Clownski_: I'd like to make some things clear regarding the ongoing discussion in this thread.
First of all let me point out the fact that there's no ESRB rating for the PC release of the game in question. Legal-wise, it's not as easy to say the rating is 17+ on PC just because it was 17+ on PSV.
I wonder why ratings should even matter to you as company. They are a
guideline for costumers. I would also hold that artists, creators and game developers shouldn't hold back but realize their true vision of a game, even though this means that some people out there will be offended. What happens instead is self-censorship only so shops accept the game and some money can be made ... That even this is no guarantee to receive a favorable rating - for instance T vs. M, goes without saying.
Story time: In early 2000 the game Giants: Citizen Kabuto was about to be released. Since the company wanted a rating that gets their game into Wal-Mart, and in order to receive a T-rating, they decided to censor and hide nipples (you know, the worst of the worst thing adults can ever look at in good old US of A.) and blood (even though violence is totally okay and tons of blood are accepted) they colored it green. The game still received an M-rating and so was more or less
hidden as far as Wal-Mart was concerned. At the same time Marshall's new album was released. Huge posters, misogyny, homophobia ... all-inclusive in his lyrics and a big, fat M-Rating as advertisement for his CDs and merch.
You see how ratings have never really done what they were supposed to: Act as guide for parents and whatever they decide is the law? How there were always double standards and a very convenient way by law no less to censor and forbid what's deemed by some as not appropriate? Vioelence is totally okay, female and male body parts are not, and whose going to decide?
Back to 2022 and living in the only country where laws to protect children, ratings, never had an influence on what one could legally buy in a shop. No hiding, no censorship, even the most hardcore videogames and movies, they could be purchased in any retail store. [i]I don't say that its been necessarily a good idea to find porn dvd's next to children movies, but in the end it was a parents task and the clerks not to sell any of it under the appropriate age. In a mature society this works.
Why do I relate this here? Because if it was about laws, you - as company, could as well sell even more hardcore VN (the source of most contention around in these parts) and we are talking about characters looking like 0-8 yrs. Why this isn't possible is because in most European countries this is deemed illegal and your company would be out of business and you'd be standing before a court of law facing some serious prison time.
Anyone who doesn't realize in what situation you are in, different laws for different countries, what's legal and appropriate for one is illegal in another and can't be made accessible, the constant battle between customers (which you should not care about as much at all) along the ages old lines of sex is bad, violence is not, leaves you with finding the most effective and least harmful way to hide certain content. In that sense the warning page is a rather good compromise.
Instead of hiding content, with a click it's still becoming visible, no matter the real age of the person on the other side of the screen in some other part of this world, why not implement an effective solution benefitting all customers? What I am thinking about as solution is this:
Provide a content list in our profiles allowing to select which content they don't wish to be displayed browsing the shop.
Do the same for E-Mail ads.
The list can be as simple as: sexual-content, action, violence or countries' ratings for certain games.
Once set it should be password protected and unlockable and changeable only with 2-way-authentication. Doing it like this would serve a double purpose: One, if it is all about protecting children, the ball will be in the parents' court. They have to set the settings, and if they aren't set, you can be sure that it's adults, who - by no law in the world, can be kept from consuming and buying whatever they wish to. Two, if it is for 'concerned people' (spelling: pressure groups living under the impression that demanding the world to be their way, and what they don't like got to be censored, removed cancelled) would have to shut up for good. Have them have their option to hide and censor what they don't like and that's the end of it.
TLDR: Implementing a system along the lines suggested above should allow you to sell games freely to any customers all around the globe, without being forced to hide content, offer patches seperately, send out e-mails with ads for games which in certain countries can't be bought and store pages not being accessible accordingly. As long as the games you do add are deemed legal by your countries' laws or the EUs, the worst that can happen is that the usual suspects will keep complaining - and they can be ignored, because they aren't who put money in your pockets in the first place. All because children are then 'protected' and adults are allowed to consume whatever anyways. Think about it.
