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Angelus on 06 September 2020
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Dulfite said:
VAMatt said:

If there were anywhere close to 3mm sales on the line, devs would be doing this.  The fact that they aren't offering these options is pretty strong evidence that there aren't anywhere near that many sales to gain by doing so.   Many of these companies (especially publishers) are mega-businesses that spend tons of money determining what the market wants.  They certainly know a lot more accurately than we do whether or not the ability to remove graphic content from games is likely to bring in enough sales to makeup for the cost of creating such options.  

But companies can be wrong. They could be assuming it incorrectly. Or maybe they don't want to tick off their devs for ruining the "art" of their work, as many other forms of artists get mad about censorship. There could be a number of excuses as to why they don't do it, but case studies should be the only thing deciding it. Why not just build that censorship option into it, ship it, and see how it sells on one game? If sales increase, great! If they don't, then they can either not do it in the future or continue to do it knowing fans like options of how they engage media and every company wants good PR. I don't see the downside to companies expanding the accessibility of their products to a market with a wide range of views.

You can always be chasing some extra small percentage of the population that might buy your game if you do X. Maybe they'll buy my game if I bleep out the bad words. Maybe they'll buy my game if I turn off blood. Maybe they'll buy my game if I hide all the nipples. Maybe they'll buy my game if the guns are all water pistols, instead of real guns. Maybe they'll buy my game if I have a filter that makes all the people of color white, or vice versa. Maybe they'll buy my game if I include an option to switch around the pronouns everyone uses when addressing various characters.....and on and on it goes.

Or they can just make their game, the way they wanna make it, that they're happy with, and live with the consequences if somebody decides that this isn't for them.