Rape games not really banned and I hate TBS
VisualArts chairman reports on the VisualArts official BBS.
According to the Ethics Organization of Computer Software (EOCS):
1. TBS came to them to do a coverage on the Rapelay thing
2. They accepted the interviews, but TBS had edited the footage and misrepresented EOCS’s intended stance (as usual by TBS)
3. They just got another request for a 2nd interview the other day
4. They rejected the request because of what happened at point #2
5. The news report by TBS appears out of the blue
Comments from eroge industry guy on 2ch ◆tCkJGHo4HY:
For exact details wait till the meeting on the 2nd of June. The TBS news report came completely without warning even for eroge makers. Nobody has any information about this.
TBS as usual has jumped the gun and exaggerated everything. If it is really decided that rape games will be regulated we’ll definitely at least have till past July to comply. The used game market will probably still be OK. The EOCS is currently in a situation where they might lose to outside pressure so please help them!
It hasn’t been decided that rape games will be regulated, they still have to listen to the opinions of all the member companies so something like that won’t be passed that easily. But we can’t be optimistic about this.
Via: エロゲ規制問題2009対策wiki
Comments from the Abel official blog (The Abel chairman Kanno Hiroyuki is one of the directors of the EOCS):
Something that none of the actual EOCS directors even knew about is being reported on the news apparently. All the directors currently have a ? mark over them.
Apparently the root of all this was that the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry had told a certain New Komeito Party representative that there will be a meeting held on the 2nd of June where the EOCS will review their PC game software regulations.
This information somehow changed after the NKP representative passed the information to a TBS reporter, which resulted in the news article.
Chinese whispers game?
We had a request from TBS for an interview yesterday, and we rejected them, but this probably doesn’t matter anymore, lets report our news properly.
Anyway, we’ll decide on the direction that we’ll take in regards to the regulations during the emergency meeting that was planning on the 2nd of June. We hope it won’t become what TBS has reported about, but tighter regulations is probably something that is unavoidable.
I’ve written about this several times before, but it’s important to accommodate and get along with society. Lets move on quietly while being careful and seeing how society feels about everything.
*the post has been deleted and this site appears to have kept a copy of the post, and a google search verifies that the post had definitely existed on the blog a few hours ago
This isn’t the first time that TBS makes up news either, somebody do something about them. I guess this explains why no other Japanese news organization has reported about this.
Update: Yomiuri on the game censorship situation
Related: Rape games will be banned in Japan
May 28th, 2009 at 11:50 pm
Color me not surprised.
Yay news media. OM NOM NOM RATINGS
May 29th, 2009 at 12:11 am
>they still have to listen to the opinions of all the member companies so something like that won’t be passed that easily.
Yeah, I can just see Cyc lining up to support the EOCS banning rape games. They don’t really want to stay in business that much anyway =P
May 29th, 2009 at 1:18 am
How can I express my support? I am not seeing an e-mail, and I don’t know Japanese.
May 29th, 2009 at 1:38 am
Does this mean tbs is the fox news of japan?
May 29th, 2009 at 1:49 am
Zepy your blog has to be the most quoted blog on Kotaku. Brian loves you.
May 29th, 2009 at 1:57 am
Who cares what brian or kotaku thinks? No, really.
May 29th, 2009 at 2:06 am
I love Zepy too. ♥ Kyun! ♥
May 29th, 2009 at 2:43 am
You all just got trolled !
And I care about Kotaku. Just as I care about Zepy.
You guys rawk.
May 29th, 2009 at 4:48 am
Tighter regulations? I still dont like where this is going…
May 29th, 2009 at 6:08 am
I know, they can display multilingual warnings at game startup, like cigarette warnings! In Japanese, English, Chinese, Spanish, Italian, French, Swahili, Arabic, Esperanto, and Klingon: “In case you’re a complete fucking idiot, RAEP IS REELEE RONG so don’t do it.”
May 29th, 2009 at 6:10 am
This has been the best site for news on this development, no wonder most people are linking to it instead of other sources.
Glad to hear it’s nothing major. Misinformed rants in the other side of the world affecting an industry was scary to say the least, even if you don’t like rape or eroge.
From out all of this, I’ve liked this video the most. Penn really knows how to make a point without getting fired up in morality or gut feelings.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ACSsUhFk7I
May 29th, 2009 at 6:47 am
tl;dr: Japan is going to debate whether to put “rape” into it’s list of bad words to never use in a game, ever.
A few people and I who were talking about it came to this decision.
Also, even if Zepy is a cynical old prick, he’s still a reliable news source, unlike that one other site on the Internet that can be best described as “an Internet tabloid in the same vein as the Sun (a UK tabloid, and the most popular one)”
…And TBS is being Fox News. TBS, WHY SO FOX?
May 29th, 2009 at 7:05 am
No offense intended, but none of the sources you cite to discredit the TBS report is very reliable. I think we’ll just have to wait till June 2 and see what happens.
May 29th, 2009 at 7:10 am
I take that back. TBS has deleted the page with the report. I’ve been watching TBS’ 24-hour news channel for several hours waiting in vain for the report to appear. It looks like TBS jumped the gun.
May 29th, 2009 at 8:02 am
JUNE 2, the Thermopylae of the Eroge. TONIGHT WE RAEP IN HELL!!!!
May 29th, 2009 at 10:35 am
TBS still has their report up, they just moved it:
http://news.tbs.co.jp/20090528/newseye/tbs_newseye4143799.html
May 29th, 2009 at 12:23 pm
You people are optimistic.
You should indeed know that there is discrimination against eroge at all time in japan.
No matter the news is true or not, you should start thinking how to not let crazy feminists proceed their evil plan.
If you continue to be like this, one day you will suddenly see a news topic “Eroge totally banned in Japan”, without knowing why this happened.
May 29th, 2009 at 7:36 pm
Alarmism’s the best.
May 29th, 2009 at 7:39 pm
HU HU HU HURENSOHN! HURENSOHN! HURENSOHOHOHN!!!
May 31st, 2009 at 3:04 am
Ban feminism… anyway, reposting TBS is just giving them visibility…
I’m just curious, beside otakus, how many people down here in Tokyo know about ILLUSION…
Talking about TBS is just helping the idiots feminists to spread their message… just think about it…
June 15th, 2009 at 12:56 pm
I think this article and I guess the legislation should really be expanded to look at all video games. Why should any one government draw the line at this rapegame when there are so many others that advocate mass killing. That being said, I am sincerely tempted to try out this game, it sounds almost so ridiculous I can’t imagine it exists. I found an interesting discussion on the matter at Pandalous. It can be found here at http://www.pandalous.com/nodes/ban_on_violent_computer