your car, and can pick up a hooker, have sex, then bludgeon her with a bat to get your money back. And yet even some of the people who like GTA and who weren't generally bothered by the extreme ultraviolence still drew the line at the mission in GTA V where Trevor winds up being part of an interrogation of a "terrorist", and the player has to actively choose torture implements to use and deliberately press the buttons that cause you to yank out his teeth with pliers, attach jumper cables to his chest, etc. Tons of people who would gleefully murder every gangbanger, cop, or pedestrian that crosses their path still complained online about how uncomfortable the torture scene made them feel, and it sparked a lot of debates about just how far is "too far", whether or not that mission should have been skippable, and so on.

There kind of is a difference between creepy shit and visceral gore or other "horror" elements being presented in the background or as part of the "monsters" you're fighting, and being asked to actively choose to be a monster yourself. Silent Hill never really took things that far, even with the creepy psychological aspects to its horror.

It's one thing to watch Pyramidhead sword-raping nurses. It's kind of a level beyond to require the player to use the analog stick to line up his aim and then repeatedly tap the A button to jam it in over and over. Especially if its being presented in a way that sort of crosses the line from horror game to something closer to gore porn (and you just know that someone, somewhere, is jerking off to it).

(There's a reason why Hatred got a ton of... well... hatred on Steam a few years back. The community itself clearly agrees that sometimes even horror games can go too far. The problem is, the line is subjective, and lots of people don't agree on just where "too far" lies.)

I'm not saying it should be censored (I honestly don't care), or that it bothers me personally (I didn't mind the Trevor scene in GTA as much as a lot of people seemed to), but I do understand why it can bother a lot of people, and why there is more to it than just "oh, you're being oversensitive".



Dikitain posted...

This just reeks of Sony going "Hey guys, look how progressive we are!"

It could be more of a case of Sony looking at cancel culture and Twitter in general, and seeing how often people who get offended at things immediately try to sabotage or scream for boycotts or demand everyone involved be fired, and they've decided they'd rather be safe than sorry and are overcompensating.

Again, there've been debates in the past over what is and isn't acceptable in games in terms of violence, gorn, or porn, and there will always be people who agree that certain lines shouldn't be crossed, and certain content shouldn't be on any system. It's easy possible someone at Sony saw this particular game, asked "Oh shit, are we going to get in trouble for this?", and then tried to defuse a problem before it started. Only to cause an entirely different problem.

People are quick to jump to malice as an excuse for things, but stupidity, ineptitude, apathy, and poor judgment are usually far more likely answers. And the road to hell is paved with good intentions.