Censorship of the word "bloody?"

[Lookstothemoon]

So, in this game the word "bloody" used as an expletive is actually censored for some dumbass reason. It's written like this: "b___dy." Like, way to half-ass your censorship first of all, second of all why even do it it you're going to half-ass it? And why the hell is it even censored in the first place?? It is kind of disgusting, I know it's a little thing, but I have a nagging feeling that it is because of the abhorrent Orwellian Chinese censorship laws that are enforced in China for all sources of media... it's so bad that basically any ♥♥♥♥♥♥ expletive is censored, even if it is just the word "bloody." And this has been a problem for gamers because the lazy ass "AAA" and Indie devs won't get their sweet Chinese money if they don't bend over backward to censor the hell out of their Art... and they don't even bother to create two different versions of the game, the censored to hell Chinese version and the real version for the rest of the world... NO. They don't do that. Instead the entire world is basically subjected to Chinese law! Crazyass Chinese law at that... All because developers have gotten too ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ lazy and greedy to make two different versions of their games so that China doesn't have control over what is deemed "appropriate" for ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ adults ALL OVER THE WORLD.

Now, obviously I don't know if this is the case here. It could be for some completely different reason and etc. But... if it is the case, shame on you guys for sharing your part in a huge problem with global media distribution.

Do NOT let Orwellian Chinese law affect my gaming experience here in the Western world. And I really want to stress I am not being xenophobic here, I have no problem with Chinese or Asian people or any race whatsoever, I have a problem (or three) with the Chinese Government.

[grapplehoeker]

Despite your alleged denial of sinophobia, the bulk of your rant is motivated by some bizarre notion that the games industry is trying to keep their games palatable for the Chinese government.

I would remind you that developers/publishers have to consider the propriety of language used within their games with respect to minors. They have to keep the language used to be ethically acceptable in order to reach a wider playerbase without getting slapped with an adult only certification.
Just think about the language you have used in your rant. None of your expletives would be appropriate decent language that you would allow any child to read.

As for "bloody", it is a common and by now quite mild British expletive. However, I recall a particular tv sitcom from the 1970's that gained a huge amount of disapproval for the main protagonist's constant use of the word 'bl**dy' - Alf Garnett, Till Death Us Do Part. The American version of Till Death Do Us Part, All in the Family, featured Archie Bunker as Garnett.
Still, this show more than any other opened the door for more mild British slang to enter the general acceptable language.
Amusing for adults, but still not acceptable for minors.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0-leRNxhmg
Watching that was a fun bit of nostalgia and it struck me how much the OP shares in common with Alf Garnett, particularly in terms of your shared global opinons ;)

As for "f*ck", I also recall the notable sacking of popular tv presenter Bill Grundy for allowing the Sex Pistols on live tv in 1976, which naturally led to expletives on live tv.
https://www.loudersound.com/features/in-december-1976-the-sex-pistols-appeared-on-the-bill-grundy-show
and Jools Holland's suspension for using the expletive in a trailer for The Tube in the early '80's.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jools_Holland

I reference these examples because I am British and we are discussing the English language, particularly when used in a game set in a British environment such as Sunless Skies, which by the way, is not only played by adults.

Times change and what is acceptable language changes too. However, all forms of media including games are forced by what is generally considered to be acceptable for viewing by minors. So, it is western society that dictates that and not some odd attempt to win the favour of the Chinese government o.O

[Bobert]

Originally posted by Big Boss Nass:

So, in this game the word "bloody" used as an expletive is actually censored for some dumbass reason. It's written like this: "b___dy." Like, way to half-♥♥♥ your censorship first of all, second of all why even do it it you're going to half-♥♥♥ it? And why the hell is it even censored in the first place?? It is kind of disgusting, I know it's a little thing, but I have a nagging feeling that it is because of the abhorrent Orwellian Chinese censorship laws that are enforced in China for all sources of media... it's so bad that basically any ♥♥♥♥in expletive is censored, even if it is just the word "bloody." And this has been a problem for gamers because the lazy ♥♥♥ "AAA" and Indie devs won't get their sweet Chinese money if they don't bend over backward to censor the hell out of their Art... and they don't even bother to create two different versions of the game, the censored to hell Chinese version and the real version for the rest of the world... NO. They don't do that. Instead the entire world is basically subjected to Chinese law! Crazyass Chinese law at that... All because developers have gotten too ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ lazy and greedy to make two different versions of their games so that China doesn't have control over what is deemed "appropriate" for ♥♥♥♥ing adults ALL OVER THE WORLD.

Now, obviously I don't know if this is the case here. It could be for some completely different reason and etc. But... if it is the case, shame on you guys for sharing your part in a huge problem with global media distribution.

Do NOT let Orwellian Chinese law affect my gaming experience here in the Western world. And I really want to stress I am not being xenophobic here, I have no problem with Chinese or Asian people or any race whatsoever, I have a problem (or three) with the Chinese Government.

What the hell are you going off about?

This is a game based off of London and how it got all picked up by bats and moved underground where there is no lights and why it's called the sunless sea because there is no sun underground except two areas. Once being up and one being an island that you can go to.

Why are you ranting off about the Chinese Gov when this game is based off London which is going to have the British use of cussing or there version. Bloody is a common word to say when they are pissed off or it's something that they disapprove of.

Not only that but why are you purely going off on the Chinese Government? I'm not affected by this and yes while they do have a lot of censorship it doesn't really matter and it doesn't really affect us at all. "We gamer's" could be only you at the moment since I don't feel this way and it shows that this game is British or themed in a British way.

I had this game before there was any other languages and they already made another game called sunless skies so it proves that there not lazy but yet you have a grudge with the Chinese Government for some reason.

They picked it and made it that way and yes what can be said and can't be said changes in later on in time and in life. But in order to make sure this game doesn't get bumped to rated M or even a rated A game they didn't implant those cuss words because of that and it could ruin the game if they said "f*uck, or s*ht" every other sentence.

~Bobert

[Lцсᶖаᶇ º¹]

Either this is some kind of troll or you're just really paranoid about the CCP, to the degree of insanity. The truth is cuss filters are fairly common in games and cussing in general was censored in the western media long before anybody cared about the chinese market. Like have you ever turned a television on and noticed swearing isn't allowed on free broadcast for most of the day? CBS even censors it on The Late Show.

[Skinny Pete]

Originally posted by Big Boss Nass:

Do NOT let Orwellian Chinese law affect my gaming experience here in the Western world. And I really want to stress I am not being xenophobic here, I have no problem with Chinese or Asian people or any race whatsoever, I have a problem (or three) with the Chinese Government.

This is an absolutely silly rant. It is because it was considered offensive in a certain period of British English and the game is largely based on that period of literature, so it's just a quaint archaism.

[Soandso]

Lore snippet from Fallen London

A thing about naughty words

Before the Fall, gentlemen did not usually say 'damned'. The word is in more common use now. Given the proximity of Hell, it seems coy to treat the word with such caution.
(Standards are slipping, d--n it.)

And I guess the same applies to bloody, it's the same in all 3 games

[Wlerin]

As said by Skinny Pete and Soandso, Fallen London does the same thing with censoring various words. The OP as well as all the other people trying to defend it are completely missing the point: The censorship is in-universe, because the Brits in the Victorian Era were notorious prudes. Even moreso than the dreaded Chinese.

[grapplehoeker]

Originally posted by Wlerin:

As said by Skinny Pete and Soandso, Fallen London does the same thing with censoring various words. The OP as well as all the other people trying to defend it are completely missing the point: The censorship is in-universe, because the Brits in the Victorian Era were notorious prudes. Even moreso than the dreaded Chinese.

What a load of Charlie Hollocks.
Nobody is defending anything. We are all calling the OP out for their premise that any censorship is due to some odd obligation to the Chinese government. That is absurd and so is the idea that the Chinese ought to be dreaded.
Whether it is industry political correctness or in-universe censorship is neither here nor there.
The point is that it most certainly isn't due to the bloody Chinese government o.O
Oh and by the way, what you call prudish is subjective to modern day standards of decorum, and would only have been applicable to the upper classes. Having said that, even the gutter snipes would have had better manners while still using colourful language.

[Lцсᶖаᶇ º¹]

Originally posted by Wlerin:

As said by Skinny Pete and Soandso, Fallen London does the same thing with censoring various words. The OP as well as all the other people trying to defend it are completely missing the point: The censorship is in-universe, because the Brits in the Victorian Era were notorious prudes. Even moreso than the dreaded Chinese.

My point is more so that the OP must be either a drunk/troll/nutter to attribute such a mainstay american trend to a random foreign goverment that has nothing to do with this game. The most funny thing about it is how he triggered this forum's cuss filter multiple times in the process, but I suppose Valve must be part of the Chinese Illuminati as well. Wake up sheeple!

[Lookstothemoon]

While I understand that my rant was filled with hypedbole and an obvious sinophobic slant to it (even though I deny any personaly dislike for the Chinese people, just their ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up government, I mean I hate Trump and his government too, does that make me "Americophobic?"), the point remains that this is Art and Art should never be pressured to be censored for the purposes of ridiculous monetary gains, but they are still businesses and have to make money to survive. So they compromise, but here I think they are crossing a line. These are very benign words like "damn" and "bloody." Hell, in League Of Legends you cant even say the name of the Chinese president in chat. Blizzard has been caught red handed making their games much more "G" rated for making sure the Chinese government are okay with it. Im not going to list sources, you can look it up yourself. Despite your denials that video game developers are not influenced by the prude Chinese government and their restrictions on "explicit" media, companys ARE being influenced by it because they really want their game in that gargantuan Chinese economy. And putting that all aside, it's still ridiculous to censor such benign words.

[Sneaky_Koala]

Oh the irony.

You do realise the US is one of the most backward places on the planet when it comes to this stuff? Where you can go and kill people in illegal wars at 18 but can't even drink until 21? Where the day time tv shows will blur out a nipple but allow killing? Where everything on day time tv is beeped no matter how trivial? If anything it was done because of the US markets rating system.

Your obsession that this is China related boarders on the insane. How many swear words do you know in a foreign language? I know one - shizen houzen(sp) from German and I don't even know if that's right. Seriously stop believing all the rubbish you hear on the so called news that leads you to believe there is a boogy man around every corner - one day it's Russia, one day it's China, One day it's Iraq, then Iran - oh and lets throw Afghanistan in there for good measure while we guard their poppy fields and increase production 10 fold. "We were always at war with Eurasia" comes to mind in terms of brainwashing.

[Skinny Pete]

Originally posted by Big Boss Nass:

While I understand that my rant was filled with hypedbole and an obvious sinophobic slant to it (even though I deny any personaly dislike for the Chinese people, just their ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up government, I mean I hate Trump and his government too, does that make me "Americophobic?"), the point remains that this is Art and Art should never be pressured to be censored for the purposes of ridiculous monetary gains, but they are still businesses and have to make money to survive.

This argument is even more moronic the second time you bring it up. It's a stylistic choice because of the literature it's based on, in which censoring things like "bloody" or even less offensive minced oaths like "zounds" was common. You are making a fool of yourself. Again.

[Wlerin]

Originally posted by Big Boss Nass:

it's still ridiculous to censor such benign words.

Welcome to Victorian Era London.

[Brecor]

Sorry to dig up an old post but this query has not been answered, albeit it's possibly one of the oddest posts I've read here and it's clearly more to do with China than Sunless Sea.

The reason the developers chose to censor words is not because of the ridiculous 'that's how it was in Victorian England' reason or the maniacal rantings on the Chinese government(although the irony of an American posting this shouldn't be lost on anyone nor the utter misinterpretation and misunderstanding of George Orwell). It is because of the censorship laws of the Australian government...somehow though I think the original poster won't get too upset of a fellow Anglo country dictating this censorship action. Less Fox News rants, more gaming please.

[Uxor Secundus Lillith]

Originally posted by Brecor:

It is because of the censorship laws of the Australian government

...Source?

I know that Australia has some odd censorship moments (Requiring L4D2 to be edited because the zombies "...were not dead, but were persons suffering from a virus", refusing classification of Hotline Miami 2 due to a rape scene that turned out to be a movie in-universe) but for something so tame as swearing? For a country that prides itself on being able to use "c__t" as both a term of endearment and as an insult, whose cricket team has a story where the punchline is "Alright, which one of you bastards called this bastard a bastard?" AND had an infamous car ad involving multiple utterances of "bugger" with no restrictions on when it was aired?

If anything, Failbetter do it that way because it's a low effort way to establish their period and the (sometimes hypocritical) habits of it's residents[community.failbettergames.com]

(For the record, I'm an Australian and I balk at typing out "c__t" online. If it's part of a quote, I'll type it out, but not in my own person.)

[eternalexhilaration]

Originally posted by Brecor:

Sorry to dig up an old post but this query has not been answered, albeit it's possibly one of the oddest posts I've read here and it's clearly more to do with China than Sunless Sea.

The reason the developers chose to censor words is not because of the ridiculous 'that's how it was in Victorian England' reason or the maniacal rantings on the Chinese government(although the irony of an American posting this shouldn't be lost on anyone nor the utter misinterpretation and misunderstanding of George Orwell). It is because of the censorship laws of the Australian government...somehow though I think the original poster won't get too upset of a fellow Anglo country dictating this censorship action. Less Fox News rants, more gaming please.

Please provide source.