The Wall Street Journal reports that Sony has begun cracking down on sexually explicit content in PlayStation games. This is apparently being done due to new in-house standards that limit such contents.
That said, Sony has declined to divulge on when they were introduced or what are the items in said guidelines. A Sony official in the US also said that the company doesn’t have “criteria in written guidelines” because the policy was introduced in a rush due to the #MeToo movement.
He also said that the company is concerned that it “could become a target of legal and social action,”. This is especially in the age of YouTube and Twitch, when people can stream games online to a worldwide audience.
Such platforms would allow games with a higher level of sexually explicit contents, such as those from Japan whereby the censorship standard is much lower, to be shown in a wider manner.
The emergence of the new guideline makes Sony an outlier among the console makers in the industry. Both Microsoft and Nintendo reportedly only needs games to get a rating from governing bodies of their markets.
Naturally, Japanese game developers are not happy with this sudden change, even if they are accepting of the #MeToo movement. Their main gripe also happens to be the lack of written guidelines which means that developers could be told to change their work on a whim.
Nevertheless, it’s a strange move for Sony to make, to say the least. This is especially considering it went back on one such change, involving the PS4 version of Devil May Cry 5.
(Source: Wall Street Journal)
