As Censored Gaming has discussed numerous times on the channel now, the South East Asian
video game market holds significant advantages to publishers and one of these is the ability
to distribute games to the Western market in English, whilst avoiding any of the complications
that may be seen with a full official Western release.
The truth of this can be seen in the upcoming release of Bullet Girls Phantasia, a title
that would be unlikely to come to the West, through traditional means, for various reasons.
Bullet Girls Phantasia is now the third Bullet Girls title from the Japanese developers and
Phantasia is the first to get an English release.
The South East Asian region is extremely linguistically diverse and English is used as the common
language in things like business.
This means that games are often released in either Chinese, English or both, to get around
this linguistic diversity.
The third person shooter sees you face against hoards of enemies, alongside A.I controlled
buddy characters, and it is especially notable for its various suggestive elements.
Clothing will be destroyed as you take damage and there is also something called "Interrogation
Training" where you are tasked with extracting information from the characters through various
naughty means.
To celebrate the upcoming English release, Censored Gaming has got in touch with Play-Asia's
marketing and community management specialist, Hardy Pace, for an interview about censorship,
Asian English titles, what Play-Asia are doing to support these releases and more.
Just to clarify, whilst Censored Gaming does have a close relationship with Play-Asia,
due to how important what they do is to censorship, this isn't a sponsored video.
There are affiliate links in the description though, if you want to show that you support
what Censored Gaming is doing and at no extra cost to you.
But, with that out of the way, let's begin with the interview!
Q: Firstly, please introduce yourself to our viewers!
A: I currently manage Play-Asia.com's PLAY Exclusives line of physically released indie
games, as well as manage the campaigns of the majority of Asia English releases that
come through our store.
I've been working in the video game industry for the past 7 years, 5 of which with have
been with Play-Asia.com.
Q: What does the term "censorship" mean to you?
A: It isn't a favorite word at the Play-Asia offices, but we hear it on an almost daily
basis.
Simply put - it is just the attempted removal of ideas from society.
A lot more positive can be achieved if we talked about themes instead of suppressing
them, and the people who enjoy them.
Q: What are some of the different types of censorship seen in the gaming industry?
A: With the most recent example of Agony we see ratings boards and marketplaces can be
a huge barrier to overcome.
This has been the biggest influencer internationally as often seen in places like Australia, UK,
& Germany.
Self-censorship happens at publisher levels for a variety of creative and PR reasons,
as well as the fact that they have knowledge of rating guidelines as they develop a title
or make a localization decision.
In cases like Agony it might be an attempt to sneak past, or an unfamiliarity with the
process.
Q: In your opinion, how much does this affect Japanese games coming to the West?
A: Japanese games in general come to the West if someone is passionate enough about the
title within the company or the market size is apparent.
Luckily the fans of Japanese games are incredibly passionate and have a habit of making their
love for a game or series known.
It sometimes takes a while for the information to get to publishers, but many have their
ear to the ground.
The lack of Japanese games with sexual themes arriving in the West intact is due to a variety
of reasons, but in my opinion often due to the ambiguity of character age as well as
the less playful view of sexuality often found in the West.
You'll sometimes see the reverse with violent games in Japan.
Q: What are some other reasons that a game may not be released in the West?
A: Lack of funding or a lack of confidence in sales are the two biggest factors.
The translation process is not cheap, especially visual novels with word counts already difficult
to tackle in a single language.
Fans can be quite assertive about what games they want at times, but the average gamer
isn't obliged to make what games they are willing to buy known in advance.
The absolute best thing to see is gamers building communities around shared interests in specific
titles or types of games, especially because they allow developers and publishers to see
their fans' passion consolidated.
Q: Ecchi games like Bullet Girls do get English releases in Asia though, how does that happen?
A: The overall Asia market is generally more aligned with Japan culturally than places
in the West where you might have difficulty finding a game like Bullet Girls in a shop
window.
We are slowly influencing the market as best we can to feature English in as many releases
as possible – which is spearheaded by the support our customers show.
Bandai Namco Entertainment Asia also deserve a lot of love for their releases.
We're incredibly thrilled publishers like H2 Interactive are supporting the market of
these ecchi titles with Bullet Girls Phantasia, and we're confident they will see the market
is strong for future releases!
We're hoping to cement the fact that the fans want these games in English, and preferably
on disc or cart.
Q: You mentioned Bandai Namco Entertainment Asia, it seems that many of their latest releases
are now getting Asian English releases - including some not released over in the West.
What factors do you feel have influenced this recent change?
A: Great sales and fan reception both inside and outside of the region.
For why some games don't ever make it to the West in any form, it could be many reasons
but a common one is differing licenses per region.
Games generally get physical releases in Asia because lots of customers in Asia go to brick
and mortar stores and buy games.
Q: What would you say to somebody new to importing and may be somewhat nervous about the process?
A: Importing games to the US is the pretty much the exact same as buying domestic, the
only difference is your package is travelling a few extra miles.If you are in a country
with import tax, we offer customers the option to pre-pay their duty & tax so there are no
surprises on arrival.
If you're dying for that 48-hour delivery experience, courier options like FedEx make
that for customers on the other side of the globe.
Q: What do Play-Asia do to help get new games released - either in the West or in Asia?
A: In Asia our focus is on providing publishers the sales confidence to make the investment
of adding English language options to their games.
If we can make publishers confident that a minimum amount of game copies will sell it
makes the decision of adding English options in future releases straight forward.
That is why I personally think it's incredibly important to share releases like Bullet Girls
Phantasia within relevant gaming communities, because I know it has great potential to lead
to a lot more of the same – especially with the initial support we've received!
For Western releases our focus is on growing the physical and indie games market to the
biggest it can be.
Physical games have always been an integral part of Play-Asia.com, and we've been bringing
that love to the indie game industry in big ways!
Alongside Eastasiasoft we've been able to successfully bring beautiful limited releases
of indie titles to the hands of collectors at an affordable price on PS4, Vita, and now
recently also the Nintendo Switch.
We have two releases coming each month for the rest of 2018!
Q: Does Play-Asia potentially have plans to expand more into publishing itself one day?
A: Play-Asia.com has been supporting customers, publishers, and indie developers as a storefront
for many years and that will ultimately remain our focus.
However, we have had incredible success collaborating with Eastasiasoft and video game developers
from all around the world and will continue to expand that relationship into 2019 and
beyond.
Q: What kind of changes could help bring more of these types of games to the West?
A: If people are okay with localizations that include a big flashing sign that says "this
character is over 18" publishers would probably have better results.<this is a joke> That
applies more to a game like Omega Labyrinth Z or Moe Chronicles, but generally there needs
to be a discussion about what separates sex themes in Western games and the various titles
released in Japan.
That said I think the connotation between animation and youth media is steadily weakening
in the West, with everything from South Park, Family Guy, and most importantly the growing
popularity of anime showing that adult topics and themes can be explored through a medium
too frequently assumed to be childish.
Q: And lastly, can you give us any hints about future plans or surprises that may be in store
for Play-Asia?
A: An amazing Vita game is coming to PLAY Exclusives in July, and lots of Switch love
is on its way.
We'll be at Tokyo Game Show on the hunt for new games!
In less flashy news we are working incredibly hard on improving shipping options and prices
so importing is that much easier.
That's all for the interview for this time but, back to Bullet Girls, Bullet Girls Phantasia
release date has now been revealed and it will launch simultaneously in Japan and Asia
August 9th.
Pre-orders are currently open on the Play-Asia store and you can find more details, including
info on the Play-Asia exclusive limited edition, via the link in the description.
What do you think about the growing practice of Asian English releases?
Are you interested in Bullet Girls?
And what should we ask Play-Asia if we speak to them again?
Please let us know your thoughts in the comments below and, until next time, thank you for
watching!
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