DLsite Reviews Can't Be Trusted.

[erobotan]

Re: DLsite Reviews Can't Be Trusted.

at least DLSite is honest, they said everything in front that they have the right to tamper with the reviews

and I think american free speech culture is fading .. games content are censored just because it features LGBT stuff, I've also played several MMO where they remove threads about their staff screw up really bad (they still gives warning to the staff etc though), and the popular feminist movement also very anti-free speech.

 

[Manamana]

Re: DLsite Reviews Can't Be Trusted.

I'm 100% sure this is a cultural miscalculation. We Americans have a rabid obsession with "free speech" that other cultures / countries do not necessarily have.

Not really, especially in Japan where the customer service is really, really important.

and I think american free speech culture is fading .. games content are censored just because it features LGBT stuff, I've also played several MMO where they remove threads when their staff screw up really bad (they still gives warning to the staff etc though), and the popular feminist movement also very anti-free speech.

This is more true, you can't see a nipple/penis in a lot of games because of that. When I see "the Witcher" games, I know that it couldn't have been done in the US... and indeed it's European, more precisely Polish .
About feminism, it's because the basic feminist movement, who wanted the same rights for men and women (a thing that I totally support) deviated to a Thought Police, seeing everything in the prism of gender, which is an abomination. And even more an abomination when applied to works of fiction, whichever they are.
And I'm not even talking about people like SJW, who take the words "crazy" and "nonsense" to another level.

 

[erobotan]

Re: DLsite Reviews Can't Be Trusted.

This is more true, you can't see a nipple/penis in a lot of games because of that. When I see "the Witcher" games, I know that it couldn't have been done in US... and indeed it's European, more precisely Polish .
About feminism, it's because the basic feminist movement, who wanted the same rights for men and women (a thing that I totally support) deviated to a Thought Police, seeing everything in the prism of gender, which is an abomination. And even more an abomination when applied to works of fiction, whichever they are.
And I'm not even talking about people like SJW, who take the words "crazy" and "nonsense" to another level.

yeah, equality is great! it's really a shame that they're now aiming for total domination instead ..

 

[CrazyPerson]

Re: DLsite Reviews Can't Be Trusted.

On the subject of culture: I've always had the impression that japanese culture is WAY different when it comes to criticism.

That is, where in US culture you'd write "I like the looks of this chair, but I find the backrest uncomfortable after a while,"
the same statement in Japan might come across as insulting - if the chair in question was made by a person whose business it is to make chairs all day,
how would you dare suggest they didn't know their job?
Sure, there might be people better at it, and there might be things to improve on, but such criticism must be had carefully, and in private, not hung out in public.
I think I've even seen some japanese devblogs mention "Feel free to discuss in the comments, but please flag bugs as 'only visible to blog owner.'"

I figure a similar thing might be going on here - it could just be that they figure putting those reviews verbatim out in public for all to see would be insulting to japanese devs,
so they prune them down to a "safe" level, but in doing so obviously end up warping the message a bit.

So I'd not necessarily say anything malicious is happening here, it's probably just a company trying to bridge a cultural gap and failing to account for both sides.
As I mention in my sig - while jp dlsite technically has a 5-star rating scale, effectively only the top 3 are used - the bottom two mostly exist to make it socially acceptable to use the other 3.

 

[Silvar]

Re: DLsite Reviews Can't Be Trusted.

On the subject of culture: I've always had the impression that japanese culture is WAY different when it comes to criticism.

That is, where in US culture you'd write "I like the looks of this chair, but I find the backrest uncomfortable after a while,"
the same statement in Japan might come across as insulting - if the chair in question was made by a person whose business it is to make chairs all day,
how would you dare suggest they didn't know their job?
Sure, there might be people better at it, and there might be things to improve on, but such criticism must be had carefully, and in private, not hung out in public.
I think I've even seen some japanese devblogs mention "Feel free to discuss in the comments, but please flag bugs as 'only visible to blog owner.'"

I figure a similar thing might be going on here - it could just be that they figure putting those reviews verbatim out in public for all to see would be insulting to japanese devs,
so they prune them down to a "safe" level, but in doing so obviously end up warping the message a bit.

So I'd not necessarily say anything malicious is happening here, it's probably just a company trying to bridge a cultural gap and failing to account for both sides.
As I mention in my sig - while jp dlsite technically has a 5-star rating scale, effectively only the top 3 are used - the bottom two mostly exist to make it socially acceptable to use the other 3.

That's kind of what I theorized with my post/question a few posts back. I know that the Japanese culture is very "honor" based, but it seems like this means they MUST be the expert at what they do and any criticism seems to be seen as a direct attack on their character on how they fail, rather than how to grow (from my understanding).

It might also explain how some social norms in Japan are taboo in Western countries. For example, when "Dead or Alive 5" was building hype for its launch in 2012,

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of Team Ninja was stating that fans demanded bigger breasts on their female characters, even though they were getting feedback from "overseas offices" to tone down the sexuality. It seems like Mr. Shimbori is trying to ignore or brush off criticisms from Western cultures on how they portray women. And, well, there was also the drama with "Dragon's Crown" and character designer

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. Does it seem like that Japanese game developers won't even change their sexual ideals, even when criticized by Western cultures?

 

[HentaiWriter]

Re: DLsite Reviews Can't Be Trusted.

Don't tell me you people were expecting some manner of moral standard from a company that peddles in rape games and violations of intellectual property.

"It's about ethics in chinese tentacle rape porn!" Keep your outrage culture BS out of my porn, please.

Just playing devil's advocate here, this quote about "peddles in rape games and violations of intellectual property" could be applied to about 80% of the companies on the planet if you replace "rape" with any of the following;

-horribly unhealthy food
-extremely violent games
-stigmatizing education/intellect
-political slander
-biased news
-outdated mores/morals
-price inflation of medicine/oil/etc.
-infringing on human rights

and if you replace "violations of intellectual property" with;

-ignores the constitution
-violates safety hazards
-ignores human health

etc. you get the point, I could come up with a boatload of these, but the point is, just because a company does things that are this or that in regards to morals (again, this is a fantasy, not IRL; I would say violence in the media is infinitely more scarring than hentai games and it's not only publicly available, it's outright forced on you), does not mean they can be expected or should be expected to ignore their own ToS or shortchange consumers.

I'm 100% sure this is a cultural miscalculation. We Americans have a rabid obsession with "free speech" that other cultures / countries do not necessarily have.

I wish America still had free speech, but no, we're basically edging closer and closer to China's level of speech policing every day lol
not there yet, at least!

 

[Kyrieru]

Re: DLsite Reviews Can't Be Trusted.

Kind of strange. From what I understand, in Japanese culture it'a common to be humble about your skills. For example, if someone says "You're really good at ___", you would respond with "Well, I'm not that good at ____"

But, as someone mentioned earlier, there's also a perception that expertise should not be questioned, which is sort of contradictory.

Instead, looking at it from the "humble" angle, I don't think it's that questioning a developer's skills would be insulting to them, but rather, it's that questioning a skilled person would be implying that you are on the same level or higher than them, and thus not being humble about your own skills.

Who knows. I don't. I just read manga dammit.

 

[kiko]

Re: DLsite Reviews Can't Be Trusted.

LOL get over yourself. Nobody reads that shit anyway. There is such a thing as previews too, you know.

I hate to agree with this guy, but I really have to, I've personally never read a game review on DLSite. I don't know if anybody reads them, but they are not very useful, and most of the time very short, and not quite helpful.

 

[Omnikuken]

Re: DLsite Reviews Can't Be Trusted.

Personnal experience here : 90%+ games I buy on Dlsite are on release day, most of the time 1st to buy it too (yeah, go me). Never read reviews since no one wrote it for games that came out 5 mins ago when I bought it .....


If you want some better indication about "game worth", you can either check the big yellow *****'s next to the number of sales, though that is still buyer-based and prone to trolls, or the weekly-monthly-yearly rankings of said game(s). Once again, though, this can be skewed in some way : best over-all ranking (english-side) is Feel the Flash Kasumi, got it and find it meh at best.

TL;DR : don't focus entirely on reviews to buy stuff, try the demo, check the blog and judge for yourself.

 

[stashar]

Re: DLsite Reviews Can't Be Trusted.

and I think american free speech culture is fading .. games content are censored just because it features LGBT stuff, I've also played several MMO where they remove threads about their staff screw up really bad (they still gives warning to the staff etc though), and the popular feminist movement also very anti-free speech.

You're kidding, right?

Your age is showing. Either that, or you've completely forgotten about the "green blood" in Mortal Kombat and censored fatalities, the fact that exporting encryption was illegal until

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(yes, HTTPS and SSL was considered a munition and therefore illegal to export), and the entirety of

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.

Naw dog, we have more free speech today than ever before. And don't you young whipper-snappers furget it!

MMO's removing threads is the very same as ULMF removing links / moderating threads when "L"-con is discussed. Free Speech within a corporation has always been restricted. Free Speech and the 1st Amendment has only been granted to us by the Constitution, which is an ancient agreement between Americans and their Government. Corporations are not part of the agreement, and are free to censor or whatever they want on their own property. Old Flash-game sites would take down controversial games, except for basically Newgrounds.

I wish America still had free speech, but no, we're basically edging closer and closer to China's level of speech policing every day lol
not there yet, at least!

Erm... what?

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When bloggers are disappeared by Secret Police after they say something insulting to the single-political party in charge... you'd be welcome to compare the US to China. Otherwise, it's definitely a very off-color joke IMO.

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[HentaiWriter]

Re: DLsite Reviews Can't Be Trusted.

Naw dog, we have more free speech today than ever before. And don't you young whipper-snappers furget it!q

Highly disagree, people are getting thrown in jail for comments to each other over FACEBOOK, of all things, comments on 4chan threads result in jail time even without any actual evidence of ability to pull off said threats, people get outright held for NO REASON other than protesting peacefully, without their family or friends being notified, for days at a time.

Censorship in regards to blood in games and so forth isn't really "free speech", it's censorship of the actual material in the game in regards to obscenities. They're SIMILAR, but not the same thing.

I can provide links to the above three examples and more if needed, but if ya just google em you should be able to find said stories and a whole bunch more.

Free speech in its purest sense has never been more regulated/constricted in the past 100 years of American history, IMO, and it's only getting worse.

 

[stashar]

Re: DLsite Reviews Can't Be Trusted.

Highly disagree, people are getting thrown in jail for comments to each other over FACEBOOK, of all things, comments on 4chan threads result in jail time even without any actual evidence of ability to pull off said threats, people get outright held for NO REASON other than protesting peacefully, without their family or friends being notified, for days at a time.

You don't remember the 90s? People were thrown into jail for speaking about encryption in public forums. Wanna talk free speech issues? What about

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?? (Talking about your sexuality can get you banned from the military. Signed into Executive Order by Clinton, 1994)

You don't remember the 60s?

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if you said stuff the American government didn't like.

We've got more free speech today dude. Just because your history is skewed doesn't change the fact.

Americans also have this obsession about pretending that the past was filled with awesomeness and was the best thing ever. It wasn't. The concepts of free speech were regularly trampled upon in our multi-century history. In fact, immediately after the 1st Amendment was passed did John Adams pass the

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, which allowed him to arrest anyone for being unpatriotic. Read through the Wikipedia article on the Alien and Sedition acts, and check out the date under which those events occurred.

As historians like to say: Before the ink even dried as the 1st Amendment was penned, the sitting president began to violate it. From a historical context... its actually kinda strange that we hold our government up to higher standards today. In any event, we have gotten to this point by fighting the good fight constantly over the years, so don't stop. But also keep in mind your history, and keep in mind how far we've become. Crime is down. Homosexuality is embraced, the Internet has opened up free speech in ways that we've literally forgotten about how crappy it was in the past.

As the W. S. Gilbert once said: "All centuries but this and every country but his own".

But this attitude is a source of our progress I guess. So... carry on. Carry on...

 

[HentaiWriter]

Re: DLsite Reviews Can't Be Trusted.

When bloggers are disappeared by Secret Police after they say something insulting to the single-political party in charge... you'd be welcome to compare the US to China. Otherwise, it's definitely a very off-color joke IMO.

They are doing this in America, not permanently, but for days or even weeks at a time, without telling family/friends, and it's not even for insulting the political party (btw, democrats and republicans at this point are pretty much both terrible parties and have negatives, and both of them exploit the American people. one just has a different way of exploiting them compared to the other.), it was for protesting peacefully.

Hell, someone even died there because they were kept without any access to basic human rights.

Also of course stuff like this;

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And there's laws that have TRIED to be passed, notably the last one on this list, so one of these days, the "controlling what you can and can't look at on the internet" ones will pass (and i don't mean the

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And finally of course you get stuff where you know, the President of the USA is still on a manhunt for a dude who exposed that the USA was basically pulling a Big Brother of proportions never before seen in America on innocent civilians who had done nothing wrong, an act that breaks multiple parts of the constitution, despite not even being in true "war time".

The difference with all the examples you provided, (and they all are things that shouldn't have happened and are definitely free speech violations, don't get me wrong) is that they were speaking out *against the government*. The examples I provided *are not speaking out against the government*. They are teenagers on Facebook or on 4chan saying things with LOL and J/K by them. That is very, VERY different from attacking the government, and WAY more out of line. The encryption thing is something I've never heard of, despite living right through the 80's and 90's, so I'll concede on that, but I'm really wondering how people got caught on that when the government wasn't even policing the internet that much back then.

I'm not agreeing that talking back against your government should result in jailtime, but if you can get arrested for making obviously fake threats that you have no way of engaging on even AFTER the cops come to your house and verify that IS the case (that you have no way you could do anything), or even threats on Facebook, then yes, we are in a Big Brother state where anything you say about ANYONE at ANY time about ANYTHING that can be remotely conceived as a threat CAN result in jail time, and THAT'S why free speech is worse off today.

Yeah, free speech is *definitely* worse than it's been in previous decades. We're not at the level of China yet, like I said, but in another light, we're actually doing something WORSE than China is; China just gets butthurt if you talk about the government or "non kosher" things, as it were, things that they see as radical or revolutionary or immoral or whatever else. BUT, they generally, AFAIK, don't throw you in jail for anything OUTSIDE of that.

America on the other hand is painting a picture, like I said, that you can be thrown in jail (

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) for anything said to anyone at any time for any reason, regardless of actual motive, ability to do anything akin to whatever you've said, or the situation itself. And that's pretty damn "police state" IMO.

BUT, this is way off topic, so I'm gonna not continue this discussion in this thread, haha.

 

[stashar]

Re: DLsite Reviews Can't Be Trusted.

They are doing this in America, not permanently, but for days or even weeks at a time, without telling family/friends, and it's not even for insulting the political party (btw, democrats and republicans at this point are pretty much both terrible parties and have negatives, and both of them exploit the American people. one just has a different way of exploiting them compared to the other.), it was for protesting peacefully.

Hell, someone even died there because they were kept without any access to basic human rights.

Also of course stuff like this;

You must be registered to see the links

You must be registered to see the links

You must be registered to see the links

And there's laws that have TRIED to be passed, notably the last one on this list, so one of these days, the "controlling what you can and can't look at on the internet" ones will pass (and i don't mean the

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No offense, but that's small stuff as far as US History is concerned.

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You know, like when the US actually had an office of Censorship that was reading all the letters going to and from the US Postal office.

And finally of course you get stuff where you know, the President of the USA is still on a manhunt for a dude who exposed that the USA was basically pulling a Big Brother of proportions never before seen in America on innocent civilians who had done nothing wrong, an act that breaks multiple parts of the constitution, despite not even being in true "war time".

Then you're ignorant of history.

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Martin Luther King Jr. was under COINTELPRO surveillance without a warrant his entire public life. The mole confessed recently. Malcom X was too.

If you thought life was easier in the past, its cause you weren't aware of it back then. Now Obama has used the Espionage Act in unique ways, but back around COINTELPRO days, that shit was just straight up legal.

Yeah, free speech is *definitely* worse than it's been in previous decades. We're not at the level of China yet, like I said, but we'll be there in a few decades if this keeps up at this rate.

By my count, we've moved away from "The office of Censorship" (1940s), to "McCarthyism" (1950s), to murdering black people in the streets who disagreed with us (Fred Hampton, 1960s), to persecuting Vietnam War Leakers and Draft Dodgers (1970s).

Just hold up for a sec: Draft Dodging, because in as early as the 1970s, you were forced to fight for this country whether you wanted to or not. Land of the free, right? You know those Vietnam War vets (and Korean War vets, and everyone before them) were forced into those wars. Do you honestly think that shit would stand today?

Anyway, then COINTELPRO was discovered in the 1980s, and some of that stuff started to calm down a bit. 1990s was the introduction of the internet, and encryption was a munition (and couldn't be exported). Being Gay was still illegal in the 1990s, and if you were in the Military, talking about the fact that you were gay was enough to get you expelled. Cause we totally cared about free speech back then, amirite?

By any stretch of the imagination, we are more free today than any previous decade. If you disagree, choose a decade that you thought we were more free in. Sure, you're aware of issues that are happening today. That's good. And I agree, there continues to be injustice that occurs today.

But that isn't my argument. My argument is that we are more free today than we were in previous decades. So take your pick of a decade that you thought we were actually more free in. Given all of the decades that I see, and that I know about... today is the most free, today is the best. And I hope that 10 years from now, we can improve to the point that that future day will be the best day to be an American.

The difference with all the examples you provided, (and they all are things that shouldn't have happened and are definitely free speech violations, don't get me wrong) is that they were speaking out *against the government*. The examples I provided *are not speaking out against the government*. They are teenagers on Facebook or on 4chan saying things with LOL and J/K by them.

Erm... yeah. I've stuck with you know... federal government sins over the past few decades in my previous posts. But you do realize that the 1970s and 1960s had the whole civil rights racism + segregation thing going on right?

 

[HentaiWriter]

Re: DLsite Reviews Can't Be Trusted.

I said I wasn't gonna post anymore about this, but again man, to clarify;

You keep giving examples relating to either;
-People getting locked up or etc. for talking about the Government
or
-People getting things pushed on them that involve the Government
or
-Rights in general (sexuality not affecting your position in society, etc.).

The issues I'm talking about aren't about any of those when I'm talking about free SPEECH.

For example, while again, I don't agree with it at all, yes, you could be screwed pretty bad by admitting you're a homosexual back then.

But the examples I'm giving now, someone could say "I am gonna fuck u up later man LOL! good match on Halo though!" on facebook, and despite;

-The message being obviously joking
-The message having nothing to do with the government
-The message posing no threat to the government
-The person writing the message being visited by cops and checked for weapons and they had none
-The person having no criminal history at all
-The person whom the message was written to says outright it was a joking message and is not meant as a threat and did not want to press charger

That person who wrote the message will still go to jail.

THAT is what I mean by "free SPEECH".

The person who says they are against government, or says they're a homosexual, or says they're this or that, all of those instances in the past, they said it because they WERE it or because they DID do it or because they DID think it, these were things people were standing up for or believed in or actually WERE. It was REALITY.

Now though, without any evidence, reason, implication, motive, or desire to commit whatever you're saying in a message, you can be thrown in jail JUST FOR WRITING IT despite NOT EVEN BEING SERIOUS, despite it being FANTASY.

That is what I mean by "free SPEECH", the ability to write what you want without fear of people thinking it's reality, when what you're writing is FANTASY (or satire or parody or anything else non-serious).

And that's about as clear as I can make it, so with that I am definitely done on this topic, lol.

 

[stashar]

Re: DLsite Reviews Can't Be Trusted.

EDIT: I think I see what you mean.

Something like the "

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" joker of 2001 then (convicted in 2001 anyway. I'm pretty sure the "Tom Cruise missile" joke was older than that and may have been in the late 90s). I'm telling you man, these sorts of things are NOT NEW in the internet. They've existed since the beginning.

 

[HentaiWriter]

Re: DLsite Reviews Can't Be Trusted.

EDIT: I think I see what you mean.

Something like the "

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" joker of 2001 then. I'm telling you man, these sorts of things are NOT NEW in the internet. They've existed since the beginning.

Right, and that's my point, since the beginning of *the internet*. And the internet became prolific for the common, mainstream user about 15-20 years ago, which is why I'm saying it's gotten worse, since most people use it, the rate of getting nailed for using it has went up, etc.

But yeah back on topic! DLSite! Trickery! Reviewsssssssss!

 

[stashar]

Re: DLsite Reviews Can't Be Trusted.

I'll let ya go then HentaiWriter

I still disagree with you though. Today's world is better than decades ago!

 

[Arara]

Re: DLsite Reviews Can't Be Trusted.

I always see the reviews are positive, even in Japanese.

Best way to check a quality of a DLsite game?

Smiley faces.

 

[erobotan]

Re: DLsite Reviews Can't Be Trusted.

I'll let ya go then HentaiWriter

I still disagree with you though. Today's world is better than decades ago!

I don't know US history but may be .. may be freedom of speech is indeed getting better for general population .. it's definitely better for gamers who are fans of brutal & bloody stuff with games like Manhunt, Hatred, GTA become very famous.

but for us pervert gamers, our freedom of speech is definitely getting worse.