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Forums - Gaming - Google bans Doki Doki Literature Club from their store due to "sensitive themes"

Norion said:

What is with this repeated point about companies having the right to do it? Not a single person in this thread has said that Google should be legally forced to host it so it's completely irrelevant. Companies can do what their prefer but it'd better if big ones like Google were less restrictive in terms of what is allowed on their store fronts cause it'd improve freedom of expression and in general be helpful towards risqué and unconventional art. There's also that this happening is absurd considering what other sort of things are on the Play Store.

Why?  How?  How does playing as an underage female making decisions that directly lead to exploring her sexuality make things better?  Specifically, what makes the world better if google sells tbis game?  What is the world  missing out on with this game?  Please be specific.

And leave that slippery slope crap at the door, the GoP uses that "logic" to turn down every sensible gun law and it is infuriating.  

Last edited by Chrkeller - on 13 April 2026

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Chrkeller said:
Norion said:

What is with this repeated point about companies having the right to do it? Not a single person in this thread has said that Google should be legally forced to host it so it's completely irrelevant. Companies can do what their prefer but it'd better if big ones like Google were less restrictive in terms of what is allowed on their store fronts cause it'd improve freedom of expression and in general be helpful towards risqué and unconventional art. There's also that this happening is absurd considering what other sort of things are on the Play Store.

Why?  How?  How does playing as an underage female making decisions that directly lead to exploring her sexuality make things better?  Specifically, what makes the world better if google sells tbis game?  What is the world  missing out on with this game?  Please be specific.

And leave that slippery slope crap at the door, the GoP uses that "logic" to turn down every sensible gun law and it is infuriating.  

What are you talking about? All the characters in DDLC are adults. It's a highly regarded game cause of its writing, handling of subject matter like depression and its horror aspects but you're acting like it's some scandalous thing for whatever reason. It's one of the most impactful artful experiences I and a lot of other people have ever had with a video game.

Calling it slippery slope crap doesn't mean anything unless you can explain how the logic in this specific case is wrong. Slippery slope arguments are completely valid in certain situations. DDLC getting banned from a major store front literally shows that this is one of them. When it was just pornographic games getting impacted loads of people dismissed any concerns people had cause of it being smut but it spread and now one of the most popular and beloved visual novels of all time is getting impacted. In general freedom of expression and censorship is an area where the slippery slope argument fits perfectly.

Last edited by Norion - on 14 April 2026

Norion said:
Chrkeller said:

Why?  How?  How does playing as an underage female making decisions that directly lead to exploring her sexuality make things better?  Specifically, what makes the world better if google sells tbis game?  What is the world  missing out on with this game?  Please be specific.

And leave that slippery slope crap at the door, the GoP uses that "logic" to turn down every sensible gun law and it is infuriating.  

What are you talking about? All the characters in DDLC are adults. It's a highly regarded game cause of its writing, handling of subject matter like depression and its horror aspects but you're acting like it's some scandalous thing for whatever reason. It's one of the most impactful artful experiences I and a lot of other people have ever had with a video game.

Calling it slippery slope crap doesn't mean anything unless you can explain how the logic in this specific case is wrong. Slippery slope arguments are completely valid in certain situations. DDLC getting banned from a major store front literally shows that this is one of them. When it was just pornographic games getting impacted loads of people dismissed any concerns people had cause of it being smut but it spread and now one of the most popular and beloved visual novels of all time is getting impacted. In general freedom of expression and censorship is an area where the slippery slope argument fits perfectly.

It takes place in a high school.  At least here in the states most high schoolers are under age. Like 75%+ of high schoolers are under age.  I would suspect the issue is the highschool part, not the content.

And slippery slope is nonsense and a weak argument.

Last edited by Chrkeller - on 14 April 2026

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Chrkeller said:
Norion said:

What are you talking about? All the characters in DDLC are adults. It's a highly regarded game cause of its writing, handling of subject matter like depression and its horror aspects but you're acting like it's some scandalous thing for whatever reason. It's one of the most impactful artful experiences I and a lot of other people have ever had with a video game.

Calling it slippery slope crap doesn't mean anything unless you can explain how the logic in this specific case is wrong. Slippery slope arguments are completely valid in certain situations. DDLC getting banned from a major store front literally shows that this is one of them. When it was just pornographic games getting impacted loads of people dismissed any concerns people had cause of it being smut but it spread and now one of the most popular and beloved visual novels of all time is getting impacted. In general freedom of expression and censorship is an area where the slippery slope argument fits perfectly.

It takes place in a high school.  At least here in the states most high schoolers are under age. Like 75%+ of high schoolers are under age.  I would suspect the issue is the highschool part, not the content.

And slippery slope is nonsense and a weak argument.

Do you have a problem with art depicting high schoolers going through stuff like mental health issues? Cause the reason it got banned from the Play Store is its depiction of "sensitive themes" and DDLC's most acclaimed aspect is its handling of mental health issues and as someone who dealt with major depression issues for a lot of my teen years and was going through a depressive episode when I played it back in 2017 its handling of that is a huge reason why it was so impactful for me. It's a similar situation for a lot of the other people who have played it.

You still haven't explained why it's nonsense and a weak argument in the way I used it. As I said slippery slope arguments are completely valid in certain situations. It's only a fallacy when used poorly for example by implying that doing something will lead to something unrelated and not providing evidence or a logical basis for why that'll happen.

Last edited by Norion - on 14 April 2026

Norion said:
Chrkeller said:

It takes place in a high school.  At least here in the states most high schoolers are under age. Like 75%+ of high schoolers are under age.  I would suspect the issue is the highschool part, not the content.

And slippery slope is nonsense and a weak argument.

Do you have a problem with art depicting high schoolers going through stuff like mental health issues? Cause the reason it got banned from the Play Store is its depiction of "sensitive themes" and DDLC's most acclaimed aspect is its handling of mental health issues and as someone who dealt with major depression issues for a lot of my teen years and was going through a depressive episode when I played it back in 2017 its handling of that is a huge reason why it was so impactful for me. It's a similar situation for a lot of the other people who have played it.

You still haven't explained why it's nonsense and a weak argument in the way I used it. As I said slippery slope arguments are completely valid in certain situations. It's only a fallacy when used poorly for example by implying that doing something will lead to something unrelated and not providing evidence or a logical basis for why that'll happen.

I think games that feature sexual activities (implied or shown) for under aged kids is sick, gross, disgusting and unacceptable.  

Because it always end up with a gross exaggeration.  Democrats want to limit mag capacity and slippery slope means they are going to ban butter knives!!

Heck, you can see it in this thread.  Google is banning a game that has adult themes involving kids and people are already "omg M rated is next!"

Slippery slope is an assumption based system not grounded in logic and reality.

No idea what high school means to other countries, but here it means under aged kids...  i do not and will not view sexual themes with kids as acceptable.  I just will not. 



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The thing is, DDLC is not some new transgressive thing that's just come out, it's been around since 2017 and hosted on multiple mainstream storefronts like Steam, PS Store, and the Nintendo eshop for like 9 years now and it was never a problem before.

The only thing that's changed is the rise of aggressive censorship and puritanism.

Last edited by curl-6 - on 15 April 2026

IcaroRibeiro said:

It's google store they have the right to ban it. It's their freedom I guess

I don't see the problem. If you want it you can buy it other stores

Isn't Google currently restricting the power to sideload apps on Android? It is not quite as Apple, but I don't think you can say that other sources are equal to the play store.



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IcaroRibeiro said:
curl-6 said:

Until other stores fall in line with the censorship brigade and games start being banned across all platforms if they contain anything the mob are offended by, from adult themes to sexuality to LGBT content to violence and so on.

Steam, Nintendo, and Sony have already started dabbling in censoring adult games, and it's already escalated from banning porn games to now non-porn games.

They are private companies, they can decide what they sell. Isn't this the most basic principles of free market? 

As long it's not the state baning the games, there is no problem here to be solved 

Freedoms make no sense in the context of instance that cannot be free or unfree. Can you threaten a company, kill it, torture it, intimidate it — all the stuff done to restrict freedoms? Applying a concept for self-determined beings like humans onto an institution that isn't like a company makes no sense at all.

Freedoms can indeed though applied to humans, including the freedom to want to immerse into sensitive artistic content.



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firebush03 said:

Sounds a lot like “It’s not okay to ban things I like, but I am okay with banning things I don’t like”— for instance, I don’t believe you would’ve been too upset if this was a game featuring child p0rnography. Nor if it was a game which promoted harmful ideologies such as rejection of the holocaust.

You conflating banning a legal game with removing something illegal.



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BTW, interesting lesson in media literacy. As I am not terminally online, this is the first I hear of the ban. So naturally I search for the news. And instantly see this:

"Controversial Anime-themed game" - probably some hentai-smut.

vs.

"9 years of acclaim for its sensitive themes" - sounds serious and probably good

So yeah, anyone telling me news outlets are neutral has a lot of explaining to do. And most people don't search news, they have their go to news source they trust.



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