Dispatch’s release on Nintendo platforms today was poised to be another testament to AdHoc’s tremendous success with the point-and-click superhero workplace comedy, but news of a platform-specific difference has overshadowed much of the excitement for fans hoping to play the episodic series on-the-go. Instead of celebrating the release, fans are launching campaigns against Dispatch’s censorship, returning their purchases, or refraining from playing it altogether.
Normally, Dispatch contains nudity and sexually explicit scenes involving its gang of ex-villains. AdHoc allows players to toggle sexual content like this off on most platforms. Curiously, however, the newly-released Switch version automatically depicts censored versions of these scenes. There’s no option to turn the setting off.
AdHoc confirmed the censorship to Eurogamer, but noted that the overall experience would still be the same for Switch players.
Mind you, Nintendo is cool with putting Doom and Duke Nukem on the Switch.
Havent you heard? Violence appropriate, sex and nudity not. Its totally okay to see people being dismembered, but you better never show a nipple.
Female nipple. Male nipples are a-ok. 🙄
Twitch also has that rule for streamers.
To be fair, there would be a loooot of nipples on Twitch otherwise. It’d be nipple sea.
Still stupid, though.
Back when bash.org was around: Person 1: Person 2 has so little game he could fall into a barrel of nipples and come out sucking his thumb. Person 2: The concept of a barrel of nipples confuses and frightens me.
I’ve heard “if it were raining titties, I’d open my mouth and catch a dick.”
That would be a sight worth seeing.
And? Who fucking cares?
Who fucking cares?
Credit card companies.
And their ad buyers, maybe.
Something about it giving teen boys a higher propensity for porn addiction, and maybe teen girls issues in relation to self-image and what they have to do for validation
Reminds me of the days before Bailey Jay transitioned and got in trouble for showing her breasts while waiting in line at Comicon and then protested “but I’m a boy.”
It was a meme when I transitioned to post top less pics until they got censored. This was back when free the nipple was a bigger force though
“line trap” was literally when I realized I was into trans women, lol
And encouraged, as featured in Nintendo’s own Super Mario Odyssey!
Odyssey Dem Mario Nips
Yep. In the words of George R. R. Martin
“You can write the most detailed, vivid description of an ax entering a skull, and nobody will say a word in protest. But if you write a similarly detailed description of a penis entering a vagina, you get letters from people saying they’ll never read you again. What the hell? Penises entering vaginas bring a lot more joy into the world than axes entering skulls.”
I recently published my novel, and at the last minute I had this panic about what was appropriate. There’s one bigoted character who calls gay people “f***ot” multiple times, as well as many characters that drop F-bombs on numerous occasions. There’s a (semi-magical) event similar to a mass shooting, many references to torture, and someone’s hand is chopped off. To be really safe, I put a content warning on the first page just to make some of that clear. Surely, that puts it a level beyond the Young Adult region, right? But…possibly not, given what I tend to hear offhand of some series.
Stephen King’s best (solo) book, IT, has probably over 200 N-bombs in it. It’s still his best book. Very much a product of its time (and an author who was so coked up he doesn’t remember writing a lot of it), but still his best book.
Your novel is Young Adult, or no? It’s not clear. I don’t know what the rules are for YA in America/Europe, but I’m reading the Sword Art Online series (rather, having anime lead Bryce Papenbrook read it to me, via the audiobooks) and SAO (which is LN which means Light Novel, which is Japan’s version of YA) has dismemberment. Arms being chopped off, people being chopped in half… the anime is known for its scenes of SA, but the first two weren’t SA in the books (the anime exaggerated what happened). The one in season 3 absolutely is an SA though. I haven’t gotten to the one in season 4 yet but I’ve heard it’s not. There’s also torture, but it’s not too serious. They’re playing video games, VR based. At one point the pain is amplified and a character is viciously attacked, so he feels it 10x more. In another case, people are trapped in a world that moves 1,000x slower than real life (so like a year in the game is like an hour in real life or something like that). The kind of stuff Black Mirror did (White Christmas, Black Museum, USS Callister). But not a lot of profanity. (Of course, I’m also reading it translated to English. I have no idea what Reki Kawahara actually wrote, because I would not be able to read the original Japanese text.)
I love the IT audiobook but you absolute cannot listen to it where somebody might hear it.
I listened 100% on my AirPods.
Wiener, wiener wiener, wiener wiener…
Nudity is fine
Weve got boobs and dicks even in children cartoons here
Those cartoons on Hentai Haven and Pornhub aren’t for kids.
Not really. Have violence without blood and they’ll rate it teen. Anything close to nudity instant mature rating. Same with searing. Can gun down hundreds if no blood but if they use naughty language while doing it mature /:
Yeah, also if we argue that violent videogames don’t cause violence - what’s the problem with sexual content? If they’re censoring sexual stuff because they believe videogames if corrupt and change behaviour, the violent ones should definitely be banned.
Also - I’m using Google’s Android keyboard and just realised the dictionary didn’t know the word ‘sexual’. Just in case someone might try to write something spicy. FFS. It knew ‘violent’ though.
The fact that they allow Resident Evil Village of all games on the Switch but don’t allow this animated nudity scene is insane to me. RE Village was one of the most graphic games I have ever seen.
edit: I Just realized Cyberpunk 2077 was released on it no censorship. How did dispatch get censored but that was allowed through lmao
Unconfirmed, but the rumor I’m hearing is that AdHoc submitted one universal binary for all regions, and it’s CERO who won’t allow this content in Japan. FWIW, the JP version of Cyberpunk is also censored, but it’s separate from the international release.
It’s also worth noting that the JP PS5 version just launched alongside it, separate from last year’s international version. Haven’t been able to find confirmation on whether that version is censored too, but if it is then it’s definitely CERO.
I think this is very likely the reason yea.
I’m also now finding out that they had to censor the coverart of the switch 2 edition a few weeks ago as well which I was unaware of. If it turns out they knew for awhile that it would be censored, and just chose not to tell anyone that is going to permanently damper my opinion of their studio. Like it’s one thing to be like “This was forced upon us last minute so we threw a solution together” it’s a whole different situation of knowing that it was going to happen, then refusing to tell the consumers about it since you knew it would lower sales.
Along with that, we asked for comment from AdHoc concerning the decision to censor Dispatch’s Deluxe Edition artwork on the Nintendo eShop as compared to the PC/PS5 release, and if that indicated any censorship in the game itself. We were told that “unfortunately, the studio cannot comment on the topic at this time.” Along with that, it was said that if AdHoc is able to discuss the matter down the road, their comment would be shared with us.
It sounds to me like they knew this change was going to be required at that point, but didn’t want to publicly announce that, which puts a pretty bad taste in my mouth about the intent of the studio.
Yeah, regardless of where it came from, the lack of disclosure reflects very poorly on AdHoc.
Neither was particularly sexually explicit IIRC.
I dunno, though. Maybe censorship was an “easier” ask since the setting was already there.
Cyberpunk also has a nudity setting in all versions.
Ah. Then I don’t know.
Maybe a bigger dev just has more leverage?
This is likely it.
There is also the rumor that this wasn’t a choice by Nintendo, but a choice of the dev’s so they didn’t have to have two separate editions to be able to sell in Japan(like they already do for the playstation edition). If that’s the case this makes it even worse IMO since it wasn’t like a last minute “BTW this is a thing” they had plenty of time to tell buyers that the product was altered
The later sounds very plausible.
Entirely unwise to buy anything non-Nintendo on the Nintendo Store as if the Switch’s entire purpose wasn’t to just get people to buy a $500 appliance to play a Nintendo game.
And brick your shit (without refunds) for the slightest hint you’re against Nintendo. Fuck Nintendo.
What is this referring to specifically? Have they been bricking consoles?
If they think you’re doing anything they don’t like, they can remote block you from Nintendo networks. Which I’m fine with, but it prevents you from being able to reset the device or play local games.
So anything you bought is now useless and unplayable, they got your money, so fuck you.
Even in the argument that you only bought a license to the game (not the game itself); why are they not required to refund the license they took from you? The deal is broken, give the money back.
Exactly. If they want to block their network, fine, but to not allow you to play physical games you bought, fuck that. I’ll never give Nintendo another dollar. I have a steam deck and hacked switch, fuck them. And I share all their rooms on soulseek, including switch roms.
At this point, after all nintendoing Nintendo did, people still give them money. And who is the crazy in this situation?
after all nintendoing Nintendo did,
Missed opportunity to use ‘Nintendone’
That was the nintendid resut.
Oh, I’m sure Nintendo will grant me plenty of possibilities to improve this joke until the excellence :)
And they’re punishing dispatch devs for their shit choice. They’re not returning the consoles or refusing to buy Nintendo, they’re returning the game that Nintendo censored.
Well, Nintendo gets a share for any game licenses sold through their store, so it does hurt them somewhat.
I just heard about this earlier today. My biggest issue is that this wasn’t something they made people aware of prior? It absolutely should have been disclosed prior to release. I hear good things about the game, i just know not to buy it on switch.
Mind you, Nintendo is cool with putting Doom and Duke Nukem on the Switch.
And literally owns Bayonetta 😂
The amount of waifu and furry porn games in the Switch store is higher than you’d think. Why censor Dispatch?
Taller trees catch more wind
This. It’s okay to be risque as long as the Disney/Apple crowd doesn’t catch wind of it.
As soon as they get on board, it’s all over and time to jump ship.
This is good. People are learning through experience to not buy any non-exclusive game through Nintendo.
When people learn to not buy anything whatsoever Nintendo, I will have a little more hope for humanity.
In fairness I have experienced the temptation to buy a Switch 2 simply for Mario Kart World. The game looks like a masterpiece that you can’t get anywhere else. The only limiting factor was Nintendo’s management of the game and how they force people to play intermissions. (And 500 dollars holy shit). But then Sonic Racing Crossworlds released and it was good enough for me.
That’s why in my original comment I said non-exclusive games because if we purely looked at the games, a lot of the exclusive games are bangers so I understand why people still buy from Nintendo.
Oh so there is sexual content in this? Well now I gotta get it. Uh… Just not on the Switch.
just nudity, a female character masturbating in a dream, and references to sex/fetishes/etc.
I watched Charlie play through the first episode, and within the first 5 or so minutes of the game there’s full-frontal with dick and balls. He had to censor his game of course, but you know it’s there.
I’m so fucking sick of censorship and the morons that perpetuate it.
If you don’t want to see something? Fine. That doesn’t mean you should get to hide it from everyone else, though.
