Today, we received a furious email from an incensed Animal Crossing fan, absolutely horrified by the fact that a new update to the game has censored "bad" words. For Christina and her friend, there was no greater joy than making Animal Crossing characters say depraved and nasty things. Unfortunately, their innocent fun has been stamped out by those Nazis at Nintendo. Won't somebody think of the children?
Here's what Christina had to say:
Animal crossing santized EVEN MORE
My roommate and I are animal crossing addicts!
We are adults, and as such take delight in making our little innocent animals say nasty things. At this point most of the animals in our town had the catch phrase "sex fiend.".. up until last night's system update. Now everyone who had a catch phrase containing a "bad" word has had their phrase switched to "!!!!!!!!!!!!" That's right, now everyone in town is spewing exclamation points at us.
I love nintendo to bits but this is just wrong. We are ADULTS who purchased a game to play in our own home.
Unbelievable. Nintendo simply didn't think about those poor animals who have now been silenced by the fascists in control. We all of us have a right to force anthropomorphized animals to call us sex fiends, and to deny us that is to violate everything we fought Hitler and Ganondorf for.
Destructoid asks: Where does it end? Will we soon be banned from calling ourselves "POO" and "ASS" on arcade machines? Will we be thrown in the stocks for drawing comedy penises and mustaches between the legs of women in magazines? Will the so-called President Obama bring back hanging for people who make fart noises when someone bends over to pick something up?
Nintendo has set a terrifying new precedent with this insane abuse of power. We have only fear for the future of free speech.
Jim Sterling serves as reviews editor for Destructoid.com, head of the Podtoid podcast, and produces a number of news stories, original features, one-of-a-kind videos. With his passionate argumentative style, controversial opinions, harsh delivery, and dedication to brutal honesty Sterling is a name that you can't help but recognize.
Likes
PS2, iPod Touch, Silent Hill 2, Metal Gear Solid, Dynasty Warriors 3
Meet the rest of the team
| BBcode help |
| [b]Bold text[/b] |
Bold text |
| [i]Italic text[/i] |
Italic text |
| [url]http://www.dtoid.com/[/url] |
http://www.dtoid.com |
| [url=http://www.dtoid.com/]Web link[/url] |
Web link |
|
| [img]http://www.example.com/robot.jpg[/img] |
 |
Post a comment! You can also post a photo below:
Comment with Facebook
Click connect and comment instantly!
|
Comment with Dtoid
New? SIGN UP - it takes 5 seconds
|
46 comments | showing # 1 to 46
|
Comment with Facebook
Click connect and comment instantly!
|
Comment with Dtoid
New? SIGN UP - it takes 5 seconds
|
Comments policy
Destructoid is an open discussion community. You don't need to "audition" to post a comment - just speak your mind. We respect differing opinions on the site, so have at it. Be smart, funny, insightful, clueless, or cute -- but back it up with substance. Keep your cool, keep it fun. We only ask that you act respectfully and above all: don't be a troll and ruin it for everyone else. Don't bring down gamers or we'll, you know, gently shoot you in the face and stuff you into a flaming mailbox. Each comment is your opportuntity to make this community awesomer. Is that even a word?
Avoiding the banhammer only requires common sense: spamming, trolling, racism, NSFW stuff, and other forms of sucking will not be tolerated. If anyone is griefing please report abuse. Be good. Don't suck!
Contest:
9:00 PM on 03.26.2009
| 
Crisis averted!
While I agree with that statement, and dont like to see censorship of any kind...I do kinda agree with Nintendo here ONLY BECAUSE this is an E rated game. Although they may be adults playing a kids game, it is still a kids game, and probably should have tools in place to keep it an "E" rated experience.
Now try that censor bullshit with anything greater than that, and I wouldnt be happy...
Nintendo's strategy is to please this rediculous(spell check that word) market of lazy parents, and its been working for them pretty good right now.
Also, Chronic Logic doesn't know !!!!!!! about Animal Crossing.
About this "story"(and I do use the term loosely),fuck Christina and her stupid ass friend.If she wants to be immature and feel cool by purposly cursing in a video game,it sounds like Halo 3 is more her style.What kind of moron bitches about a Nintendo game being too sterile?Of course its clean you stupid ass,its fucking Nintendo.Try being retarded on a more mature console,dumbass.
Well, I somewhat would hope the original email is itself a little tongue-in-cheek. That said, while I personally disagree with censorship, I don't disagree with a company choosing to restrict certain words on its product, if that's what they so choose. It's obvious that Animal Crossing is targeted at kids and Nintendo wants to make sure they don't see things like "sex fiend." I don't think Nintendo crossed a line here, at all.
Sex Fiend!!!
(and yes, the email was tongue-in-cheek)
But Nintendo has no limits, to protect your virginity and innocence. This is just the beginning, gentlemen...
On a serious side: Censorship is always something that pisses everyone off, but remember the target this game is designed for, even if adults enjoy it. Plus Nintendo wants to make sure the parents of said market can feel safe playing (and buying) their games, they get a lot already from people that blames games for everything that is wrong with the world.
Not so long ago this man said only pedophiles (adults) loved animal crossing!
It's Nintendo's game, I mean yeah it sucks you can't use swear words but the game is rated E. They can justify it by saying they are trying to maintain the rating that the ESRB gave them.
Much respect for Jim for posting the article and defending Nintendo's position.
Language is fun because you can say horrible things without resorting to certain wholly impolite words, at least until Nintendo introduces "Wii Newspeak."
It's the adults who plays games in little children's homes, after they've tied them to a chair and showed them their winkie...they're the ones who need censoring.
Why can't Nintendo just tell the difference??
Now I just make everyone say "Desu".
Chancellor and V.
Sure, go ahead and censor Animal Crossing. But make it an option. Something innocent like "Prevent animals from using distasteful language" or something like that. Turn it on by default. That way, our perverted friends like Christina and her roommate can do whatever they like, the parents don't have to worry, and some of us wouldn't be ratting on Nintendo for violating our first amendment rights.
On the other hand, having an option like that will give people ideas. ("Ooh, wow! They put that option there? Gee, I wonder what I could make them say if I turned it off? Gosh, I never would have thought of that!")
Yeah? I used to think naming my Animal Crossing characters things like PenisHead was hilarious too, but that was before I graduated from middle school.
Grow up.
So, really, they should have kept this in, because then any kids with foul mouthed animals MUST have been talking to an actual paedo!
And as I said earlier, censorship of an e rated game is perfectly appropriate. It's when Nintendo forces changes upon their game AFTER I purchased and played it for months that I get irked. And not only that, doesn't give the owner the option of downloading the patch or even bother to tell us of said patch before they upload it. And I'd feel the same way if the patch changed the color of the flowers or added or removed characters. It's the principle of the thing, not just my penchant for bad words.
I am NOT anti-Nintendo. In fact I love them...sex fiend. I simply feel they overstepped their bounds.
^^^Fixed.
I think this is for the greater good. I guess we just have to be more creative and use words like "jimmer-jammer" when trying to get sexy on line.
Having a word filter effect online play like when you're visiting other people's towns is fine and dandy, I suppose, but this makes it sound like it's for everything including offline play, and that's just disappointing. For the two whole days I could stand to play animal crossing ds before throwing the cart under a bus, I certainly made my neighbors say swear words.