Current Events > If you were a CEO, would you censor your game to enter a foreign market?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Lets limit the discussion to only entering a foreign market in respect to where you are based now.

Background: FFXVI being banned in Saudi Arabia due to immoral contents and developers refusing to make concessions.

Fuck no.

Our product will be packaged as is. I don't give a fuck about the exterior market. My core base comes first.

Id like to say no, but as a ceo Im probably greedy and sold out long ago

Depends on where

Saudi Arabia? Fuck no. I'm not even considering that

Somewhere Like South Korea or Australia? I'd see what I could do.

probably

cash rules everything around me

I like money. The real gangstas will just pirate the real thing anyway

R1masher posted...

Id like to say no, but as a ceo Im probably greedy and sold out long ago

this. I love all the people saying no as if a CEO of a major company can take principled stances like that lol. Board would vote your ass out so fast

saudi arabia owns 6% of Nintendo

If it's a publicly traded company, the CEO may not have as much option if a particular market is large like China. Board of Directors and shareholders may demand it.

Depends on the censorship, but it would only be censored in that market. I'm fine with a manji being changed to some other symbol, depending on context. Or changing the "V for victory" sign in cultures where it's offensive. It depends.
In general, no.

itachi15243 posted...

Somewhere Like South Korea or Australia? I'd see what I could do.

I've always wanted to have an 18+ flat-chested female character named Australia.

ChocoboMogALT posted...

Depends on the censorship, but it would only be censored in that market. I'm fine with a manji being changed to some other symbol, depending on context. Or changing the "V for victory" sign in cultures where it's offensive. It depends.
In general, no.

I guess that's true. I hate censorship conceptually, but there's no need to rock the boat over something as simple as a victory pose that reads differently in one nation as opposed to another.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/3/2/0/AAdlC_AAEkzY.png

Depends entirely on what sort of censoring is requested.

ChocoboMogALT posted...

Depends on the censorship, but it would only be censored in that market. I'm fine with a manji being changed to some other symbol, depending on context. Or changing the "V for victory" sign in cultures where it's offensive. It depends.
In general, no.

This.

If it's shit like, "the main character can't be Black", then fuck them.

Yes.... anyone who says differently doesn't understand how much money you can make by taking little steps to bring it to different markets. It doesn't mean totally changing a story, just fixing some of the words and adjusting the artwork a bit.

If you choose to not censor it, your essentially cutting off at least a 50 percent increase in market share.

Yes, because, unless privately owned, I have moral and legal obligation to my investors.

Ivany2008 posted...

Yes.... anyone who says differently doesn't understand how much money you can make by taking little steps to bring it to different markets. It doesn't mean totally changing a story, just fixing some of the words and adjusting the artwork a bit.

If you choose to not censor it, your essentially cutting off at least a 50 percent increase in market share.

This is something I've thought about myself if I were to ever become a big game developer, because I absolutely would make the main playable character in the game Black. But by doing that, I very likely would have turned off much of the Asian market and maybe even parts of the European market. Hell, depending on the type of game it is (my game definitely wouldn't be AAA shlock), it may even be niche here in the States.

Would something such as the race of the main character--particularly if their race has no impact on the game's story--be something worth altering to appeal to those markets?

Depends on the censorship, depends on the market.

Solar_Crimson posted...

This is something I've thought about myself if I were to ever become a big game developer, because I absolutely would make the main playable character in the game Black. But by doing that, I very likely would have turned off much of the Asian market and maybe even parts of the European market. Hell, depending on the type of game it is (my game definitely wouldn't be AAA shlock), it may even be niche here in the States.

Would something such as the race of the main character--particularly if their race has no impact on the game's story--be something worth altering to appeal to those markets?

Yes... yes it would be. Just look at World of Warcraft. WoWs biggest market wasn't America, it was China. They made up nearly half of the playerbase of the game. Blizzard pulled out of China because of a bunch of sketchy bs that China was doing, including making their own version of WoW, but up until that point they were essentially funding the game.

ChocoboMogALT posted...

Depends on the censorship, but it would only be censored in that market. I'm fine with a manji being changed to some other symbol, depending on context. Or changing the "V for victory" sign in cultures where it's offensive. It depends.
In general, no.

Where do you draw the line between censorship vs. localization? I believe your example is more localization for the market, no?

Probably, though I'd like to think I'd have some standards.

Like, I'd definitely be ok with censoring violence or gore, however I'd like to think I'd have enough integrity to not remove minority characters due to sexual orientation or ethnicity.

Then again, if I were CEO of a video game company I'd likely capitulate in the interest of maximizing sales, sad as that is.

I would not compromise the product, but I would offer consumers in different markets a choice to censor content for themselves.

Only if I did not find the censorship to be immoral.

Like, I would have no problem deleting swastikas out of a Wolfenstein type game but I would refuse to censor a homosexual relationship.

My game wouldn't really have anything to censor. Except maybe sexy women, and I wouldn't be censoring them :3

I think it really depends. I would censor blood/violence/graphic sex/drug use etc if it isnt integral to the game. I wouldt censor things like positive portrayal of homosexuality or anti authoritarian government things. Censorship isnt universally a bad thing. There are grey areas with everything.