Report: Japanese Shrinks Want DS Game Banned
Report: Japanese Shrinks Want DS Game Banned
October 3, 2008
Is there a point in targeting an older game that, based on lukewarm reviews, probably wasn't a big seller even when it was new?
MTV Multiplayer reports that the Japanese Association of Psychiatric Hospitals is lobbying to have Nintendo DS title Dementium: The Ward removed from store shelves. The game is of the survival-horror genre and is played from a first-person aspect. From the MTV story:
...it seems that the organization was concerned that the game might “encourage discrimination and prejudice” against those with psychiatric disorders.
Gamecock Media Group distributes the game in Japan. CEO Mike Wilson told MTV:
Gamecock’s position is that this story, like many before it, boils down to a lack of understanding or appreciation (and therefore fear of) games outside our little sub-culture. I’m sure the people involved have only the best intentions.
The co-publisher/distributor for the game in Japan, Interchannel, will deal with the situation appropriately. In the meantime, we’re thrilled that this quick bout of paranoia has brought so much attention to our first lovechild with [developer] Renegade Kid… The game is groundbreaking on the platform and it deserves the attention and success it is seeing.
GP: Advocacy groups tend to be well-intentioned but are often ill-informed when it comes to games. In a similar vein, here in the U.S. the National Alliance on Mental Illness went after Manhunt 2 last year because the group felt that the game's asylum setting stereotyped psychiatric patients as violent.
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Posted 02/09/10 at 12:34pm
Valdearg: "just because there's no specific state level protection for it, doesn't make discrimination right or legal."
Valdearg: "just because there's no specific state level protection for it, doesn't make discrimination right or legal."
Posted 02/09/10 at 12:33pm
Valdearg: Meaning in 29 states, private sector discrimination against gays is perfectly legal.. Sickening.
Valdearg: Meaning in 29 states, private sector discrimination against gays is perfectly legal.. Sickening.
Posted 02/09/10 at 12:33pm
Valdearg: 19 states have no protections, and another 10 only have protections for public sector jobs.
Valdearg: 19 states have no protections, and another 10 only have protections for public sector jobs.
Posted 02/09/10 at 12:32pm
Andrew Eisen: Well, most businesses have equal rights policies in place and just because there's no specific state level protection for it, doesn't make discrimination right or legal. Still, no argument against adding such protections.
Andrew Eisen: Well, most businesses have equal rights policies in place and just because there's no specific state level protection for it, doesn't make discrimination right or legal. Still, no argument against adding such protections.
Posted 02/09/10 at 12:28pm
Valdearg: More information. Apparently, it's worse than I actually thought.
Valdearg: More information. Apparently, it's worse than I actually thought.
Posted 02/09/10 at 12:28pm
Valdearg: Check the link. Apparently, its more like 20 states that have no protections.
Valdearg: Check the link. Apparently, its more like 20 states that have no protections.
Posted 02/09/10 at 12:26pm
Andrew Eisen: In the US? Not that I'm aware of. Sad if true.
Andrew Eisen: In the US? Not that I'm aware of. Sad if true.
Posted 02/09/10 at 12:25pm
Valdearg: @AE: Actually, I think, at least for now, businesses can still discriminate against gays in a few states.. Something like 5 or 8. Its part of why Gay Rights Advocates are in support of the Employee Nondiscrimination Act, or ENDA.
Valdearg: @AE: Actually, I think, at least for now, businesses can still discriminate against gays in a few states.. Something like 5 or 8. Its part of why Gay Rights Advocates are in support of the Employee Nondiscrimination Act, or ENDA.
Posted 02/09/10 at 12:22pm
Valdearg: @AE: And that's fine. Official "Church" functions are fine, despite the fact that it's discrimination, it's what I guess I would consider "acceptable" discrimination, despite the fact that I hate to use "acceptable" to define it.
Valdearg: @AE: And that's fine. Official "Church" functions are fine, despite the fact that it's discrimination, it's what I guess I would consider "acceptable" discrimination, despite the fact that I hate to use "acceptable" to define it.
Posted 02/09/10 at 12:21pm
Valdearg: What's stopping someone from working with the church to declare a Catholic Corporation, that would retain it's "right" to discriminate against non-Catholics?
Valdearg: What's stopping someone from working with the church to declare a Catholic Corporation, that would retain it's "right" to discriminate against non-Catholics?
Posted 02/09/10 at 12:20pm
Valdearg: Let me ask you this. What defines something as "catholic"? There are Catholic Schools, Churchs, Charities, and even law firms.
Valdearg: Let me ask you this. What defines something as "catholic"? There are Catholic Schools, Churchs, Charities, and even law firms.
Posted 02/09/10 at 12:20pm
Andrew Eisen: Indeed. You can restrict the membership of your private club however you see fit. However, a business can't refuse to hire someone based on sexual orientation.
Andrew Eisen: Indeed. You can restrict the membership of your private club however you see fit. However, a business can't refuse to hire someone based on sexual orientation.
Posted 02/09/10 at 12:20pm
gellymatos: Would you hire someone against gay rights for a position of leadership in a gay rights advocacy group?
gellymatos: Would you hire someone against gay rights for a position of leadership in a gay rights advocacy group?
Posted 02/09/10 at 12:19pm
gellymatos: So, it's wrong to not hire a guy for a position specific to a belief when his belief conflicts with his position.
gellymatos: So, it's wrong to not hire a guy for a position specific to a belief when his belief conflicts with his position.
Posted 02/09/10 at 12:18pm
Valdearg: And either way, it's discrimination. I'm not saying that the Government should force the church to make gay people priests, but there are plenty of other seemingly "religious" posts that really aren't all that religious.
Valdearg: And either way, it's discrimination. I'm not saying that the Government should force the church to make gay people priests, but there are plenty of other seemingly "religious" posts that really aren't all that religious.
Posted 02/09/10 at 12:17pm
Valdearg: There's a fine line between Job Descrimination and Letting them practice their religious "right" to discriminate.
Valdearg: There's a fine line between Job Descrimination and Letting them practice their religious "right" to discriminate.
Posted 02/09/10 at 12:15pm
gellymatos: Oh, and they are worried that "would restrict the right of a church school to employ a head teacher who shared their faith"
gellymatos: Oh, and they are worried that "would restrict the right of a church school to employ a head teacher who shared their faith"
Posted 02/09/10 at 12:15pm
Andrew Eisen: If it is separate, then the church has every right to discriminate against its own members. Put another way, the gov't has no say who the church lets in its own organization.
Andrew Eisen: If it is separate, then the church has every right to discriminate against its own members. Put another way, the gov't has no say who the church lets in its own organization.
Posted 02/09/10 at 12:14pm
Andrew Eisen: Haven't read the law and not sure how it works overseas but is there a separation of church and state?
Andrew Eisen: Haven't read the law and not sure how it works overseas but is there a separation of church and state?
Posted 02/09/10 at 12:14pm
Valdearg: Like I said. He wants the Church to retain it's right to Job Discrimination. He want's the right to be above the law, and discriminate against gays. ALSO, there were provisions in the bill to prevent that scenario, with the priesthood.
Valdearg: Like I said. He wants the Church to retain it's right to Job Discrimination. He want's the right to be above the law, and discriminate against gays. ALSO, there were provisions in the bill to prevent that scenario, with the priesthood.
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Comments
Because all the kids these days are running out to buy Dementium: The Ward, and then snubbing all the insane people that walk the streets.
Seriously. It's the new tween pasttime.
Sorry but the Japanese wanting to ban ANYTHING like this automatically gets a dismissing wave of my hand. Seriously. Have they not seen their own movies? The Grudge? The Ring? Any Miike film? (Ichi is awesome, shut up.) And WITCH TOUCHING? Are these guys so insular that they don't care about anything outside of how their own profession is portrayed?
Asshats.
Tenctacle rape = OK
Dissing the mental = NO K
lol
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I LIKE the fence. I get 2 groups to laugh at then.
IIRC, realism (or lack thereof) is a factor of what's allowed and/or popular. I recall GTA not doing well there because it's too bland and down-to-earth.
岩「…Ace beats Jack」
Their hearts are in the right place, but their heads aren't. Having a game like this on the shelves - you don't have to play it at all - has the effect of propagating the stereotype that asylums are full of homicidal maniacs. This isn't a very nice thing, particularly for people with mental health disorders.
Problem is, exactly the same thing can be said for having a black guy on the front of the Saints Row box. Thinking that you can remove a stereotype from society by banning references to it is almost literally the Newspeak concept.
Sorry to all the shrinks out there, but psychology is a joke. It's gotten so bad that if you are sad or you don't act like everyone else they give you a bottle of pills and hope for the best.
--- Official Protector of Videoland!
A Joke is being kind. A profession designed to inflict false notions of problems in order to line you and your corporate pill producing friends' wallets with money is an insult to people everywhere. Bipolar Disorder, ADD, Post Traumatic Stress? Man, I wish I could just slap together words and tell people they have it and make a ton of cash.
Shrinks don't like games about mental illness because, hey, if people realized how phoney mental illness is, they might realize that the shrinks are just snake oil salesmen for a new generation.
Did you ever stop to think through your position?
The brain is an organ, just like any others. Other organs have issues. The brain doesn't?
Don't be so silly. Of course it's all fake. It's like how diabetics really can produce enough insulin in their pancreas but they're just too lazy to do so.
Seriously though, above speaketh the truth. The pancreas can go wrong, the bowel can produce the wrong quantities of digestive fluids, the liver can forget exactly how to filter blood, the thyroid can pump out wacky levels of hormones, the heart can up and stop without warning, and any given part of the body can one day decide it wants to take over the joint with a honking great cancerous tumour. Why exactly is the brain immune to illness?
Sure, there are people out there with the mental equivalent of a cold being diagnosed with brain-flu and put on a permanent course of expensive drugs. There are also people out there whose brains don't quite work right and need psychological help. Now heart surgery, that's a real joke. So many suspected heart attacks turn out to be indigestion.
Re-read what you just wrote. You call both bi-polar disorder and PTSD a joke. Personally, I've dated someone who was bi-polar and when she wasn't taking her meds you could EASILY tell because she would swing between extremes on a regular basis, and my dad has PTSD from his tours in the first Gulf War and has mild flashbacks every once in a while. Besides, I dare you to walk into any VFW(Veterans of Foreign Wars) branch or VA(Veterans Affairs) office and call PTSD a joke. Tell someone who survived the WTC collapse that their PTSD is a fake disorder. If you do, you're liable to get the living hell beat out of you.
Another great example is schizophrenia. Its a mental illness. There is no such thing as a single "crazy." Sociopathy, psychopathy, dementia. They're all mental illnesses.
I'll agree that some things that are diagnosed as mental illness are just plain stupid. Like calling a 7 year old kid that lives in an average apartment with his parents, has no access to a playground or outside activity, and is forced to sit in a chair all day at school hyperactive and giving them pills is just dumb, but a lot of others aren't.
I would have to agree to a point. I know a perfectly normal person, and he is dianose with some kind of autism. They have a name for every human characteristics and call half of them disorders and sometimes through some pills.
And then there is Dr. Phil who really shows that phychology have gone downhill. What he does is yell at people till he gets them in the position he wants using common sense, but that seems to be in short supply these days with all the politicians.
Psychology is not a joke. Drug companies are a joke. Ill-informed, unethical psychiatrists are the ones giving pills to people who don't need them for perks. Drug companies are conducting their own studies on groups of people who are naturally below the curve when it comes to happiness and anxiety levels (university students) and then getting other unethical PhD's to sign off on them.
Drug companies then give pamphlets to general practitioners and family doctors who then think they are educated enough to give a prescription based on an appointment where their patient says "I feel sad."
As someone who has been diagnosed with PTSD, I can tell you it's not a joke and it effects you every day of your life. When you're getting sick and doctors can't find a single thing wrong with you physically, there is something happening there. Anxiety, panic attacks, phobias, schizophrenia, bi-polar disorder... they're all very real and terrifying things to live with.
You cannot tell me psychology is a joke when the amount of empirical evidence to support so many mental illnesses out there is so huge. The DSM-IV is a great tool when you know how to use it. Just like any doctors out there, psychiatrists and psychologists are going to be unethical in the way they conduct business, but psychology is a perfectly legitimate field that has helped more people then it has hurt.
Dementium has its good and bad points. It's one of the few FPSes on the DS, done in a style similar to Silent Hill. You're stuck in this hospital overrun with insane monsters and zombie-like creatures. It's definitely for those looking for a good scare.
The bad points is that it's monocromatic. You play the first 10 minutes, you've pretty much seen the entire game. You go from floor to floor, most of which have the same layout (with different passages blocked, offering different routes). There's also very little story about what's going on and why. Aside from bosses there's like a total of 5 species of enemies. You fight the same things over and over.
"...it seems that the organization was concerned that the game might “encourage discrimination and prejudice” against those with psychiatric disorders."
Hey! Guess what's gonna make me prejudiced against those who work with those with psychiatric disorders!
Actually, a large number of game villans are insane. Does that mean that the children are learning that insane people are all villans?
Okay okay, some of you guys are thinking that because they want this game banned, the Japanese are being hypocrites. And your evidence? Various Japanese Horror flicks and Tentacle Porn.
Huh. Please hold while I pry my palm from my face.
You're holding a prejudice against a group of people who's main job, whether you support psychology or not, is to help those who are in the asylum (whether they are harmless are evil).. because they happen to be in a country that has stuff like this? What next, if Germany does the same thing for the same reason you would hold it against them because they happen to have had Hilter and still have people into cobraphilia? This is a thing that ANY country can do, because of the subject matter. I will admit I have yet to play this game, but it can't be as degrading as Manhunt 2 was.
I know a person who lived in Japan for a few years and while playing Cho Aniki (and being udderly confused by it. By the way, the game is gay and we both knew that.) that "You’d be surprised how many Japanese inventions surprise Japanese natives." So just because something is made over there, doesn't mean every person likes it. I recall reading a Wikipedia article on a controversial game over there where you play as a rapist. Yeah, that didn't go well with the public.
What i'm trying to say is that this is just another instance of good intentions fueled by a trivial solution. And that's it. Your arguements of "duuuur but dey liek tentacull rape and dah ringu lol" just makes you look like you stick to stereotype than any further depth of fact. In my book, a twit.
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Except that there are many more examples of those things that what was just listed. If they want to start examining things that they think are bad or wrong for their people then why start with something like that? There are plenty of things they can censor on their own home turf. And if this was from some other country there would be examples as to why it was stupid over there too. (Hitler is a shitty example. 1.) He was a real person who commited atrocities and 2.) Was not entertainment like the things I listed.) I was saying that they should look closer to home then they are.
Be careful with that sort of thinking. "X isn't as bad as Y, so people shouldn't care about X until Y is sorted out" is all-too-common on GP threads and is an abhorrent abuse of logic. A problem isn't worth ignoring just because you can think of a larger one.
The stereotypical gamer is a braindead moron with bloodlust on the mind and thumbs the size of dinnerplates. If a newspaper columnist made that implication, you would be all over it and fighting to improve the media view of gamers. It's the same deal here; suggest that the mentally ill are braindead moron with bloodlust on the mind and people are going to tell you to hang on a bit too. Calling for a ban is a mountain/molehill confusion, but calling for a change in attitude is a good thing.
I never said a problem was worth ignoring because I think there is a larger one. Simply because I think what they think is a problem really isn't. And I don't see anyone in the article calling for a change in attitude (or perception, that is a better way to put it.) I see them wanting to tell people what they can or cannot play based on how THEY perceive people are going to be affected.
I am so fucking sick of this shit. There's a fucking mile-long list of things that potentially fit the description of encouraging discrimination against anything/anyone and everything/everyone, but the focus remains on video games simply because they're more popular.
Not that I want those things to get complained about, I seriously don't, but since other people are obviously going to bitch, they need to be fair about it and start at the top of the list, not the bottom.
Fucking christ...
Welcome to Japan, they are no longer the leader in the gaming industry or the leadership is waning big time. They no longer are creating good games and hell there RPGs have become Action Adventure Games that failed J-RPG game makers have hijacked important series and impossed there crappy features
This I agree with, don;t forget the MMO trend in Jrpgs IE infi grind and poor gameplay mechanics!
I is fuzzy brained mew =^^=
http://zippydsmlee.wordpress.com/
(in need of a bad overhaul)
"lobbying to have Nintendo DS title Dementium: The Ward removed from store shelves."
..Yeah, you'll have to find some shelves that stock it to do that.
This reminds me of a something someone said in a British documentary on offensive jokes.
"You do not have a right in a democracy to not be offended. Sorry that's not how it works. We have the right to insult you and you have the right to insult us back."
If you feel that people with mental conditions were insulted then try to get the word out that the protrayals were inaccurate. You have no right to take it away from everyone else.
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God created alcohol so that the Scottish and the Irish could never take over the world. -Chris 'Jedi' Knight
Yeah, seriously, this guy should look at some of the stuff that comes out of Japan before saying he wants to ban DS games (or game in this case anyways.)
"If you feel that people with mental conditions were insulted then try to get the word out that the protrayals were inaccurate. You have no right to take it away from everyone else."
And this as well, don't ban the game just because you think its predijuced (yes, my spelling is bad) and such, if you believe that, yeah, get the word out, don't take it away from people who don't think that though.
I don't get WHY they think that.
I've completed it, and the game is about wandering around and shooting zombie things with mouths in their chests, little pink mutant things, and what look like mobile, fanged cucumbers.
First off Tenacle Rape or Rape in General in Japan has always been woven in their culture. The Japanese were famous for famously raping anyone they came across in their history.
World War II it's unknown how many Chinese and Koreans were raped at the hand of the Japanese. Canadian and American or even Aussie ships that were boarded by the Japanese were taken to camps and some women were offered as a way to get off to become Sex Slaves for the Japanese Upper Class.
The Japanese also have vending machines for older men that vends out little girls underwear. If it wasn't for the Americans who never left in WWII the age of consent there would be much lower
There is a steady trend to censor or limit mainstream media in japan. if things contentue as they are going they will be closer to the US than the UK in general censorship.
I is fuzzy brained mew =^^=
http://zippydsmlee.wordpress.com/
(in need of a bad overhaul)
Umm, aren't we talking about the country where it's okay to sell school girl panties in vending manchines, where some of their anime are over-the-top violent, and just strange?
"We may be human, but we're still animals" -Steve Vai (World's greatest guitarist!)
The vending machine thign is not "mainstream" and 80% of anime is censored, only a few shows go without censorship now and most of them are the after prime time adult gore feasts.
You still have OVAs that are untouched and Manga is more or less not censored but so far its being treated like books a some what sacred cow but once a society is accustomed to censoring down mainsteam items it will in part start trying to do it to all mediums.
And frankly the vending machine thing is a good idea better to vent thy issues on loli fodder than find a "live" one......
I is fuzzy brained mew =^^=
http://zippydsmlee.wordpress.com/
(in need of a bad overhaul)
[Quote]...it seems that the organization was concerned that the game might “encourage discrimination and prejudice” against those with psychiatric disorders. [/Quote]
...I don't see unions filing lawsuits against Ninty for their blatant misportrayal of Italian plumbers.
An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.
If there were a union of Italian plumbers I doubt they'd get upset at being protrayed as heros in Mario games. Or maybe they'd realise that Mario and Luigi are not supposed to represent all plumbers.
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God created alcohol so that the Scottish and the Irish could never take over the world. -Chris 'Jedi' Knight
the Gamecock Media Group not have in Turkey...so I dont know this game :(
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