Skullgirls got review-bombed on Steam after some art changes

This is the team (now Future Club) which used to have some serious trouble with their previous boss, right?

First of all, we can assume that the development team have not been completely in line with the original direction to begin with, given the situation, and given that they renamed themselves (their dev team's name) afterwards.

Second and maybe most important, the game has been doing well, the player numbers are looking pretty stellar for the game, I can tell you I had no problems finding a match last year with one fifth of the player count that they have right now (probably good crossplay implementation). Plus being one of the official games in Evo kind of helped. In order to get more popular and for certain events, they have to clean their act, so this may be the way forward.

As far as hating on removal of racist imagery making you a racist? What if it is important to the story line that you are taking out a band of racists, but some sensitivity editor decides that shouldn't be in the game, and now you're just killing a bunch of random people? :P

a good example of that is the series "everybody hate criss" wich have a bunch of racist jokes that are intended to show how absurd racism is, it make fun, mock how ridiculuous racism is all the time, yet it feature racism to show that.
should it be censored too?

Blazing Saddles is a perfect example of this.

Blazing Saddles is a funny example indeed, too many people have always told Mel Brooks that "one could not make this movie today" so he answered "one could not make this movie back then either" :)

Pretty sure Brooks is deluding himself on that point. As someone who grew up in the 70's, the casual but prevalent racism back then took the edge off a lot of the purposefully un-casual racism in Blazing Saddles. You might still be able to make such a movie today, but it would be derided and buried under a sea of angry one-star reviews, much like toning down the panty-line in an underage female fighter in Skullgirls has had the same result.

I'm not so sure, there have been a lot of younger YT reactors reacting to Blazzing Saddles in the last years and they have all loved it, not a single comment on that it should have been banned or never made. However also lots and lots of YT comments on each and every such video on "how such a movie couldn't be made today".

So to be completely honest I think that there are far more people who believe that it couldn't be made today than people who would be upset if it was made today.

As far as hating on removal of racist imagery making you a racist? What if it is important to the story line that you are taking out a band of racists, but some sensitivity editor decides that shouldn't be in the game, and now you're just killing a bunch of random people? :P

a good example of that is the series "everybody hate criss" wich have a bunch of racist jokes that are intended to show how absurd racism is, it make fun, mock how ridiculuous racism is all the time, yet it feature racism to show that.
should it be censored too?

Blazing Saddles is a perfect example of this.

Blazing Saddles is a funny example indeed, too many people have always told Mel Brooks that "one could not make this movie today" so he answered "one could not make this movie back then either" :)

Pretty sure Brooks is deluding himself on that point. As someone who grew up in the 70's, the casual but prevalent racism back then took the edge off a lot of the purposefully un-casual racism in Blazing Saddles. You might still be able to make such a movie today, but it would be derided and buried under a sea of angry one-star reviews, much like toning down the panty-line in an underage female fighter in Skullgirls has had the same result.

The difference between why it couldn't be made back then vs now is that back then, the racists were pissed off that they were being made fun of and it was showing them how dumb they are.

For today; the younger generation no longer have a sense of humor and don't understand satire. Life of Brian falls under that same category. Back then all the religious people were pissed off at it (without ever watching it). And These days it's the opposite side that doesn't like it / wants to censor it.

"Where are the white women at?"

I haven't seen any one wanting to censor Life of Brian from that crowd today, what I have seen though is John Cleese claiming that a particular scene must be included and that he refuses to censor it although no one have wanted to censor it (quite the opposite infact, but those people have begun to question the scene now that JC so actively is defending it).


Last edited by F.Ultra on 5 Jul 2023 at 6:01 pm UTC

I don't know anything about this game, but I believe the last Mortal Kombat game they decided they wanted to make the female characters less sexualized, cover them up. Made zero sense to me. The series has always been "mature" with its finishing moves etc, why are they getting upset over a bit of extra flesh.

At least in that case they told us ahead of time and you can choose not to buy the game. If a game that you enjoy gets a "woke update" that significantly alters the game you purchased in a way you hate, then we have a problem.

Man, it would be great to see Scorpion baring his chest, right? Maybe tone down those long, baggy trousers and get those rippling thighs into shot? Get some crotch physics on display?

Or, wait. Is it only the women we're allowed to sexualise because gaming remains a male dominant industry? And why is it male dominant?

Oh.

Plenty of male characters in Mortal Kombat show a lot of flesh. The boss' from the original game were very flesh heavy. Ok maybe they went even more extreme with some of the future games (I will admit I haven't played every iteration of MK), my point being is it's a mature, graphic fighting game. You have characters doing extremely over the top violent things in the game and nobody is complaining. Make a character too sexy and all hell breaks loose.

but most of the time the changes arent trying to censor something for another audience that is bothered by this type of content

The SICs always makes this claim but is there any evidence what so ever that the devs made this change for "another audience" and not just because they themselves begun to feel uncomfortable with the original design?

i dont know what SIC means, but the staff changed completely afaik, the new staff have 0 respect for what came before then or the original target audience.

Appears to be exactly the same team minus one guy that where accused of sexual abuse at the work place by the staff. Still see no evidence that they are trying to cater to "a new audience", and honestly this line of reasoning is fast becoming old, that "other audience" that SICs keep on talking about are just some small group of marginalized women with strange hair colours that have zero power and zero reach yet we are somehow to believe that they in secret are "taking away our games, movies and comics". Stop falling for SIC (Social Injustice Crusader) propaganda, that is all that it is.

the public that purchased the game as it was liked it as it was, so yes, changing it is catering to a new audience.
the fact that a lot of things are geting censored nowadays is not an conspiration theory.

but most of the time the changes arent trying to censor something for another audience that is bothered by this type of content

The SICs always makes this claim but is there any evidence what so ever that the devs made this change for "another audience" and not just because they themselves begun to feel uncomfortable with the original design?

i dont know what SIC means, but the staff changed completely afaik, the new staff have 0 respect for what came before then or the original target audience.

Appears to be exactly the same team minus one guy that where accused of sexual abuse at the work place by the staff. Still see no evidence that they are trying to cater to "a new audience", and honestly this line of reasoning is fast becoming old, that "other audience" that SICs keep on talking about are just some small group of marginalized women with strange hair colours that have zero power and zero reach yet we are somehow to believe that they in secret are "taking away our games, movies and comics". Stop falling for SIC (Social Injustice Crusader) propaganda, that is all that it is.

the public that purchased the game as it was liked it as it was, so yes, changing it is catering to a new audience.
the fact that a lot of things are geting censored nowadays is not an conspiration theory.

Things have always been censored, in fact it could be argued that fewer things are censored these days considering the amount of media content generated by the average joe instead of a large media corporation.

For example, an episode of Star Trek TNG was not aired/edited in the UK (back when it was originally released) as it proclaimed the reunification of Ireland by 2024. You can now watch it on Netflix in its full unedited glory.

but most of the time the changes arent trying to censor something for another audience that is bothered by this type of content

The SICs always makes this claim but is there any evidence what so ever that the devs made this change for "another audience" and not just because they themselves begun to feel uncomfortable with the original design?

i dont know what SIC means, but the staff changed completely afaik, the new staff have 0 respect for what came before then or the original target audience.

Appears to be exactly the same team minus one guy that where accused of sexual abuse at the work place by the staff. Still see no evidence that they are trying to cater to "a new audience", and honestly this line of reasoning is fast becoming old, that "other audience" that SICs keep on talking about are just some small group of marginalized women with strange hair colours that have zero power and zero reach yet we are somehow to believe that they in secret are "taking away our games, movies and comics". Stop falling for SIC (Social Injustice Crusader) propaganda, that is all that it is.

the public that purchased the game as it was liked it as it was, so yes, changing it is catering to a new audience.
the fact that a lot of things are geting censored nowadays is not an conspiration theory.

yes it is a conspiracy theory. Just look at this very game, you keep on saying that it was censored for "another audience" which is just a dog-whistle for "woke left feminists" and now it suddenly is "oh the ones that bought it isn't happy so it must be for a new audience", well to begin with you have not asked 100% of the people who bought it and secondly a game is always sold to new people (it's not like the same person is buying the game twice), so this explanation does not make sense.

And this is not censuring, this is simply a company not wanting to be associated with nazi-symbology and panty shots of underage characters. Censuring would be a 3rd party forcing the company to make these changes (and by strict definition that 3d part would have to be the government), a company changing their mind is a whole different story.

Like with Star Wars, Han no longer shooting first is not censuring, that is Lucas changing his mind. Now we might not like his change (I know that I don't) but not liking it does not make it censuring. Stephen King decided to withdraw Rage after the 1997 Heath High School shooting, his own decision as a creator and owner and not censorship.

but most of the time the changes arent trying to censor something for another audience that is bothered by this type of content

The SICs always makes this claim but is there any evidence what so ever that the devs made this change for "another audience" and not just because they themselves begun to feel uncomfortable with the original design?

i dont know what SIC means, but the staff changed completely afaik, the new staff have 0 respect for what came before then or the original target audience.

Appears to be exactly the same team minus one guy that where accused of sexual abuse at the work place by the staff. Still see no evidence that they are trying to cater to "a new audience", and honestly this line of reasoning is fast becoming old, that "other audience" that SICs keep on talking about are just some small group of marginalized women with strange hair colours that have zero power and zero reach yet we are somehow to believe that they in secret are "taking away our games, movies and comics". Stop falling for SIC (Social Injustice Crusader) propaganda, that is all that it is.

the public that purchased the game as it was liked it as it was, so yes, changing it is catering to a new audience.
the fact that a lot of things are geting censored nowadays is not an conspiration theory.

Things have always been censored, in fact it could be argued that fewer things are censored these days considering the amount of media content generated by the average joe instead of a large media corporation.

For example, an episode of Star Trek TNG was not aired/edited in the UK (back when it was originally released) as it proclaimed the reunification of Ireland by 2024. You can now watch it on Netflix in its full unedited glory.

nowadays companies are mora acountable when they censor stuff because we have internet and can get informed about it, but still, most people dont know about censorship that happened in the past, for example i went to one of the biggest anime conventions from Brasil called "Anime Friends" , there was going to happen an show from the artist "Rica Matusmoto" who many openings, endings from pokemon and other animes, and dub the main character satoshi (ash), there were people there cosplaying pokemon characters... you probably would guess that those people who went to the event knew her right? or knew about the censorship that hapened in this anime, the soundtrack replacement etc right? nope, most didnt, to this day.

nowadays the backslash is imediatly but still not enough to convince companies to not do this anymore in most cases so what is the point?
the only case i know about were an company gave up on censoring due to the backslash was back to the future.

but most of the time the changes arent trying to censor something for another audience that is bothered by this type of content

The SICs always makes this claim but is there any evidence what so ever that the devs made this change for "another audience" and not just because they themselves begun to feel uncomfortable with the original design?

i dont know what SIC means, but the staff changed completely afaik, the new staff have 0 respect for what came before then or the original target audience.

Appears to be exactly the same team minus one guy that where accused of sexual abuse at the work place by the staff. Still see no evidence that they are trying to cater to "a new audience", and honestly this line of reasoning is fast becoming old, that "other audience" that SICs keep on talking about are just some small group of marginalized women with strange hair colours that have zero power and zero reach yet we are somehow to believe that they in secret are "taking away our games, movies and comics". Stop falling for SIC (Social Injustice Crusader) propaganda, that is all that it is.

the public that purchased the game as it was liked it as it was, so yes, changing it is catering to a new audience.
the fact that a lot of things are geting censored nowadays is not an conspiration theory.

yes it is a conspiracy theory. Just look at this very game, you keep on saying that it was censored for "another audience" which is just a dog-whistle for "woke left feminists" and now it suddenly is "oh the ones that bought it isn't happy so it must be for a new audience", well to begin with you have not asked 100% of the people who bought it and secondly a game is always sold to new people (it's not like the same person is buying the game twice), so this explanation does not make sense.

And this is not censuring, this is simply a company not wanting to be associated with nazi-symbology and panty shots of underage characters. Censuring would be a 3rd party forcing the company to make these changes (and by strict definition that 3d part would have to be the government), a company changing their mind is a whole different story.

Like with Star Wars, Han no longer shooting first is not censuring, that is Lucas changing his mind. Now we might not like his change (I know that I don't) but not liking it does not make it censuring. Stephen King decided to withdraw Rage after the 1997 Heath High School shooting, his own decision as a creator and owner and not censorship.

wh would purchase this game if they didnt like the content from it? hell, we had 10 years of this game being sold and now they decide to change it?
why would this thirdy party have to be an government? sony changed their terms and enforced censorship in thirdy party content and many companies cant afford to give up an huge market like playstation and still survive so they were forced to self censor to comply.
sony purchased Evo btw.
its easy to say the company chose to self censor without external pressure from other companies, but who can guarantee they arent being censored in saying how they really feel about having to do that?
a lot of companies self censoring must be an gigantic coincidence right? or maybe some external pressure from bigger companies , what make more sense?
what is next, rockstar will make an patch so you cant kill any one anymore in GTA? and you will say that is not censorship?

of course people dont buy the same game twice (lets ignore nintendo, they arent an relevant company...)
irony aside, of course they want to sell to new people, but you know what companies do when they cant sell any more copies of an game? relase an new game, an sequel, another franchise, and no one get pissed off.
they dont remove content from existing games.
now you have all the right in the world to think "this content isnt moraly acceptable and should be there to begin with" but if you think that about an product and still purchase it anyway, that says a lot about you.
so yes, they are trying to target an new audience, not the ones who purchased this game in the last 10 years.


Last edited by elmapul on 5 Jul 2023 at 11:44 pm UTC

nowadays companies are mora acountable when they censor stuff because we have internet and can get informed about it, but still, most people dont know about censorship that happened in the past, for example i went to one of the biggest anime conventions from Brasil called "Anime Friends" , there was going to happen an show from the artist "Rica Matusmoto" who many openings, endings from pokemon and other animes, and dub the main character satoshi (ash), there were people there cosplaying pokemon characters... you probably would guess that those people who went to the event knew her right? or knew about the censorship that hapened in this anime, the soundtrack replacement etc right? nope, most didnt, to this day.

*Sigh* it had to be a Brazilian...

A few season 1 episodes got censored here, and that is a popular bit of anime/Pokémon trivia on the internet, so it's silly to think that your average young anime fan doesn't know about it. But you think they don't know about it just because they don't know about the singer of endings that only aired in Japan? Dude.

And to make it worse you are comparing that to censorship? You really need to pick up a dictionary, dude. The Pokémon that aired here is (or was? I don't watch it anymore) the 4Kids version. They censored a bunch of crap in every anime you could imagine, everybody knows that, but replacing the Japanese themes with localized ones is definitely not censorship.

nowadays companies are mora acountable when they censor stuff because we have internet and can get informed about it, but still, most people dont know about censorship that happened in the past, for example i went to one of the biggest anime conventions from Brasil called "Anime Friends" , there was going to happen an show from the artist "Rica Matusmoto" who many openings, endings from pokemon and other animes, and dub the main character satoshi (ash), there were people there cosplaying pokemon characters... you probably would guess that those people who went to the event knew her right? or knew about the censorship that hapened in this anime, the soundtrack replacement etc right? nope, most didnt, to this day.

*Sigh* it had to be a Brazilian...

A few season 1 episodes got censored here, and that is a popular bit of anime/Pokémon trivia on the internet, so it's silly to think that your average young anime fan doesn't know about it. But you think they don't know about it just because they don't know about the singer of endings that only aired in Japan? Dude.

And to make it worse you are comparing that to censorship? You really need to pick up a dictionary, dude. The Pokémon that aired here is (or was? I don't watch it anymore) the 4Kids version. They censored a bunch of crap in every anime you could imagine, everybody knows that, but replacing the Japanese themes with localized ones is definitely not censorship.

i count as censorship, they didnt believed the original songs would make an success and didnt give it a chance to show its potential.
but regardless, that was not the only change they made.
for example, in they cut "violence" when kasumi (mist) slaps the main character, among other things, replaced all the dialouges from the first movie and many dialougues in other episodes, censored an pen because it was an real product among other things.
i wont list all the changes, there is the webpage dogasu for that, take a look at the kangaskhan episode for example.
or the first movie where they replaced everything.


what is censorship in your opinion? censoring political opinion?


Last edited by elmapul on 6 Jul 2023 at 12:13 pm UTC

nowadays companies are mora acountable when they censor stuff because we have internet and can get informed about it, but still, most people dont know about censorship that happened in the past, for example i went to one of the biggest anime conventions from Brasil called "Anime Friends" , there was going to happen an show from the artist "Rica Matusmoto" who many openings, endings from pokemon and other animes, and dub the main character satoshi (ash), there were people there cosplaying pokemon characters... you probably would guess that those people who went to the event knew her right? or knew about the censorship that hapened in this anime, the soundtrack replacement etc right? nope, most didnt, to this day.

*Sigh* it had to be a Brazilian...

A few season 1 episodes got censored here, and that is a popular bit of anime/Pokémon trivia on the internet, so it's silly to think that your average young anime fan doesn't know about it. But you think they don't know about it just because they don't know about the singer of endings that only aired in Japan? Dude.

And to make it worse you are comparing that to censorship? You really need to pick up a dictionary, dude. The Pokémon that aired here is (or was? I don't watch it anymore) the 4Kids version. They censored a bunch of crap in every anime you could imagine, everybody knows that, but replacing the Japanese themes with localized ones is definitely not censorship.

i count as censorship, they didnt believed the original songs would make an success and didnt give it a chance to show its potential.
but regardless, that was not the only change they made.
for example, in they cut "violence" when kasumi (mist) slaps the main character, among other things, replaced all the dialouges from the first movie and many dialougues in other episodes, censored an pen because it was an real product among other things.
i wont list all the changes, there is the webpage dogasu for that, take a look at the kangaskhan episode for example.

what is censorship in your opinion? censoring political opinion?

Everything else you mentioned can be censorship, 4Kids was trigger happy on censorship, everyone knows it, but the opening and ending themes? Is it also censorship when Disney localize the songs in their movies for international release?

nowadays companies are mora acountable when they censor stuff because we have internet and can get informed about it, but still, most people dont know about censorship that happened in the past, for example i went to one of the biggest anime conventions from Brasil called "Anime Friends" , there was going to happen an show from the artist "Rica Matusmoto" who many openings, endings from pokemon and other animes, and dub the main character satoshi (ash), there were people there cosplaying pokemon characters... you probably would guess that those people who went to the event knew her right? or knew about the censorship that hapened in this anime, the soundtrack replacement etc right? nope, most didnt, to this day.

*Sigh* it had to be a Brazilian...

A few season 1 episodes got censored here, and that is a popular bit of anime/Pokémon trivia on the internet, so it's silly to think that your average young anime fan doesn't know about it. But you think they don't know about it just because they don't know about the singer of endings that only aired in Japan? Dude.

And to make it worse you are comparing that to censorship? You really need to pick up a dictionary, dude. The Pokémon that aired here is (or was? I don't watch it anymore) the 4Kids version. They censored a bunch of crap in every anime you could imagine, everybody knows that, but replacing the Japanese themes with localized ones is definitely not censorship.

i count as censorship, they didnt believed the original songs would make an success and didnt give it a chance to show its potential.
but regardless, that was not the only change they made.
for example, in they cut "violence" when kasumi (mist) slaps the main character, among other things, replaced all the dialouges from the first movie and many dialougues in other episodes, censored an pen because it was an real product among other things.
i wont list all the changes, there is the webpage dogasu for that, take a look at the kangaskhan episode for example.

what is censorship in your opinion? censoring political opinion?

Everything else you mentioned can be censorship, 4Kids was trigger happy on censorship, everyone knows it, but the opening and ending themes? Is it also censorship when Disney localize the songs in their movies for international release?

if they do an proper translation? no.
if they replace the lyrics or the music with something else? yes.

nowadays companies are mora acountable when they censor stuff because we have internet and can get informed about it, but still, most people dont know about censorship that happened in the past, for example i went to one of the biggest anime conventions from Brasil called "Anime Friends" , there was going to happen an show from the artist "Rica Matusmoto" who many openings, endings from pokemon and other animes, and dub the main character satoshi (ash), there were people there cosplaying pokemon characters... you probably would guess that those people who went to the event knew her right? or knew about the censorship that hapened in this anime, the soundtrack replacement etc right? nope, most didnt, to this day.

*Sigh* it had to be a Brazilian...

A few season 1 episodes got censored here, and that is a popular bit of anime/Pokémon trivia on the internet, so it's silly to think that your average young anime fan doesn't know about it. But you think they don't know about it just because they don't know about the singer of endings that only aired in Japan? Dude.

And to make it worse you are comparing that to censorship? You really need to pick up a dictionary, dude. The Pokémon that aired here is (or was? I don't watch it anymore) the 4Kids version. They censored a bunch of crap in every anime you could imagine, everybody knows that, but replacing the Japanese themes with localized ones is definitely not censorship.

i count as censorship, they didnt believed the original songs would make an success and didnt give it a chance to show its potential.
but regardless, that was not the only change they made.
for example, in they cut "violence" when kasumi (mist) slaps the main character, among other things, replaced all the dialouges from the first movie and many dialougues in other episodes, censored an pen because it was an real product among other things.
i wont list all the changes, there is the webpage dogasu for that, take a look at the kangaskhan episode for example.

what is censorship in your opinion? censoring political opinion?

Everything else you mentioned can be censorship, 4Kids was trigger happy on censorship, everyone knows it, but the opening and ending themes? Is it also censorship when Disney localize the songs in their movies for international release?

if they do an proper translation? no.
if they replace the lyrics or the music with something else? yes.

Replacing something with something else ≠ censorship.

And even if they kept the lyrics the exact same, the singer would still be different, because it's not a matter of lyrics, but a matter of having a song in the country's language.

Replacing something with something else ≠ censorship.

And even if they kept the lyrics the exact same, the singer would still be different, because it's not a matter of lyrics, but a matter of having a song in the country's language.

again, im not against translation.
but changing the musis as well?

as for "not censorship" back in the days many businessmen didnt believed that japanese shows could make an sucess in the US without changing a lot of things, that is why they made power rangers for example, instead of showing the original shows as they were.
if you cant broadcast your show as is without any modification that dont count as censorship?

Replacing something with something else ≠ censorship.

And even if they kept the lyrics the exact same, the singer would still be different, because it's not a matter of lyrics, but a matter of having a song in the country's language.

again, im not against translation.
but changing the musis as well?

as for "not censorship" back in the days many businessmen didnt believed that japanese shows could make an sucess in the US without changing a lot of things, that is why they made power rangers for example, instead of showing the original shows as they were.
if you cant broadcast your show as is without any modification that dont count as censorship?

They can, they chose not to because they realized their core audience in the west aren't japanese speaking people. And even dubbing a show is modification, so by your definition, if 4Kids decided to air Pokémon in English because 99% of viewers wouldn't understand anything in japanese, that's censorship too. Even if it's an exact translation, it's a modification they had to do for the product to sell.

We are running in circles with this discussion.

We are running in circles with this discussion.

that is stupid, of course translations arent changing, and while dubing change how the anime "feel" it still wouldnt count as censorship, we cant have an 1:1 experience, if the new audience have to read subtitles then they will have a different experience and that is specially bad for kids who are learning how to read (or dont know) if it remain unstranslated it still an different experience because you have no idea what they are saying, if its dubbed then the different voices, voice acting and sound of sylabes is different.

yet, i dont count any of those as "censoring" and i dont think anyone would.
the best experience for people is the original, followed by subs if they can read and then dubs, but even then im not saying im against the pratice of dubing and some people prefer the dubbed version.

the issue is when they completely change what the character said, i dont pay cable for that.

that is stupid

That's how I few about labeling different openings/endings as censorship.

Replacing something with something else ≠ censorship.

And even if they kept the lyrics the exact same, the singer would still be different, because it's not a matter of lyrics, but a matter of having a song in the country's language.

again, im not against translation.
but changing the musis as well?

as for "not censorship" back in the days many businessmen didnt believed that japanese shows could make an sucess in the US without changing a lot of things, that is why they made power rangers for example, instead of showing the original shows as they were.
if you cant broadcast your show as is without any modification that dont count as censorship?

Here's the thing: "Censorship" does have a meaning in English. And it's a meaning that carries a powerful political charge. It's about authorities eliminating people's freedom of expression, or forcing people not to tell the truth.
And, certain segments of the right wing use the word "censorship" for other things, to imply that there is some kind of shadowy liberal "authority" forcing people to, um, behave decently I guess? This allows them to basically claim that certain forms of decent behaviour are in fact tyranny.

So for those of us familiar with the usage of the word "censorship" in both its normal form (like, the Soviet Union practised censorship etc) and its frequent current use by the alt-right, when we see someone use the word "censorship" to describe the acts of executives making decisions about what will sell, it doesn't match the actual definition or usage of the word, and when it comes to the Skull Girls thing really seems to match up with the alt-right usage. So whatever you think you're communicating, by incorrectly using the word "censorship" you are delivering a political message implying outside control by nefarious "liberals". So I think you might want to find a different word.

(There's a big irony in this alt-right position, in that they're describing community enforcement of moral standards as tyranny in some contexts, but are TOTALLY INTO IT in others. So, community enforcement of codes against racism == tyranny, but community enforcement of codes against premarital sex, among other things == good and necessary, and for that matter community enforcement of codes against pedophilia == good when they do it, bad when liberals do it)

We're literally discussing a company that is facing extreme backlash after alienating their core audience with ill advised changes in an attempt to be more "socially aware". But, no, you go ahead and tell yourself that I've somehow been proven wrong.

Who is the "core audience" of Skullgirls? This is what the assertions are always saying. What does the "core audience" value that has been taken out? The racist allegories? The underage pantyshots? Who is this core audience? Coomers and nazis? (A venn diagram that is usually just a circle.)

How about fighting game players, competitors, spectators, tournament organizers and sponsors? This is the *real* core audience of Skullgirls. The people who put in the time to practice and hone it, the people who travel to compete, give it its time in the spotlight, and show the cool stuff you can do it. But if you put Skullgirls on stream and it shows Parasoul summoning an army of red armbands to assail 16-year-old Filia while her panties are on display, well-adjusted people start to think, "damn, I'm not sure if I want anyone to see me playing this". There are so many games like that. There's a good reason those games aren't popular, and a good reason the popular games aren't like that. A lot of good reasons. A lot of it has to do with the audience and the community. They drive regular people away!

The SICs always makes this claim but is there any evidence what so ever that the devs made this change for "another audience" and not just because they themselves begun to feel uncomfortable with the original design?

If they themselves began to feel uncomfortable with the original design, that is reason enough. People change. Your sensibilities change. You expand your horizons, you listen to more perspectives, you start to understand how something you didn't put any thought into when you originally made it could be harmful to someone, and then you wish it was different. So they made it different.

The only thing that I disagree with is permanently modifying the art compendium, and that is pretty much only on principle. I think that it would have been a stronger message to archive all the old art and old designs with a note explaining the rationale for the changes. But I also understand that they might have been so uncomfortable with the art that they made before, for a wide variety of possible reasons, that they just wanted to be rid of their association with it. With the ideas behind it... and also with the people who most strongly cling to those ideas.

You see so many people frothing about the changes to Skullgirls. Eventually, you're all eventually just going to shut up and move on. Once you do move on, you will no longer be around to drive away regular folks, which means Skullgirls will be more palatable. Ticking you all off is a *feature*, not a bug.

The are many forms of censorship, when most people think of censorship they imagine state-censorship, but that is only one form.

When a media company translates a program into another language, say French, and then shows it to the French populace because the company would believe the majority of the French would not accept the original English version, then that is indeed a form of censorship.

Nowadays thanks to the internet, you can actually watch nearly all translations and it is left to the individual to decide, so it's no longer censorship so long as the option is available. But, (and I might be showing my age here) when you could only watch what the TV broadcaster gave you, it was very much censorship.

Interestingly enough the edits to the original Star Wars (4, 5, 6 re-edited editions) aren't censorship, as that wasn't done to appease any audience, quite the opposite in fact.

Censorship is not inherently bad, but it can be used for bad very easily.