PQube Asia announced that Sprite and NekoNyan’s Aokana: Four Rhythms Across The Blue will undergo various censorship modifications to accommodate Sony’s censorship policies for the PlayStation 4.
The announcement was made on June 18th, 2020 via PQube Games’ official Twitter account.
Please see below our statement on #Aokana, we will not comment on the matter further. pic.twitter.com/WaRb9Rvxwm
— PQube Games (@PQubeGames) June 18, 2020
If you’re unable to read the tweet or the message in the image, it states…
“We have recently received many requests for clarification around the potential of scene modification on our upcoming visual novel release Aokana: Four Rhythm Across the Blue.
“These changes apply to the PlayStation 4 version only and contain amendments to a selection of images and text found in the game.
“This includes four scenes which have been modified and three scenes which have been removed completely.
“Many thanks to our fans and community for their continued support of our releases.”
A few people felt that PQube wasn’t being transparent enough about what was being censored and why, but due to Sony’s NDAs being in place to prevent developers from discussing the details of their censorship policies, PQube could only make a very sparse statement about the matter.
This is the only comment we can make on the subject.
— PQube Games (@PQubeGames) June 18, 2020
Some people in the tweet replies attempted to foist the blame on PQube for censoring Aokana, claiming that the Japanese release of the visual novel for the PS4 did not undergo the same level of censorship as the one that PQube is localizing.
[Update: I was informed that Aokana first released in Japan in January of 2017, which was before Sony instituted their censorship policies in mid-2018 for the West and late 2018 for the East]
What giuseppe vecchio is missing out on is the fact that Sony has what’s called Censorship Officers. These officers oversee what kinds of content they deem is acceptable or not, but they aren’t the same for every game nor for every region.
In many ways, Sony’s Censorship Officers operate very similar to the way Valve’s software curators operate at Steam, where one curator may allow a game through while another may ban it on sight.
This is why the censorship for PS4 games – especially for Japanese titles – is oftentimes inconsistent and unclear. Japanese titles are also held to discriminatory standards, with even light fan-service being forced through a lens of censorship while Western-made games can get away with full-on sex scenes, as evident with The Last of Us: Part II.
It’s almost identical to how countless all-ages visual novels get banned on Steam for “child exploitation”, yet Life Is Strange 2 was allowed on the platform even though it contained an underage sex scene.
So not only has PQube found themselves on the Traitors of America list and rolling in virtue signaling of Pride month, but now they have to censor Aokana for the PS4 release.
The good news is that the game will still launch right proper on the Nintendo Switch, and Aokana is also currently available on the Steam store with an off-site R18+ patch.
(Thanks for the news tip Dago)
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