Is that perhaps because you clearly don't understand what the phrase "character assassination" means? If you want a glib term for it "character suicide" would be more fitting.
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Gematsu: Sega halts sales of Judgement (JP) after actor Pierre Taki arrested on cocaine charges
- Thread starter Jintor
- Start date
Is that perhaps because you clearly don't understand what the phrase "character assassination" means? If you want a glib term for it "character suicide" would be more fitting.
The delay of a video game isn't exactly causing "large-scale suffering"
I don't really see this incident as being a usable rallying point.
It's terrible for the re-work RGG Studio will be on the hook for, no doubt.
This is absurd that one cast member amoung dozens, not to mention the entire dev team, is cause for pulling the game.
An absurd middle finger to potentially hundreds of people. It makes no sense.
An absurd middle finger to potentially hundreds of people. It makes no sense.
So your argument basically boils down to #notalljapanesepeople. Nobody is saying ALL JAPANESE PEOPLE care more about drugs than child porn. But the systems in place and societal standards sure do punish drug usage more harshly, and while that doesn't reflect every single individual, it does reflect the society and the state.
He took coke and didn't go on a murderous rampage and all his previous works are being pulled one after another. I can't believe, that I have to argue this. Talking about glib, jesus.
He is an important character with his motion capture. You don't see Square enix pulling Kingsom Hearts III
Cool, so you don't understand what the phrase means. Got it. While both are shitty there's a difference between erasure and character assassination.
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Japan IS backwards. This is a pathetic defense to try to shield Japan from criticism.
It's no better than what you see people doing with Israel.
I'm sure if you dug a little deeper you'd find a lot more people in the Japanese entertainment industry who "know the consequences and clearly don't give a fuck"
The punitive approach to drug abuse is outdated and harmful. It serves to divide and separate
I was not referring to the game delay, a man's life is destroyed and will be going to prison for usage of a recreational drug.
Not to mention all the other people arrested and jailed in the same way. Or the dev team etc whose livelihood depends on, ya know, being able to sell the game they made
Basically what I was going to suggest. Japan was still highly isolated and looked on in horror as China was beat the fuck up and humiliated by the British over restricted opium trade. The opium war resulted in China having to hand over Hong Kong to the British, who only gave it back in 1997.
Not too long after that Japan had to fight for its life after opening itself up to international trade. I think they decided pretty early on that drugs were extremely detrimental to productivity, and inevitably led to addiction, violence, and greed.
I wouldn't be so quick to assume. Plenty of people take a look at the power structures and assume it's reflective of the character an entire group of people, and that gets extra problematic when the group is of a different ethnic group. You, obviously, don't believe that (especially with those avatar colors - anarchist?), so be assured I'm not calling you out in particular, or even the guy I was replying to initially.
I'm also aware there are a lot of nerds on the internet ready to cape for Japan just because they like their cartoons and video games. I'm not one of those dudes. Besides, those people more likely to downplay bad elements of Japanese society, I've found.
I'm sure you would and I too find this approach laughably draconian. But it was still the actor in question not SEGA who gambled with the lively hood of the people affected. He's not an innocent victim in this.
This is a bad situation. It is shitty one person's arrest can cause a complete halt of sales of a product. I am worried this is going to effect the western localization and it is going to be delayed to no end.
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God dammit. Though not a 100% confirmation this to me screams that either it is going to be delayed for quite a while or outright cancelled for the west.
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God dammit. Though not a 100% confirmation this to me screams that either it is going to be delayed for quite a while or outright cancelled for the west.
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Yup. I think the Japanese attitude is that drug use is an unforgivable display of personal weakness that betrays and weakens the group that the person is a member of. Japanese folks are likely looking at this and saying "Gee, if he couldn't give up using cocaine (or just stay away from it in the first place) despite knowing what would happen to his co-workers, family and friends if he got caught, that shows how dangerous it is and/or how weak he is personally."
Group membership is highly valued in Japan and relates to other well-known issues like death from overwork (can't let the company down) and bullying. This may be difficult to grok from the perspective of people raised in societies that place more value on individualism and personal (as opposed to group-centered) responsibility.
Agreed. He surely knew the laws and consequences and broke 'em anyway. He's to blame for whatever goes down with his band, coworkers, etc. Does he have children? If so, he's likely hurt them in some way. Cause despite the cries of "drugs harm only the user (if even that)" a good many of them certainly do harm others, including their own children, whether it be directly or indirectly.
Yup. The question really comes down to whether or not it's worth the cost to delay it and relocalize it or if they'll just cut their losses and cancel the whole project. What a goddamn mess.
There's no way it's going to get cancelled outright. It'll definitely take a little while extra no matter how they opt to fix this, but there's too much money on the line (both in international sales and continued domestic sales) to just completely bin the game so near release.
I hope you're right. The Yakuza series has had such terrible luck in the West and it really felt like this was its next chance after 0 to really make a splash over here.
Yeah, finally getting a completely new non-sequel game out here is a big deal! We'll just have to see how it shakes out but I feel pretty confident that fans are still going to buy in asap.
Yeah. Whenever it comes out, I'm still in. I just really want RGG Studio to have a hit on their hands.
I would I agree with you if it were any company other than Sega.
Sega does some really baffling shit no one other company would do.
And yes, I'm absolutely in as long as they still release it. If not, I'm done with them.
Of course Sega will release it. They've done an entire dub and 6 subtitle tracks. That's a lot of work to throw away. It would be cheaper to redub and recast the accused actor.
Really bad news. Isn't enough that he gets the sentence court decides, why is it necessary to halt sales of a product he's involved in?
Guess it just is a cultural difference. Don't remember this happening in other entertainment business (movies, music etc) when someone got busted.
Guess it just is a cultural difference. Don't remember this happening in other entertainment business (movies, music etc) when someone got busted.
Personally, Sega should have just stayed on course. Never pull the game for sale and keep the NA version fully intact and as is with it's June 25th release date. Doing what they did just puts more of a focal point on the situation as opposed to it being forgotten within a few weeks or so. Not only that but the actor himself is obviously going to go through some shit and possibly switching that actor of the game for someone else is only going to disappoint and piss off the fans who just want to play the game.
With that said, June 25th is perfect for a NA release but if it does get delayed to 2020, for me personally, that works out great because this summer, I wanted to play RDR 2 and the two expansions for AC Odyssey. With Judgment currently set for June 25th, it becomes the priority because I always choose new games over backlogged games.
With the NA release date being just over three months away, I would assume that a decision would be made before this month ends. Will definitely be interesting to see what Sega does.
With that said, June 25th is perfect for a NA release but if it does get delayed to 2020, for me personally, that works out great because this summer, I wanted to play RDR 2 and the two expansions for AC Odyssey. With Judgment currently set for June 25th, it becomes the priority because I always choose new games over backlogged games.
With the NA release date being just over three months away, I would assume that a decision would be made before this month ends. Will definitely be interesting to see what Sega does.
Part of me feels that a lot of the worry towards a western release is because of the troubled history Yakuza has had when it comes to localization. As others have said, Judgment is the first time Sega of America is going super hard on localization. In addition the international sales of the Yakuza games have been on par with, if not eclipsed, japanese sales.
I don't think its unreasonable to be worried, but I also dont think there's any reason to be fearing cancellation.
Also it is still available for preorder, at least on the NA PSN as well as Sega/RGG Studios twitter accounts still promoting the game.
I really feel like Judgment was the Ryu ga Gotoku brand's best possible chance at becoming properly mainstream in the west, especially considering it is fully dubbed and has a great release date. I very much doubt it would be cancelled, but any sort of delay could take it from a sleeper hit to a Valkyria Chronicles 4 level bomb (that one still seriously hurts). I hope they stick the course here and just avoid using the actor's face in any future marketing.
IMO it has been a pretty big issue with Yakuza games to constantly rely on actor's faces. Tanimura getting a new actor is honestly pretty exciting because now I could see that character showing up in future titles. With Judgment being almost exclusively well known actor faces it makes me think there will not be a sequel or even a followup. Forget anything cool like them showing up as a guest in fighting game too.
IMO it has been a pretty big issue with Yakuza games to constantly rely on actor's faces. Tanimura getting a new actor is honestly pretty exciting because now I could see that character showing up in future titles. With Judgment being almost exclusively well known actor faces it makes me think there will not be a sequel or even a followup. Forget anything cool like them showing up as a guest in fighting game too.
Opium was a problem, sure, but widespread corruption and massive internal rebellions were what really fucked over China back in the day
It's a double edge sword really, it generates interest and excitement for their game, however, there is that risk of any issues or scandals that could pop-up and derail the game.
or sometimes the actor doesn't comeback due to other commitments or their career schedule making them unavailable, like with Tanimura before the drug scandal.
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The game is no longer avaiblable in Hong Kong PSN store, and I suspect in other Asian PSN stores where it was released as well.
Sure, sure, westerner invaders were innocent, China had itself to blame. I mean, Indians love to kill each other and drink, that's why they are gone right?
So can I order a copy to the United states no problem or do I need a debit card from another country? Never heard of this site.
I can somewhat understand East/Southeast Asian countries being leery of drugs given the effect of opium on China in the past (in spite of the inherent hypocrisy of continuing to allow alcohol, which is just as bad as many types of hard drugs), but it's INSANELY fucked up that it's considered, apparently, worse than violence, murder or sexual abuse. These are objectively worse.
And more than 88,000 people died of alcohol related deaths in the US as well. Alcohol is, as far as I'm concerned, a drug. Do you think alcohol should be banned as well?
Who said they were innocent. You are skilled at putting words in people's mouths. Westerners tend to overestimate how much of an effect they had. The Taiping Rebellion was absolutely devastating. Or are you gonna blame that all on opium too?
You know, this thread really makes me think our military should make shotguns which inject targets with cocaine. At least reactions would be interesting.
Are we talking about the fall of Qing dynasty or the fall of Chinese people? Cuz Qing dynasty's fall was inevitable no matter what like every previous dynasty. It was rotten, and it was overthrown. Every few hundred years it happened. But opium was what makes Chinese people miserable.
So, what's the death ratio? Are you telling me America has just as many people who do drug as people who consume alcohol? Only 40,000 people died of gun shot last year in America, fewer than half of drug death, I guess no point in banning guns either?
So I thought to order it off of PlayAsia but then I thought about duties and all and the fact that Sega pulled it off to begin with and that I already did it twice for Yakuza 6 and Yakuza 0 that still sit unfinished (despite the release of EN versions since then) and said fuck it.
If they don't release it in the west, too bad for them. Hopefully its just a delay. They have to recoup the budget for the game at least, and no matter how harsh the drugs situation is in Japan, there is no way it will get in the way of capitalism
If they don't release it in the west, too bad for them. Hopefully its just a delay. They have to recoup the budget for the game at least, and no matter how harsh the drugs situation is in Japan, there is no way it will get in the way of capitalism
Ineffective at curbing drug use? Of course, because prohibition does not work.
They were plenty effective at destroying lives, targeting minorities, and filling up for-profit prisons, however.
People will always seek to self-medicate. If it isn't "illegal" drugs, it's prescription medication, or alcohol. Take Japan, they just ruin themselves with booze instead.
The distinctions between legal and illegal drugs are so often arbitrary and political bullshit, and draconian drug laws targeting them are pointless and harmful.