Western censorship pressure on Japanese game developers is “insane” says Elon Musk

Elon Musk has raised his voice about the recent pressure of Western global compliance on Japanese game developers. His tweet says, “This is insane,” while sharing his concerns about the frustrated Japanese developers who have been forced to compromise their creative freedom. 

This is insane https://t.co/cMQ1ZNLoOF

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 30, 2024

In an interview on Token Game Show 2024, Japanese developers express their frustration over UN-driven agendas. According to them being forced to comply with certain pressures which has threatened their creative freedom.

Japanese Developers face compliance issues

One of their issues was the limitation in showing too much of skin of the game characters. As too much skin causes age restrictions which limits their audience and sales.

Secondly, the former editor-in-chief of Weekly Shonen Jump, Kazuhiko Torishima refers to this approach as narrow-mindedness, which lets down their creativity. He further says that doing business with such countries is frustrating.

Several changes in character customization in Japanese games, such as Dragon Quest and Baldur Gate 3, have ignited these concerns. In Dragon Quest the characters options have been obscurely labeled as “Type 1” and “Type 2” which was initially a choice between “male” or “female” characters. Similary, there is no mention of gender in Baldur Gate 2, only the body type 1 or 2.

According to the developers, these changes have taken away the identity of a large population to satisfy the concerns of the minority.