• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

XSEED localizer upset Japanese devs removed accidental KKK reference (Kotaku)

Status
Not open for further replies.
T

The Technomancer

card-carrying scientician
This story is exactly as incoherent as the title makes it sound

http://kotaku.com/localizer-asks-to-be-removed-from-games-credits-after-d-1794678587

Yesterday, a localizer for the publisher XSEED took a dramatic stance on what he saw as potential censorship, asking his company to remove his name from the credits of the upcoming JRPG Akiba’s Beat after the developers removed a controversial phrase involving the KKK from the game.

“I wanted to make a statement,” localization specialist Tom Lipschultz wrote in an e-mail. “I don’t think it’s right to make any change, no matter how minor, for the purpose of ‘sanitizing’ a game.”
Click to expand...

Localization gets thorny when certain cultural themes don’t make sense in other languages—or, worse, when they’re too controversial. Akiba’s Beat’s “most egregious change,” Lipschultz wrote in an XSEED forum post, had to do with a parody of the Japanese light switch company NKK Switches. A sign in the original Japanese version of the game read “KKK witches,” a play on the phrase. He wrote on XSEED’s forum, “I personally felt ‘KKK witches’ was pretty funny for its shock value, but when I mentioned it to my coworkers, they... were not as amused.” Lipschultz has long been an advocate against what he sees as censorship in localization, and he says his priority is retaining as much of Akiba’s Beat’s original meaning as possible.
Click to expand...

XSEED (sans Lipschultz) e-mailed Acquire asking what originally inspired the sign. Ken Berry, XSEED’s executive vice president, helped explain what the letters meant in the U.S. “Acquire immediately responded that they had no idea the sign could be taken that way in English,” Berry told me in an e-mail. Two weeks later, Acquire removed the phrase from Akiba’s Beat, with no further conversation or discussion, replacing it with “ACQ witches.”

Although this decision was made by the developer, Lipschultz decided to take a stand, asking XSEED to remove his name from the credits of Akiba’s Beat. As a result, he won’t appear in XSEED’s credits again—XSEED has a policy maintaining that “If someone is ashamed to be associated with one of our games, then they are ashamed to be associated with the company as a whole and won’t be credited in future games either.” Lipschultz says that, because “KKK witches” isn’t being removed to “aid the player’s comprehension,” but to “avoid offending people and to avoid the possibility of retailers protesting,” it infringes on the game’s artistic value.
Click to expand...

So just to be entirely clear here: when the original devs heard what KKK meant in the US they immedietly decided to change it

And this is censorship

Fucking

What
 
M

mullet2000

Member
Really puts into perspective where certain people's "original intent" argument is actually coming from. Some just want the offensive thing in the game and are using that as an excuse for that.
 
G

Glix

Member
It IS censorship, but come the fuck on, man.

Its not even like you were making a political statement, you changed the name of a company to KKK for "comedic shock value".

Nothing of value was lost by the "censorship"
 
Plumpbiscuit

Plumpbiscuit

Member
3833399c9e70dcfc7674ae50afe7d0e6_-meme-you-had-one-job-one-you-had-one-job-meme_480-311.jpeg
 
T

tuxfool

Banned
Glix said:
It IS censorship, but come the fuck on, man.

Its not even like you were making a political statement, you changed the name of a company to KKK for "comedic shock value".

Nothing of value was lost by the "censorship"
Click to expand...

No it isn't. Because it was never the intent of the developers to say that.
 
B

Briarios

Member
The developer wanted it gone once they understood the reference, so what's the issue? If I wrote something and it had some sort of controversial overtones by accident, I'd edit it, too.
 
V

Vamphuntr

Member
I knew who it was about only by reading the thread title :/

It's fairly obvious that the meaning of the joke is lost for an American audience and that KKK refers to something horrible instead.
 
T

Tohsaka

Member
Glix said:
It IS censorship, but come the fuck on, man.

Its not even like you were making a political statement, you changed the name of a company to KKK for "comedic shock value".

Nothing of value was lost by the "censorship"
Click to expand...

The devs didn't know the KKK was the name of a hate group, it was a parody of the "NKK Switches" light bulb company in Japan, which no one outside of Japan would've heard of.
 
E

ElBoxyBrown

Banned
Glix said:
It IS censorship, but come the fuck on, man.

Its not even like you were making a political statement, you changed the name of a company to KKK for "comedic shock value".

Nothing of value was lost by the "censorship"
Click to expand...

It's not censorship. The devs themselves wanted to remove it after learning what it actually meant.
 
M

Matt Attack

Member
What a hill to die on. Props to XSEED for their credit policy, and for all the members of the team that did take issue with the original name (that the original developers changed immediately upon understanding the issue).
 
R

Relaxed Muscle

Member
Lipschultz has long been an advocate against what he sees as censorship in localization, and he says his priority is retaining as much of Akiba’s Beat’s original meaning as possible.
Click to expand...

“Acquire immediately responded that they had no idea the sign could be taken that way in English,” Berry told me in an e-mail.
Click to expand...

So the devs had no intention of making a joke based on KKK, but the localizer thinks he's making a statement of " retaining as much of Akiba’s Beat’s original meaning as possible."

giphy.gif
 
E

excelsiorlef

Member
Glix said:
It IS censorship, but come the fuck on, man.

Its not even like you were making a political statement, you changed the name of a company to KKK for "comedic shock value".

Nothing of value was lost by the "censorship"
Click to expand...

It's not even that... KKK Witches was the name in the Japanese version because it was making fun of a Japanese company, he just wanted to keep it in for the lolz because he's an idiot. Keeping it in actually creates context the artist had no intention of making.

It's literally an inside Japanese joke, a good localizer wouldn't have a problem changing it because localization is not just translation.
 
Danny Dudekisser

Danny Dudekisser

I paid good money for this Dynex!
I like Tom, but I think he's taking the "original intent" thing too far with this one... since it sounds like it really wasn't the intent in the first place.
 
T

The Technomancer

card-carrying scientician
The best part about this is that maintaining it as is would be a bad localization. In Japanese the joke does not cause unintentional shock. To maintain it in English and thus create a moment of unintentional shock humor would therefore be inaccurate!
 
T

T-Rex.

Banned
lmao

why would you go that far over something like this, especially when it was down to the devs themselves
 
U

UnemployedVillain

Member
mullet2000 said:
Really puts into perspective where certain people's "original intent" argument is actually coming from. Some just want the offensive thing in the game and are using that as an excuse for that.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I was going to say that it's interesting this particular change was what he decided to get up in arms over
 
K

Kyuur

Member
This is the exact opposite of censorship. Through localization, new meaning was being added that was never intended in the first place. If the localizer cared about maintaining the "purity" of the original product, he would want this changed too.
 
L

Linkstrikesback

Member
That localiser is an idiot, basically.

It's not censorship to make sure something has the meaning that was originally intended, especially not when it avoids being a reference to the KKK of all groups, Christ.
 
Z

Zaph

Member
“When I first requested to have my name removed from the credits, I actually didn’t know we’d never specifically asked Acquire to change this – I assumed we had,” said Lipschultz. “If I’d known that then, I might not have ever suggested removing my name from the credits. Then again, I still might’ve! And either way, because this is such a gray area, I don’t entirely regret my request. If nothing else, it’s bringing censorship back into public discussion, and I think that’s important, since I feel it’s a problem we – as an industry – really need to talk about. In my own backwards, awkward way, I’m hoping I’ve opened the topic wide enough that maybe some good will come of this in the future.”
Click to expand...
Yeah, dude knows he fucked up but cant swallow his pride.
 
K

kulapik

Member
. As a result, he won’t appear in XSEED’s credits again—XSEED has a policy maintaining that “If someone is ashamed to be associated with one of our games, then they are ashamed to be associated with the company as a whole and won’t be credited in future games either.”
Click to expand...

LMAO, great job
 
C

Cyframe

Member
His reaction is absurd. He of all people should know that certain jokes and allusions made in Japanese don't work when trying to localize them, so they get adapted.

The KKK isn't an obscure company, they lynched African Americans. It doesn't fit. And as harsh as this may sound, I'm glad Tom won't be mentioned in the credits anymore.
 
sensui-tomo

sensui-tomo

Member
same localizer also wants to die on "muh 15 year old with big tits" hill too and doesnt want them to be 18.... I mean i dont like censorship in some cases like some other folks, but christ almighty is this not the hill to die on.
 
P

Power Shot

Member
Absolutely ridiculous. Good riddance to bad rubbish. This isn't censorship, and claiming censorship like this makes your entire position look absurd.
 
S

ShironRedshift

Member
Yeah, this is pretty dumb. Some people just take this "pristine vision of the creators" stuff way too far, to the point that they really only care about their idea of what the creators intended and not what they actually did or did not intend. This seems to be one of those situations.
Glix said:
It IS censorship, but come the fuck on, man.

Its not even like you were making a political statement, you changed the name of a company to KKK for "comedic shock value".

Nothing of value was lost by the "censorship"
Click to expand...
...How is it censorship when it's a decision the creators themselves made, of their own volition? Censorship by definition implies it's done by some outside group, but this is a change by the group themselves, when they realized they made a mistake that resulted in something they never intended? By this logic, any changes that developers make during development is censorship, simply by being a change from the original idea. It doesn't hold up at all.
 
B

Brian_FETO

Banned
To be fair that's kind of surprising they didn't know what the KKK was

Different cultures and they aren't something as horribly prolific as the Nazis....but still

Going against them saying "wow we had no idea and don't want to associate with this" is pretty stupid
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

IGN: Phil Spencer Has Now Been Head of Xbox for 10 Years; We Look Back at His First Decade
Opinion Analysis 2 3
130
7K
ZehDon replied
Interview with Shuji Utsumi (SEGA Co-COO) by Japanese media outlet Seizo-Trend
Business Game Dev
1
1K
Unknown? replied
  • Poll
Why Xbox Abandoning The Traditional Console Business Model, Makes Business Sense
Business Analysis Platform 2
72
5K
WitchHunter replied
  • x2
Ctrl+Alt+Deceive: All The Dirt, Info, Lies, and LOLs We Found During FTC vs. Microsoft
2 3 4 5 6
293
28K
Heisenberg007 replied
  • Locked
How The Last of Us became 'the greatest story' ever told in video games
Opinion Analysis 2 3 4 5
203
17K
Elysium44 replied
Top Bottom