Censorship and cannibalism rant

[Draconis Argentus Falzone]

Okay. Some of you might think I'm crazy to rant against the machine. Or rather, Rage against the Workshop.

But I have some serious concerns here.

Firstly. I was reading an Inquisitor Codex post, and saw a link to pics of the new daemonettes which were being discussed there. I decided this needs its own thread, and hopefully some intelligent discussion. PS I'm writing this AFTER the rant below. Which I felt shouldn't be edited, save for any swearwords I found, those hopefully have been rooted out or substituted appropriately. As a disclaimer, I am chill, most of the time, but I just feel sometimes like aspects of the game get nerfed or butchered when they re-do things. So. Please. If you feel I'm wrong, go ahead and rant or be more reserved if you feel like it, but don't take it as a personal attack.

Thanks.


Censorship.

You know it's getting out of hand. Okay, so Games Workshop wants to market to children, and they want to censor sex? So it's okay for a game to contain genocide, murder, violence, attrition, insanity and anarchy... but the second a single element of sex is shown, a game becomes perverse, evil and deranged.

Funny.

I say, make GW label 40k for what it is. Rated 18+. M for mature. Parental advisory and everything else. That way, they'll get five times as many teens interested, and they can pass the blame off on the parents when mom and dad realize they just bought their 15-year-old son a naked demon hottie TEAM.

Seriously. Games Workshop has to censor naked daemonettes of a god of debauchery and lust, when there's Enzyte commercials as early as 9pm, when porn online is easily accessible to minors, and most kids have seen, heard or read XXX rated material by the time they're 14? But they don't have to censor genocide, anarchy, mass murder and warcrimes, even though, in almost every legal system, those brutal, violent, horrendous and evil crimes far outweigh any sex crime???

And you know what?

SEX is NOT the only indulgence of evil!!!!!!!!

Slaanesh should be a god of Cannibalism! She who thirsts? Why not vampires and maneaters? Hannibal Lecter and Vlad Dracula! Sex is the only taboo indulgence? Why aren't Noise Marines gifted with bonuses when they kill enemies? Especially when killing humans. Space Marines and guardsmen can actually eat Eldar and Orks, as they're totally different races incapable of breeding with humans and producing a viable surviving lineage. Granted, they don't often do it in battle, but they do!

The Chaos Marines who follow the path of indulgence and decadence shouldn't all be perfect ****ty pornstars with swords and loudspeaker-cannons! Gluttony, vanity, pride and lust are all on Slaanesh's repertoire of evils. Sure, pride and lust overlap with Khorne, but his lust is blood-letting, not always blood drinking, and he doesn't encourage flesh eating, just flesh rending. While Khorne's followers slaughter, dismember and disembowel and tenderize, much like a hunter, farmer or butcher, followers of Slaanesh actually flay and cut up their victims much like a chef! Even moreso, Emperor's Children are known for "baser delights" which I would presume range from rape and cannibalism to torture and mutilation.

So why aren't there rules, bonuses and drawbacks for their cannibalism? Like, Kroot have to fight to eat their prey, but then become much stronger and more envigorated. Why can't marines of the Prince of Pleasure take that kind of an ability?

Overall I'm just pissed 'cause I don't think GW should be catering to some conservative view that sex is 100% evil when all those violent things in the game are okay, and that they're not marking everything with a gun, flame thrower, grenade or Inquisitorial badge as "Not for minors"...

And I'm confused why there's no prevalent amount of cannibals in the Decadent One's armies...

[Dragoon King]

Some pretty good points in that rant. Why is sex censored in a game of mayhem and slaughter? I don't encourage anything overly perverse, but come on, there is nothing wrong with a bare breast. It seems like they are bashing the female element. Sex is a natural part of life, just like death and stife. It's kinda like when a culture moves from a agarian society (which most of the time has powerful Earth-based goddesses) to a warlike city-state (in which goddess lose their power to masculine, warlike sky gods). Weird! I know that GW wants to cater to the younger generation, but censorship should be in the hands of the parents. If they don't want their kids to have topless Daemons, then they should buy them. Just my opinion.

[Brother Warchild]

I agree with you both.I have a 5 year old and he loves space marines and the codex's.I don't think its bad, there's worse on T.V.Besides whats a LITTLE boob at least there kids aint out doing drugs,there safe at home or a gamestore playing.And when is the last time you heard of someone getting killed {4 real} at a gamestore.
WoW i feel Ollllllllld!

[Dragoon King]

Originally Posted by Brother Warchild

I agree with you both.I have a 5 year old and he loves space marines and the codex's.I don't think its bad, there's worse on T.V.Besides whats a LITTLE boob at least there kids aint out doing drugs,there safe at home or a gamestore playing.And when is the last time you heard of someone getting killed {4 real} at a gamestore.
WoW i feel Ollllllllld!

That's a good point. They can't buy drugs if they are buying models! Seriously, at least they would be doing something constructive with their time.

[Wakim]

Dear orginal poster


How can you have the nerve to ask GW to care about you when you don`t seem to care about them? They`re a company, the whole point of GW`s existance is to make profit. Selling games just the medium through which they achive this goal. If hiding a boob here and there will help bloster sales logic dictates that they should do it!

Orks, Eldars and Humans aren`t just different races, they are different species.

Me, Ikky and Erus, we are different races.

If it`s a different species it shouldn`t matter, at least 80% should have ate at least one speciem of 3 or so other animal species and a whole lot of plant life.

Furthermore, you don`t see Space Marine or Imperial Guard minis chewing on someone or something else that often, while bare chested demonettes were pretty present

Sex is censured for little kids under 18, most types of violence aren`t

The answear is right there in your face, human nature.

Kids have the latent need and desire to have sex which should kick it at about 14 and phase out at least partialy by the age of 28-30, that`s because we develop a lot slower but life a lot longer than most other things on this planet but back on track, sex craving is there, somewhere in the vaults of their little heads while blowing heretics and aliens to bits with bolter fire isn`t.

Sure, violence is part of the human being but you see less cases of teen killings than teen pregnancies. A whole lot.

As much as some people like to belive, the truth is we are not raving savages, at least not 99.99% of us and we have both human nature and society to thank for that.

But alsmost everyone at some point had sex

Society just tries to keep that point somewhere after the 18 YO ladmark


Now, ofcourse not everyone`s craving is the same, i know both lads and lasses that don`t feel the need that much, and don`t watch porn and such while i also know a lot of people that control their desires

To cut this thing short as i`ve got important stuff to do that i kept postponing, if/when you`ll have a 5-10 year old son or daughter give him/her every couple of days a war pic and a noodie pic and tell me what you got out of him/her, GI Joe/Jane or... something else

I`ll try to come back here after i finish my work to talk about just how important little kids are for GW.

[Draconis Argentus Falzone]

Dear Wakim

How can you have the nerve to say I don't care about Games Workshop? You don't know me. You don't know what I'm about. If I didn't care about GW I wouldn't play or buy their models straight from the store instead of going on E-Bay and buying reduced-cost used models.

I may have been slightly premature in my whining about the daemonettes... I just checked them again and the whole warrior-princess armor and corset stuff doesn't seem as bad. However, I still stand by my original opinion that GW is being stupid about it.

Here's why:
You say we're not as prone to violence as we are to sex. I say I got beat up eight times before I even hit 14 years old. You say we don't go around killing people. What about once you're 18 and in the army??? Once again, your assessment is flawed.

Violence and sexuality in western society are both discouraged until adulthood. Once we hit adulthood, controlled levels of both violence and sex are encouraged. Porn, strippers, some states/nations allot for prostitution, even. Even in America it's legal in Nevada outside of the Los Vegas city limits. Once you hit 18 you can buy sex toys, get married, have sex on film and sell it. You also have to wait until you're 18 to join the army, to buy gory video games rated M for mature, to fight in a boxing ring without a parental consent slip, to own a shotgun for hunting, and you have to wait (in many US states) until you're 21 to own a handgun, which, by the way, under the law in the US, is considered specifically designed to kill humans.

Yes. I realize Games Workshop has gone corporate. But I would expect them to understand that they shouldn't be selling to children. Where's the ethics in letting kids play genocide? Not everything is about the money. There's also the morals. And in America, when companies don't act ethically, the law has a tendency to act in a way to make them.

I wouldn't be surprised if someone eventually pushed to have Games Workshop label their games as 18+ through the US courts. You know, it's like, the whole game is adult-themed background story. None of the armies are "good"... Chaos and the Imperium are both evil, and anyone who says there's a good army in 40k it's the Squats. Because all the Squats are dead. The Imperium goes out of its way to kill everyone and anyone who doesn't fit the rigid Imperial doctrine. Chaos kills or enslaves any who are not weak enough to fight for Chaos and win.

Video games in the US with as much violence as 40k are almost always rated M for Mature, 18+. So why is this game not being fielded as the same? Because you can't see the bloodspatter?

Please. There's models that come with detached enemy heads available. Skulls, helmets, I even have an Imperial Guard sergeant model holding an Ork head that came attached to his hand! That's not gory enough? Here in the US that kind of violence is only available on NC-17 movies and downloaded war footage not even shown on the news!

No. This game is geared towards adults, and needs to stay geared towards adults. We're the ones with the money, not the kids. And taking out the tittie demons isn't going to make the game any less adult-themed. I can deal without the tittie demons too, by the way. They're the spark that made the barrel blow up, they're not the powder in the barrel.

The whole concept of GW marketing such a grotesque and violent wargame to kids is absurd, and anyone who argues they have a right to do so should remember, other companies have been sued for less.

Mind you, I was playing Diablo and Diablo 2 when I was 12 and 14 respectively. However, my older brother bought me Diablo, my parents bought me Diablo 2, and there's upper-chest nudity in both games (succubi... daemonettes with wings). And you know what? My dad's a Methodist Minister! He knew the content 'cause I told him, and he had no objection to it because it's just a game. So, there's no moral argument you can throw here, my dad pointed out, it's a virtual depiction and it's not even a real woman showing her body. The same rules span to Games Workshop stuff.

My point is, the game is already adult oriented and it's not labeled as such, despite the graphic nature of war. You want to argue that a nipple is more heinous than decapitation, you go ahead and run that route.

As to your mention of IG and loyalist marines not indulging in battlefield munchies, right, they're not posessed of the insanity of Chaos. Nor the debauchery of Slaanesh. So, it still doesn't negate the justification of Slaanesh cannibalism on the battlefield.

EDIT: A friend of mine has recently rebuked me via AIM. We discussed at length my complaints. Primarily with Games Workshop's ethics. The fact that the daemonettes don't really change gameplay and the fact that they're making the game kid friendly 'cause kids just think of fragging enemies and blowing away aliens. I honestly care little about the nudity issue itself, but my perception of the ethics issue was that Games Workshop was targeting children with an adult-themed game (genocide and whatnot). As I've already made clear. Having discussed with him at length (my friend on AIM), I do not retract my dislike of the situation, but I have decided to resign myself not to care further about their attempts to make the game suitable for kids to play.

I personally wouldn't have a problem with my own kids playing Warhammer 40k when they're 12 or 13, because I played computer games with similar aspects of violence and even more gratuitous nudity, and I turned out as normal as I'm gonna turn out. Mind you, I'm not a parent, but I almost was one, and I gave a lot of thought to how I'd conduct myself as a father.

Another point was made. Having these new toned down daemonettes might be advantageous if I am a father and decide I don't want to worry about whether the nudie demon chicks are hidden. So, in that respect, being a child friendly game works even before I'm comfortable letting them actually play.

[Dragoon King]

Whoa, calm down there Draconis, you're gonna burst a blood vessel! Seriously guys, let's not let this discussion get too heated. I'm sure both you and Wakim have strong opinions on this subject, as do I. Let's keep it friendly, ok?

[Draconis Argentus Falzone]

Lol. Yes. As my edit (just before you posted I went to edit my last post) states, I've been rebuked on the subject by a close friend. I took a metaphorical chill pill and cooled off.

I may have over-reacted to this change of things happening. However I still feel insulted that Wakim would insinuate I don't care about GW.

Anyways. I'm still playing...

[Dragoon King]

Originally Posted by Draconis Argentus Falzone

Lol. Yes. As my edit (just before you posted I went to edit my last post) states, I've been rebuked on the subject by a close friend. I took a metaphorical chill pill and cooled off.

I may have over-reacted to this change of things happening. However I still feel insulted that Wakim would insinuate I don't care about GW.

Anyways. I'm still playing...

No prob, tempers flare ya know. This is a touchy subject, so things can get outta hand quick I guess. I think everyone who plays 40k has a deep love of the game, or else we wouldn't spend our time and money on it!

[kenshin620]

wait, is this why I can't find them in my store?

[Draconis Argentus Falzone]

Kinda why I warned that it was a rant... I was upset and reacting to a percieved threat, that the gameplay would degenerate over time into a kid's game... That, and I don't care for the fact that Slaanesh armies are limited to sharp objects and boom-box-sticks to define what Slaanesh is.

Honestly, I think cannibalism would be prevalent in such an army, enough to let one squad be cannibals at least... Or possibly to have an actual vampire chaos lord.

I posted something new touching on this and some other Slaanesh-related thoughts I had in the thread "Abilities" hopefully some thoughtful ideas for house rules and some clarifications of what's currently codex will come up. I don't have the new CSM book, I have the old one. Well, the most recently retired one. So I have an idea, but I don't know for sure.

Edit: Kenshin. They're still available online, so, your store probably just hasn't restocked. But if it's a GW outlet or battlebunker, then yeah, they're probably taking them off the shelf in prep for the new line...

[Dragoon King]

Originally Posted by Draconis Argentus Falzone

Kinda why I warned that it was a rant... I was upset and reacting to a percieved threat, that the gameplay would degenerate over time into a kid's game... That, and I don't care for the fact that Slaanesh armies are limited to sharp objects and boom-box-sticks to define what Slaanesh is.

Honestly, I think cannibalism would be prevalent in such an army, enough to let one squad be cannibals at least... Or possibly to have an actual vampire chaos lord.

I posted something new touching on this and some other Slaanesh-related thoughts I had in the thread "Abilities" hopefully some thoughtful ideas for house rules and some clarifications of what's currently codex will come up. I don't have the new CSM book, I have the old one. Well, the most recently retired one. So I have an idea, but I don't know for sure.

Edit: Kenshin. They're still available online, so, your store probably just hasn't restocked. But if it's a GW outlet or battlebunker, then yeah, they're probably taking them off the shelf in prep for the new line...

Good point. It seems cannabilism would be a common occurance in a Slaanesh army. Who knows what other depraved acts they commit? Also, aren't the Dark Eldar real keen on torture?

[Draconis Argentus Falzone]

Yes, but only because they need to swallow tortured souls so when they themselves die, they can escape Slaanesh while the tortured souls take their stead.

The Inquisition loves torture too, but for altogether non-Slaaneshi reasons... Plus their methods are a bit more... blunt.

[Dragoon King]

Originally Posted by Draconis Argentus Falzone

Yes, but only because they need to swallow tortured souls so when they themselves die, they can escape Slaanesh while the tortured souls take their stead.

The Inquisition loves torture too, but for altogether non-Slaaneshi reasons... Plus their methods are a bit more... blunt.

Neat, I did not know that about the Dark Eldar.

[Wakim]

No i`m not wrong

I talked about killing people

How many people did you kill and how many did you have sex with?

How about your missus? mother? father? grandma`? nextdoor neighbour?

And even in the army you`ll still have more than a few people that actually don`t want to kill people and have horrible remorse for killing people.

You won`t find as many people having remorce for getting laid

Jumping over the US bit as i can`t be objective at the moment (i recently saw the bullcrap of a report that that state belived) let`s go to the nudity you experience

Ofc nothing much happened to you :P It`s a game an it wasn`t too explicit and you (hopefully) aren`t a pickle head

But there will be that handfull of kiddies that`ll stare at demonetter boobies in their bedroom for a while just like there were ones to stare at they`re sister`s barbie doll boobs

And for those kids there certainly will be a couple of parents who won`t be able to handle the fact that their kids are the say they are and will try to blame it on someone else and out of those parents there will be someone to blame it on GW and that will cause loss of profit

But i don`t care right now, i felt like i was about to die this mornin (chest pain, loss of feeling in my left side of the torso, cold heart, hard time breathing, dizziness, that sort of thing) and i simply don`t care about other people as much

Actually i do but i am trying not to

and please don`t take what i said earlier too harsh i`m unable to be mean on purpose.


EDIT

PS I <3 the new demonettes for more than a couple of reasons

[Icarus Athrasuriel]

Firstly, there's an age limit on GW. 12 YO. I realise that 12 isn't 18, but it's an age limit by which point most children have gained some sense of maturity and are exposed to violence on a day to day basis (TV, particularly news broadcasts). Sex is an inbuilt part of humanity, but so is violence, and that seems to be something you've failed to notice.

It can be seen in every major city, turf wars, gang shootings. Fighting between different groups and their members. On a larger scale, wars between those of differing religious backgrounds, Iraqi civil wars for example. Political ideologies, the American Civil War being an example.

Hell, ethnic cleansing is built into the lower-brain functions of humanity. Sudan, Rwanda, Stalin's Russia...the Holocaust.

Intellectually, we all despise these things, but on a more primitive level, these are inbuilt, instinctive behaviours, and as a result, so is genocide and so forth. I am in no way saying that these things are right, but it has to be accepted that these are part of human nature, and thus, your argument is flawed, as is the argument against.

[Wakim]

Sorry if this sounds strange, but were you talking with me?

Because if you were i`d like you to read my above post

[Icarus Athrasuriel]

No, Wakim. I was talking to the original poster

[Wakim]

That`s good

There should be some kind of pointer to point at who you`re talkng to

[Draconis Argentus Falzone]

Icarus: Funny, you say you're directing it at me. Yet you yourself bring up the argument that violence is as inherent as sexuality. You even do me the service of bringing up gang warfare, civil wars and the various examples of genocide in our society. You are supporting my original point that if the game is to be censored of one adult theme, it should be censored of both, as you say both are equally inherent in our nature.

Wakim: Give it a rest. You and I both are dead set in our opinions. I don't think the daemonettes should be censored. You think they should. You're not going to convince me 100% that they should, and I'm not going to quit playing anyways. That's why I called this post a rant. I was venting frustration and mild anger on a subject as a reactionary response to finding out GW was now making the game "kid friendly"...

If you don't like my opinion, fine. You made it clear what you think. If others want to take your side, that's their choice, but if others want to speak up against you, that's their right too. As it is, not many people have replied, and my suspicion is that it's because most of them realize I was just ranting, temporarily pissed about a subject to which I've adjusted. I'm not going to play the game less now that I can't get plastic versions of the current metal daemonettes. If anything, it just means I'll come up with colorful corset patterns and learn to enjoy the covered up versions.

Am I happy that the game is getting censored? No. But you know, at least now the Keeper of Secrets will be wearing Victoria's Secret...

If you want to take my personal opinions of GW as a personal attack, that's your beef. If you have kids and want to keep them from seeing daemonettes, say so, don't go all vague and suggest other parents might feel a certain way. I know how I feel and how I feel wouldn't change if I was a father right now. Do I lack morals? No, I just have more sense and sensibility than most Americans.

And by the way, what was that crap report you say all Americans believe?

[Wakim]

:-?

It`s seems my words change when you read them and some of them even aprear out of nowhere

This topic must be possessed or something, i`m calling the inquisition.

Now if you`ll excuse me, i have to get a wee bit further

[Cirative]

I agree with the rant entirely.

It's basically like what they did with Grand Theft Auto: Vice City when they discovered the hidden sex game: Sure, parents don't mind their kids playing a game that encourages you to kill, steal, pimp, and become a criminal, but heaven forbid it has a sex scene!!!

What it really comes down to is GW as a company. I'm sure if they could market naked models to kids freely then they would. It's understandable that they're tweaki