A recent statement from Street Fighter V‘s producer Yoshinori Ono has divulged the reasoning behind R. Mika’s already infamous censorship, explaining that the change was so the game could “maintain a T-rating”, dismissing claims that it was due to recent feminist pressure to quash overly sexy games…
The censorship in question concerned R. Mika’s finisher, which had the saucy girl slapping her rump before committing a finishing move on her opponent, apparently causing so much disgust that the scene had to be “removed” – by panning the camera up slightly.
A video demonstrating the atrocious butt-slap (with the “headbutt” apparently being perfectly fine):
Yoshinori’s initial response to the whole censorship issue mentioned the acquiring and maintaining a new audience being a priority, rather than just servicing fans of the franchise:
Our objective with Street Fighter is to start over from zero[…] We want the professional players and the casual fans of the series to return, but we also want to reach those who have never even touched a fighting game.
So we can’t have something in the game that makes people think, “This is not acceptable.”
The producer’s latest statement however has caused even more resentment amongst fans, due to his remark regarding how they wanted to keep a T-rating:
We are a ‘Teen’ rated franchise, and we want to make sure we keep that appeal to a very wide audience. We thought maybe in those instances things could’ve been pushed just a little bit too far so we had to tone it down slightly.
We want to make sure that Street Fighter remains a family friendly franchise and it’s that delicate balance that we play ensuring that we remain a teen game.
Naturally fans immediately noted the contradiction in his ratings remark, with games being incorrectly rated on a very frequent basis, and with some visual representations made by the naysayers seemingly getting the point across quite well:
Although such changes are hardly new, that developers are finally willing to admit to them – even in the face of considerable upset from fans – may mark progress of a sort, even if censors and anti-sex feminists can still claim clear victory.
Most of you are still pieces of s♥♥t, but some of you are pieces of s♥♥t who happened to be right. Pat yourselves on the back.
http://www.gamespot.com/articles/street-fighter-5-r-mika-and-cammy-scenes-edited-to/1100-6434224/
Dont see how this is anything to do with feminists. It seems way more like the developers are overreacting– at least the Japanese guys are. So doing things in a bid to preempt any (that they have themselves, without pressure) deemed will be a ‘catastrophe’
Hate to disappoint you but this isn’t censorship, it’s called editing.
its as I said in a previous forum.
no and I mean no otaku is selling what their buying. we all know that they got pressured by parental advocates and others like the ESRB to keep the game from going down the M rated path ala dead or alive.
it would have been better to just fess up ,take your lumps and move on instead of this farce of a statement that we all suspected from the start.
Evidence? I could buy that they were thinking about the ESRB when they made this decision, but we can throw out baseless accusations and theories all day. Maybe space aliens threatened to blow up the planet if they saw Mika slapping her ass in the final game.
I wouldn’t mind censorship of any sort so they can market it in foreign markets while maintaining a good rating… as long as they would also provide patches so that those of us who want to see it in all it’s uncensored glory can do so freely.
The way I see it, that’d please all parties involved. The game would be publicly ‘decent’, and you could still enjoy the perversion in the privacy of your own home.