AdHoc says the core game experience has been preserved on Nintendo platforms despite it blacking out explicit scenes, but fans aren't having it
Dispatch’s release on Nintendo platforms today was poised to be another testament to AdHoc’s tremendous success with the point-and-click superhero workplace comedy, but news of a platform-specific difference has overshadowed much of the excitement for fans hoping to play the episodic series on-the-go. Instead of celebrating the release, fans are launching campaigns against Dispatch’s censorship, returning their purchases, or refraining from playing it altogether.
Normally, Dispatch contains nudity and sexually explicit scenes involving its gang of ex-villains. AdHoc allows players to toggle sexual content like this off on most platforms. Curiously, however, the newly-released Switch version automatically depicts censored versions of these scenes. There’s no option to turn the setting off.
AdHoc confirmed the censorship to Eurogamer, but noted that the overall experience would still be the same for Switch players.
Mind you, Nintendo is cool with putting Doom and Duke Nukem on the Switch.
Entirely unwise to buy anything non-Nintendo on the Nintendo Store as if the Switch’s entire purpose wasn’t to just get people to buy a $500 appliance to play a Nintendo game.
Yeah, also if we argue that violent videogames don’t cause violence - what’s the problem with sexual content? If they’re censoring sexual stuff because they believe videogames if corrupt and change behaviour, the violent ones should definitely be banned.
Also - I’m using Google’s Android keyboard and just realised the dictionary didn’t know the word ‘sexual’. Just in case someone might try to write something spicy. FFS. It knew ‘violent’ though.
“You can write the most detailed, vivid description of an ax entering a skull, and nobody will say a word in protest. But if you write a similarly detailed description of a penis entering a vagina, you get letters from people saying they’ll never read you again. What the hell? Penises entering vaginas bring a lot more joy into the world than axes entering skulls.”
I recently published my novel, and at the last minute I had this panic about what was appropriate. There’s one bigoted character who calls gay people “f***ot” multiple times, as well as many characters that drop F-bombs on numerous occasions. There’s a (semi-magical) event similar to a mass shooting, many references to torture, and someone’s hand is chopped off. To be really safe, I put a content warning on the first page just to make some of that clear. Surely, that puts it a level beyond the Young Adult region, right? But…possibly not, given what I tend to hear offhand of some series.
Stephen King’s best (solo) book, IT, has probably over 200 N-bombs in it. It’s still his best book. Very much a product of its time (and an author who was so coked up he doesn’t remember writing a lot of it), but still his best book.
Your novel is Young Adult, or no? It’s not clear. I don’t know what the rules are for YA in America/Europe, but I’m reading the Sword Art Online series (rather, having anime lead Bryce Papenbrook read it to me, via the audiobooks) and SAO (which is LN which means Light Novel, which is Japan’s version of YA) has dismemberment. Arms being chopped off, people being chopped in half… the anime is known for its scenes of SA, but the first two weren’t SA in the books (the anime exaggerated what happened). The one in season 3 absolutely is an SA though. I haven’t gotten to the one in season 4 yet but I’ve heard it’s not. There’s also torture, but it’s not too serious. They’re playing video games, VR based. At one point the pain is amplified and a character is viciously attacked, so he feels it 10x more. In another case, people are trapped in a world that moves 1,000x slower than real life (so like a year in the game is like an hour in real life or something like that). The kind of stuff Black Mirror did (White Christmas, Black Museum, USS Callister). But not a lot of profanity. (Of course, I’m also reading it translated to English. I have no idea what Reki Kawahara actually wrote, because I would not be able to read the original Japanese text.)
Back when bash.org was around:
Person 1: Person 2 has so little game he could fall into a barrel of nipples and come out sucking his thumb.
Person 2: The concept of a barrel of nipples confuses and frightens me.
Reminds me of the days before Bailey Jay transitioned and got in trouble for showing her breasts while waiting in line at Comicon and then protested “but I’m a boy.”
Not really. Have violence without blood and they’ll rate it teen. Anything close to nudity instant mature rating. Same with searing. Can gun down hundreds if no blood but if they use naughty language while doing it mature /:
I just heard about this earlier today. My biggest issue is that this wasn’t something they made people aware of prior? It absolutely should have been disclosed prior to release. I hear good things about the game, i just know not to buy it on switch.
The fact that they allow Resident Evil Village of all games on the Switch but don’t allow this animated nudity scene is insane to me. RE Village was one of the most graphic games I have ever seen.
edit: I Just realized Cyberpunk 2077 was released on it no censorship. How did dispatch get censored but that was allowed through lmao
CERO is very strict about genitals and dismemberment. CD Projekt Red got around that by having two different versions of Cyberpunk 2077; the version sold on the Japanese eShop is censored so as to comply with CERO, while the European one isn’t.
AdHoc doesn’t have the same resources as CD Projekt Red, so they might have just made the one version which they sell everywhere.
It’s still surprising that Sony is apparently being more lenient than Nintendo for once.
It’s still surprising that Sony is apparently being more lenient than Nintendo for once.
To be fair, the only real memory I have of the OG God of War games is that the first or second game opens up with Kratos motorboating two girls’ titties. And that was in a time when nudity in mainstream games was still nearly unheard of.
That whole controversy was blown out of proportion. Not only because it could only be accessed by hacking the game apart, but also because it didn’t actually have any explicit content. It was still fully clothed models just animated to hump each other.
As a horny teen, that shit was the most disappointed in a rumored game secret I had been since being told if you beat Metroid fast enough you can see Samus nude.
In a bikini. Not nude. Though I suppose you could make the argument it’s bra and panties? There aren’t enough pixels to say if it’s a 2-piece bathing suit or underwear.
My take on that was that Samus didn’t wear clothes under her suit. So if you’re a woman and you get into power armour, you’re probably gonna wear at least a T-shirt and some loose fitting shorts, right? One would think. But I guess for reasons (like the fact that the suit can handle extreme temperatures both ways), it probably needs direct contact with a lot of skin to adapt, or something. So she strips down to bra and panties to get into the suit. Totally makes sense. It’s not meant to be sexy, it’s a utility, the suit is a tool for her as an intergalactic bounty hunter.
You must not have grown up back then. The game does show her in bra and panties if you’re fast enough. The rumor was that she was full on naked tho if you were even faster than the bikini easter egg. But that was some bullshit, and you couldn’t just look at a wiki to know this, you had to find out for yourself.
There were other similar rumors back in the day for all sorts of games. “Nudalities” in Mortal Kombat. The ability to actuslly obtain the Triforce in Ocarina of Time. Getting to play as Luigi if you collected 121 stars in Mario 64 (later was actually made real in the DS release, but you unlocked Yoshi not Luigi). Etc.
You were a teen in the late PS2 days, but still got tricked by nude samus??? I’m so confused by your timeline. I was a kid in the NES era, but still heard the samus stuff in the 80s. By 1990 we knew it was BS.
Yeah, Sony was very laissez faire back then. It’s why the PS1 was so successful; Nintendo were notoriously strict, so Sony’s policy of “Do whatever as long as it’s legal” attracted both devs and players. It’s not the only reason the first two PlayStations were massive hits, but it’s a factor.
Nintendo initially stuck to their guns but, after seeing Sony eat their lunch, afternoon snack, supper, breakfast, second breakfast, and elevenses, decided to cool it with the censorship at the ends of the 32 and 64-bit era. Beginning with Conker’s Bad Fur Day they pretty much stopped enforcing rules on other devs and even published a few 18-rated games like Eternal Darkness.
Then for some reason Sony started censoring hentai games in the PS4 era while Nintendo let them go uncensored, and gamers everywhere were bemused at how edgy Sony and wholesome Nintendo had apparently swapped positions.
Unconfirmed, but the rumor I’m hearing is that AdHoc submitted one universal binary for all regions, and it’s CERO who won’t allow this content in Japan. FWIW, the JP version of Cyberpunk is also censored, but it’s separate from the international release.
It’s also worth noting that the JP PS5 version just launched alongside it, separate from last year’s international version. Haven’t been able to find confirmation on whether that version is censored too, but if it is then it’s definitely CERO.
I’m also now finding out that they had to censor the coverart of the switch 2 edition a few weeks ago as well which I was unaware of. If it turns out they knew for awhile that it would be censored, and just chose not to tell anyone that is going to permanently damper my opinion of their studio. Like it’s one thing to be like “This was forced upon us last minute so we threw a solution together” it’s a whole different situation of knowing that it was going to happen, then refusing to tell the consumers about it since you knew it would lower sales.
Along with that, we asked for comment from AdHoc concerning the decision to censor Dispatch’s Deluxe Edition artwork on the Nintendo eShop as compared to the PC/PS5 release, and if that indicated any censorship in the game itself. We were told that “unfortunately, the studio cannot comment on the topic at this time.” Along with that, it was said that if AdHoc is able to discuss the matter down the road, their comment would be shared with us.
It sounds to me like they knew this change was going to be required at that point, but didn’t want to publicly announce that, which puts a pretty bad taste in my mouth about the intent of the studio.
There is also the rumor that this wasn’t a choice by Nintendo, but a choice of the dev’s so they didn’t have to have two separate editions to be able to sell in Japan(like they already do for the playstation edition). If that’s the case this makes it even worse IMO since it wasn’t like a last minute “BTW this is a thing” they had plenty of time to tell buyers that the product was altered
And they’re punishing dispatch devs for their shit choice. They’re not returning the consoles or refusing to buy Nintendo, they’re returning the game that Nintendo censored.
I watched Charlie play through the first episode, and within the first 5 or so minutes of the game there’s full-frontal with dick and balls. He had to censor his game of course, but you know it’s there.
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Entirely unwise to buy anything non-Nintendo on the Nintendo Store as if the Switch’s entire purpose wasn’t to just get people to buy a $500 appliance to play a Nintendo game.
And brick your shit (without refunds) for the slightest discourse against Nintendo. Fuck Nintendo.
This is good. People are learning through experience to not buy any non-exclusive game through Nintendo.
Havent you heard? Violence appropriate, sex and nudity not. Its totally okay to see people being dismembered, but you better never show a nipple.
Yeah, also if we argue that violent videogames don’t cause violence - what’s the problem with sexual content? If they’re censoring sexual stuff because they believe videogames if corrupt and change behaviour, the violent ones should definitely be banned.
Also - I’m using Google’s Android keyboard and just realised the dictionary didn’t know the word ‘sexual’. Just in case someone might try to write something spicy. FFS. It knew ‘violent’ though.
Yep. In the words of George R. R. Martin
I recently published my novel, and at the last minute I had this panic about what was appropriate. There’s one bigoted character who calls gay people “f***ot” multiple times, as well as many characters that drop F-bombs on numerous occasions. There’s a (semi-magical) event similar to a mass shooting, many references to torture, and someone’s hand is chopped off. To be really safe, I put a content warning on the first page just to make some of that clear. Surely, that puts it a level beyond the Young Adult region, right? But…possibly not, given what I tend to hear offhand of some series.
Stephen King’s best (solo) book, IT, has probably over 200 N-bombs in it. It’s still his best book. Very much a product of its time (and an author who was so coked up he doesn’t remember writing a lot of it), but still his best book.
Your novel is Young Adult, or no? It’s not clear. I don’t know what the rules are for YA in America/Europe, but I’m reading the Sword Art Online series (rather, having anime lead Bryce Papenbrook read it to me, via the audiobooks) and SAO (which is LN which means Light Novel, which is Japan’s version of YA) has dismemberment. Arms being chopped off, people being chopped in half… the anime is known for its scenes of SA, but the first two weren’t SA in the books (the anime exaggerated what happened). The one in season 3 absolutely is an SA though. I haven’t gotten to the one in season 4 yet but I’ve heard it’s not. There’s also torture, but it’s not too serious. They’re playing video games, VR based. At one point the pain is amplified and a character is viciously attacked, so he feels it 10x more. In another case, people are trapped in a world that moves 1,000x slower than real life (so like a year in the game is like an hour in real life or something like that). The kind of stuff Black Mirror did (White Christmas, Black Museum, USS Callister). But not a lot of profanity. (Of course, I’m also reading it translated to English. I have no idea what Reki Kawahara actually wrote, because I would not be able to read the original Japanese text.)
I love the IT audiobook but you absolute cannot listen to it where somebody might hear it.
Female nipple. Male nipples are a-ok. 🙄
Twitch also has that rule for streamers.
To be fair, there would be a loooot of nipples on Twitch otherwise. It’d be nipple sea.
Still stupid, though.
Back when bash.org was around: Person 1: Person 2 has so little game he could fall into a barrel of nipples and come out sucking his thumb. Person 2: The concept of a barrel of nipples confuses and frightens me.
I’ve heard “if it were raining titties, I’d open my mouth and catch a dick.”
That would be a sight worth seeing.
Reminds me of the days before Bailey Jay transitioned and got in trouble for showing her breasts while waiting in line at Comicon and then protested “but I’m a boy.”
It was a meme when I transitioned to post top less pics until they got censored. This was back when free the nipple was a bigger force though
And encouraged, as featured in Nintendo’s own Super Mario Odyssey!
Odyssey Dem Mario Nips
Nudity is fine
Weve got boobs and dicks even in children cartoons here
Not really. Have violence without blood and they’ll rate it teen. Anything close to nudity instant mature rating. Same with searing. Can gun down hundreds if no blood but if they use naughty language while doing it mature /:
Those cartoons on Hentai Haven and Pornhub aren’t for kids.
I just heard about this earlier today. My biggest issue is that this wasn’t something they made people aware of prior? It absolutely should have been disclosed prior to release. I hear good things about the game, i just know not to buy it on switch.
The fact that they allow Resident Evil Village of all games on the Switch but don’t allow this animated nudity scene is insane to me. RE Village was one of the most graphic games I have ever seen.
edit: I Just realized Cyberpunk 2077 was released on it no censorship. How did dispatch get censored but that was allowed through lmao
It looks like CERO might be responsible.
CERO is very strict about genitals and dismemberment. CD Projekt Red got around that by having two different versions of Cyberpunk 2077; the version sold on the Japanese eShop is censored so as to comply with CERO, while the European one isn’t.
AdHoc doesn’t have the same resources as CD Projekt Red, so they might have just made the one version which they sell everywhere.
It’s still surprising that Sony is apparently being more lenient than Nintendo for once.
To be fair, the only real memory I have of the OG God of War games is that the first or second game opens up with Kratos motorboating two girls’ titties. And that was in a time when nudity in mainstream games was still nearly unheard of.
Unless you wanted some…hot coffee.
That whole controversy was blown out of proportion. Not only because it could only be accessed by hacking the game apart, but also because it didn’t actually have any explicit content. It was still fully clothed models just animated to hump each other.
As a horny teen, that shit was the most disappointed in a rumored game secret I had been since being told if you beat Metroid fast enough you can see Samus nude.
In a bikini. Not nude. Though I suppose you could make the argument it’s bra and panties? There aren’t enough pixels to say if it’s a 2-piece bathing suit or underwear.
My take on that was that Samus didn’t wear clothes under her suit. So if you’re a woman and you get into power armour, you’re probably gonna wear at least a T-shirt and some loose fitting shorts, right? One would think. But I guess for reasons (like the fact that the suit can handle extreme temperatures both ways), it probably needs direct contact with a lot of skin to adapt, or something. So she strips down to bra and panties to get into the suit. Totally makes sense. It’s not meant to be sexy, it’s a utility, the suit is a tool for her as an intergalactic bounty hunter.
You must not have grown up back then. The game does show her in bra and panties if you’re fast enough. The rumor was that she was full on naked tho if you were even faster than the bikini easter egg. But that was some bullshit, and you couldn’t just look at a wiki to know this, you had to find out for yourself.
There were other similar rumors back in the day for all sorts of games. “Nudalities” in Mortal Kombat. The ability to actuslly obtain the Triforce in Ocarina of Time. Getting to play as Luigi if you collected 121 stars in Mario 64 (later was actually made real in the DS release, but you unlocked Yoshi not Luigi). Etc.
You were a teen in the late PS2 days, but still got tricked by nude samus??? I’m so confused by your timeline. I was a kid in the NES era, but still heard the samus stuff in the 80s. By 1990 we knew it was BS.
I was in my 20s by PS2 late stage.
Er… I guess I was exactly 20 by GoW 🤔
I was born in 1985 it came out in 2005. I was still horny, tho. Also I was on like every drug in my 20s, so it’s kind of a blur.
Yeah, Sony was very laissez faire back then. It’s why the PS1 was so successful; Nintendo were notoriously strict, so Sony’s policy of “Do whatever as long as it’s legal” attracted both devs and players. It’s not the only reason the first two PlayStations were massive hits, but it’s a factor.
Nintendo initially stuck to their guns but, after seeing Sony eat their lunch, afternoon snack, supper, breakfast, second breakfast, and elevenses, decided to cool it with the censorship at the ends of the 32 and 64-bit era. Beginning with Conker’s Bad Fur Day they pretty much stopped enforcing rules on other devs and even published a few 18-rated games like Eternal Darkness.
Then for some reason Sony started censoring hentai games in the PS4 era while Nintendo let them go uncensored, and gamers everywhere were bemused at how edgy Sony and wholesome Nintendo had apparently swapped positions.
Perhaps the pendulum has swung back.
Damn, that makes all that early risque marketing make sense now.
Damn.
Unconfirmed, but the rumor I’m hearing is that AdHoc submitted one universal binary for all regions, and it’s CERO who won’t allow this content in Japan. FWIW, the JP version of Cyberpunk is also censored, but it’s separate from the international release.
It’s also worth noting that the JP PS5 version just launched alongside it, separate from last year’s international version. Haven’t been able to find confirmation on whether that version is censored too, but if it is then it’s definitely CERO.
I think this is very likely the reason yea.
I’m also now finding out that they had to censor the coverart of the switch 2 edition a few weeks ago as well which I was unaware of. If it turns out they knew for awhile that it would be censored, and just chose not to tell anyone that is going to permanently damper my opinion of their studio. Like it’s one thing to be like “This was forced upon us last minute so we threw a solution together” it’s a whole different situation of knowing that it was going to happen, then refusing to tell the consumers about it since you knew it would lower sales.
It sounds to me like they knew this change was going to be required at that point, but didn’t want to publicly announce that, which puts a pretty bad taste in my mouth about the intent of the studio.
Yeah, regardless of where it came from, the lack of disclosure reflects very poorly on AdHoc.
Neither was particularly sexually explicit IIRC.
I dunno, though. Maybe censorship was an “easier” ask since the setting was already there.
Cyberpunk also has a nudity setting in all versions.
Ah. Then I don’t know.
Maybe a bigger dev just has more leverage?
This is likely it.
There is also the rumor that this wasn’t a choice by Nintendo, but a choice of the dev’s so they didn’t have to have two separate editions to be able to sell in Japan(like they already do for the playstation edition). If that’s the case this makes it even worse IMO since it wasn’t like a last minute “BTW this is a thing” they had plenty of time to tell buyers that the product was altered
The later sounds very plausible.
At this point, after all nintendoing Nintendo did, people still give them money. And who is the crazy in this situation?
Missed opportunity to use ‘Nintendone’
That was the nintendid resut.
Oh, I’m sure Nintendo will grant me plenty of possibilities to improve this joke until the excellence :)
And they’re punishing dispatch devs for their shit choice. They’re not returning the consoles or refusing to buy Nintendo, they’re returning the game that Nintendo censored.
Well, Nintendo gets a share for any game licenses sold through their store, so it does hurt them somewhat.
Oh so there is sexual content in this? Well now I gotta get it. Uh… Just not on the Switch.
just nudity, a female character masturbating in a dream, and references to sex/fetishes/etc.
I watched Charlie play through the first episode, and within the first 5 or so minutes of the game there’s full-frontal with dick and balls. He had to censor his game of course, but you know it’s there.