Saying that you shouldn't do something to "avoid violence" is the very essence of infringement on freedom of expression. It's not your fault if you face violence, it's the fault of those who perpetrate it. Nintendo clearly didn't mean it to be a rude gesture, it was the Internet keyboard warrior squads who found out that the gesture is offensive to a small fraction of the population and should be removed. We all collectively have to pretend that we're stupid because a small contingent of pro-censorship bullies says so, it's ridiculous. This is "Tracer's Butt-Gate" all over again. Y'know, if you find something offensive, you can turn the screen off. Besides, I wouldn't even mind it there if it was offensive, I really don't care because I'm emotionally stable and don't have to be on a constant look-out for reasons to be upset. I will happily admit that it makes financial sense for Nintendo to make their child-friendly game appeal to a wide demographic, but such changes should come from internal talks, not from complaints, which I assume was the case here. Neither PEGI nor ESRB found it offensive when they rated the game, so no well-adjusted person should either. Games are already overly censored as it is.
That wasn't the point, it doesn't matter if they did it intentionally or not. You misinterpret my point, when I say avoiding violence I mean it in the sense that one should try to avoid it when they know that they could incite it seeing as how there is no reason to ever use that gesture edit: To clarify, in my, quite obviously arrogant, opinion if your opinion has no reason behind it nor do your gestures then you have no reason to express yourself, so, Nintendo has no reason to have it so they should just not use it, seeing as how game's intention is rarely if ever to offend someone so they have no reason to keep it and have someone get angry when that was never their intention. To add on to that, are you in disagreement that we shouldn't avoid violence involving children? Because in the end thats what it boils down to, not us adults who are capable of mature ways of dealing with each other, kids, on the whole, are pretty immature and I'd bet you one or two would fight if they knew what it meant, mostly in Mexico where it basically means fuck your mother.
I wouldn't consider a few hundred million people an insignificant minority, pretty ludicrous to say so, mostly when the majority of people who buy Nintendo hardware are from France, Italy, the USA etc. where this is a pretty rude gesture.
You're being willfully ignorant. You're making the statement that those for this are pro-censorship when that is really not the case, I highly doubt anyone here is personally offended. It has to do with the children, and if you can't see that, I truly do wonder what the hell you think Nintendo's target market is. This is a game aimed at kids from thousands of different backgrounds in hundreds of different countries. Nintendo needs to make sure anything that the kid may learn from this game such as poses of their favourite characters doesn't get them into trouble. It doesn't need to be violent as no child should learn the Bras d'honnuere anyways.
A parent doesn't want to hear that a game made their kid learn a gesture that means "fuck your mother". No parent wants to hear that.
This is far from censorship, this is stopping children from learning something that may get them into trouble.
Also, you really shouldn't base an entire argument off of an assumption:
"not from complaints, which I assume was the case here. "
You have no evidence to suggest this so I could just as easily say that it DID come from internal talks as I hadn't seen anyone talk about it until AFTER it had been deleted so it would make complete sense that the EU/US localisation team noticed it and got it removed.
The PEGI and ESRB systems can miss things, it's just as real a possibility that they didn't notice it, it could be that they didn't even rate and just gave it the same rating as the original seeing as how the game is basically a port. These are all possibilities that must be understood, humans are far from perfect.
So to conclude my argument, it's a simple case of "is it safe for child consumption?" Since you don't want to unintentionally teach a child an offensive gesture. This was a simple change to stop children from learning things that they could use in the outside world. It's why no reasonable parent would let their child play GTA until reaching an acceptable level of maturity as you don't want them saying "fuck" and "shit" in public, now do you? It's exactly the same here. It has nothing to do with my mental state, to be quite honest I think the Bras D'honneure looks pretty cool, but I'm a stupid brit and have no reason to speak for the countries that do find it offensive and just because your's doesn't, honestly means nothing to the hundreds of millions of parent's that may or may not buy the game, they want a safe environment where the characters arent swearing or gesturing profanity, simple as that.
It has nothing to do with whether or not I feel offended, if it were up to me I'd have mario say profanity for shits and giggles but I a 25-year-old man am not the target audience.
With overwatch it's different, there is literally nothing to get offended by. If you don't like the sexualization of women, I'm cool with that, I don't either. But Overwatch's Trace butt pose wasn't a rude gesture. unlike the Bras D'honuere. It was a something they wanted to add and I can't fault them for that and the game rating isnt 3 so I'm not worried about my child looking at sexualised women.
edit: Thought I'd talk about the freedom of expression argument (which is kind of off topic but was brought up by
@Foxi4 ). Seeing as how it is just dumb (the argument). My issues with the freedom of speech argument is that it can quite as easily lead to lies, misinformation and ignorance as well as truth and fact. If someone want's to speak their mind, I'm all for it, since I'm all for freedom of thought. But it needs to be rational and truthful. And if it isn't I see no reason in saying it. Take for example a person says "All black people are stupid" or some other bigoted remark of that nature, freedom of expression can mean that person can say it without consequence. But a funny little caveat is that for the freedom of saying that you'd be incarcerated. Fun, really, speaking one's mind and then being sent to jail for it. So if I'm getting this right you're against these laws that inhibit it? And if you're for them, you've got yourself a dilemna. Are you in support or are you ok with limiting it? limiting would mean censorship.
If I were to say Hitler did nothing wrong in public, I would most certainly be sent to court. So I ask you then, would you consider instigating a fight wrong? If I called someone a dumbass and instigated the fight would we both not be in the wrong?
In my eyes the one who instigates the fight and the one who fights them are both about as wrong as the other.
ok let's say that it's totally an offensive gesture as a point
But the game also includes total violence , but colourful and in a funny way , in another way, making your adversaries fall in lava so you win the race sound totallu inappropriate
but it's ok because it's " just animated", not real or even drastic retreated (like some MK parodies )
so, a "just animated" is enough for this .. why a funny colourful character doing an "possible misunderstood gesture" is worse than the racing violence ? õ_o
Kicking the ass of your adversaries is intended on the game, her gesture that was probably misunderstood as talked on this thread already would promote violence?
it seems your the over sensitive man baby. why do you care? Also, respect? it made people uneasy, the devs realized this, and changed it. if there's a problem in a game -no matter what it is- if someone points it out, its not disrespectful.
I'm not at all offended, all has been explained in the post above. I meant respect in the sense that you should respect that people find certain gestures offensive and act accordingly. This has nothing to do with me and what I think, I personally dont find it offensive but I also don't talk for Latin Americans or Europeans.
