Once again the immaturity of the games industry (and the world at large, really) has reared its ugly head: a PlayStation Network user has been banned for sharing an image of a lady's genitalia in Watch Dogs 2. That ban has since made headlines around the web, and shadily has been extended from a week to a month – though it's unclear if all of the publicity is the cause.
But first the full story: Ubisoft's latest open world features both male and female nudists who you can encounter by just wandering around San Francisco. It's no big deal, really: the title carries an 18 age rating, signifying that it's inappropriate for youngsters, and, let's be honest, in a release where you literally murder people in the thousands, it's hardly the most offensive material on the disc.
Of course, sharing that nudity from the console itself introduces some questions; anyone with a PlayStation Network account may be end up seeing the shots of the polygonal unspeakables, which is how the aforementioned user accrued his ban. Sony says that "content of a sexual nature" is against its code of conduct. Fair enough, but it's literally in the game.
And now the ban has been extended, without any real reasons or explanation given. This is a tricky one because obviously the platform holder has a duty to keep its console clean – but why is it okay allowing the sharing of gory headshots and not someone's ga—are there any nice slang words for the female front end? We just asked Google and apparently not…
Anyway, the point is that this probably should have ended with the one week ban, but now it's blown up into a big story, we wouldn't be surprised if the nudity got patched out. And that's a shame, because we'll come right back to where we started: it illustrates yet again just how immature that this medium we all love really is.
As for the ban extension… Well, we'll wait to hear Sony's explanation on that, but we damn well hope it's got a good one, because we don't think that posting about the incident on NeoGAF is against the company's terms of service. We'll try and reach out for comment, but in the meantime, we recommend not pushing the Share button when there's a willy on screen.
Update: Sony has lifted the user's ban.
[source neogaf.com]
Comments 26
Grab them by the kitty would be a better line Joking (please dont be offended)
Not offended but we do get minors visiting -Tasuki-
Wow this is a tough one. Like you said @get2sammyb it's in game so obviously the ESRB approved of it but guess it's the fact that they can restrict minors from buying it but since they can't restrict photos on PSN to age limits that's where the problem is. Thing is though if someone wanted too they could just look up a porn site using the browser and see much worse.
Do they not have a "NSFW/Explicit" tag available for screenshots? If not, they should probably add that feature pronto..
@Kellanved The thing is... Surely shooting people in the face in Battlefield 1 is just as bad as a bit of nudity?
Pretty sure I saw people sharing dongles from The Order 1886 without any bans. Go figure
Pink taco, snatch, vertical smile. Need I say more?
@DrClayman Yeah, I was thinking about that earlier. Not sure why this story has blown up — it's not the first PS4 game to have nudity.
@get2sammyb
1. Market the heck out of a game.
2. Market the heck out of the share button.
3. Ban people for making use of the share button in the game.
4. Profit.
Something about that sequence of events ain't right.
How boring, nudity? It's a cartoon. Now let me slice em up real nice.
@get2sammyb
You're forgetting about the male gaze. They'll keep penises in but to please the stupid ass SJWs and their white knight morons they're editing out the female stuff. Frankly, it's not a big deal in the sense that it doesn't effect the game but it brings me to a more important point. If you're just going to cave to these sensitive pansies, many of who are probably the same imbeciles causing trouble in the streets of the US right now because their precious criminal couldn't beat a bigot for the White House, then why bother putting the freaking nudity in the game to begin with when it just brings attention the game industry doesn't need? Surely, the people who have a problem with nudity have a problem with other stuff and it continues to make games an easy scapegoat for poor parenting when a kid grows up and does something dumb. So instead of pixelated nipples, I propose that maybe these studios spend however little time and resources it takes doing this crap and put it all into more important things like, I don't know, making sure the multiplayer works on day one for the people who are buying the game for that reason? If you're going to be cowardly idiots and back out of your original vision, don't put anything controversial in there to begin with.
The ban already lifted, good for him. Too bad now it's watchdog 2 that's censored
@wiiware
It was freaking ridiculous he got banned which is what caused this sh*tstorm. I'm getting real sick of Sony and its bs lately as well. Can't crush them too much for this though when Nintendo is even more notorious for censorship and MS would probably have reacted the same way to this rather than just give a warning.
Hamlet asks during a play if he may rest his head on Ophelia's lap, calling it her "heavens" ...Weird thing to include in a game, tho. Like, what's the point? Shock value? I honestly can't think of another reason
Noo-noo. That's what my mum always called the wonderous vagina... take note, Sammy.
They'll be banning female gamers next just because they have a vagina.
Does Tasuki work for Sony? (I jest)
Well, the good news is the ban was lifted, but f**king Sony caused a problem that didn't need to happen to begin with because it doesn't have the proper tools in place.
Um, so which part of the city are the nudists to be found? Just a bit of pre-patch curiosity, you know....
Sony have the power to make the Share button not work for 18 rated games if they so wish. Since they didn't do that they have no standing whatsoever to ban this guy. They would have known it had nudity and didn't make any attempt to make Ubi censor it, or make the Share button not work in those instances.
The idea that this player has done something wrong is absurd, and the idea that this picture is more offensive than one of someone getting blasted apart is even worse. Pure idiocy all around from Sony on this one.
Gamers under 18 shouldn't be able to see this anyway unless the parental settings are wrong, or don't apply to shared screenshots, which would be entirely the fault of the parents or Sony respectively, not this poor gamer who simply shared something mildly amusing and surprising they found in a game. Hopefully the news attention will force them to repeal the ban, give them some free PS+ or something, and rethink their priorities in future.
That ban was ridiculous. Surely they could've just removed the image and perhaps given a friendly warning to the player?
sort of off-topic, but is there anyone kind enough to tell me if HDMI 2.0 port is a must have on 4K TV or 1.4 port with 2.0 cable will do? And by "do" I mean running all these great games in their full potential on my new family member, the almighty ps4 pro..
@fisher that's quite a long way off topic. Anyhow, HDMI1.4 does not support 4k at 60FPS with the full colour range possible. Given the ps4pro supports HDR I'm going to assume that this requires HDMI2.0, but I haven't fact-checked (hell we're in a post-truth world now, what would be the point). I'd make sure to have at least one HDMI2.0 input on any new TV you buy
@licenced thanks buddy - still, there aren't games running at 60fps in 4k right? I somehow got the assumption it's either this or that
They were right to ban him and should not have backed down. This sends the wrong message he knew what he was doing and was trying to be a smart ass.
media censorship in many countries has had much more of a problem with sexual related content than extreme violence or gore, particularly in the english speaking world. for decades the BBFC refused to allow erect penises and close-ups of female genitalia in movies, and even now it's still quite restricted. brain splattering off a wall, not so much.
i haven't followed the story, so i don't know the details, but i'd be inclined to somewhat approve of the ban based on immaturity alone. i don't know where the offending image was shared, but if it was on PSN, it is against the T&C. on a somewhat related note, can communities be given age restrictions, or parental access levels?. if communities could could be restricted that way, then ones relating to watch dogs would have the highest level, and it would be up to parents to ensure that the age restrictions are in place for their kids' console accounts.
I can't imagine how seeing the insides of a person is more tame than seeing the outside. But I digress, there will still be irresponsible parent who buy their children 17+ games then complain about what video games do to children.
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