What's with Fakku and mosaics for their games lately?

There's a big difference in the degree of censorship typically used in different forms of media.

The ultimate goal with manga is to put out a book, which uses bar censorship most commonly. The artist doesn't know where the bars will be placed, so it makes sense for them to draw the complete genitals, which makes this a non-issue for us when it comes to books. Games on the other hand often use mosaic, and there's little reason for the artist to spend time adding details to something that will be fully obscured in the final release.

Simply put, all we have to do for a manga release is turn off the censorship and we're good; with games you're often greeted with unfinished/rudimentary artwork under the censorship layer, which leads to the problems Kisuka described.

Can fakku not invest in uncensoring work that have mosaics? I mean that would bring something new to the table and i believe many customers would be happy to have such an option available in the west (maybe even add an option in menu to turn on censorship or turn it off for those that like mosaics). I mean would that investment hurt fakku's financials really badly?

Also while we are on this topic think you can get minori to re-release their games in the west without mosaics by providing your platform?

No, because minori is adamant about retaining mosaics in their games.
Minori official statement

> As we move towards the release, one of the major problems we face is how to treat the concealment of genitals (hereafter, mosaics). Though MangaGamer.com has requested us that we release the product without mosaics, it was our decision to include them as we did in the Japanese version.

> There are several reasons behind this decision, but the biggest of them all is that we, minori, are a company who conducts business in the Japanese domestic market. You can imagine what would happen if we were to release a product without mosaics, can’t you? Such data would be leaked back into Japan with almost 100% certainty. With networks now being worldwide, this is only a matter of course. Yet for us, this poses nothing other than a business risk.

> In the past, people have developed tools to extract the data archived in our games. We requested that they cease distribution of this tool, and there were times when we took the problem to the court. As a result, some people have listened to us and ceased development, but there are also other people who claim fair use as a shield and continue to develop such tools. It is an extremely sorrowful matter, but so long as there are people who refuse to comply with our requests to stop, we are forced to take measures against them as we have to bear responsibility as the developers of our games.

> In other words, if we were to make the uncensored CG available to the world, then some inconsiderate person would extract the data from our archives and leak the CG back into Japan. If it was just the CG alone it might be a different matter, but one can easily imagine that just as many of those fan-translating bishojo games have done, someone would then take the English version’s CG, create a patch that allows one to play the Japanese version with uncensored CG, and spread that across Japan as well.

> This poses a significant possibility of jeopardizing our business. Even if these games have passed the ethical standards for domestic release in Japan, it is not uncommon that they are not accepted outside of Japan. (You all remember the incident in Canada, right?) Similarly, even if mosaics are unnecessary abroad, so long as there is a chance they will leak back into Japan, we must abide by Japanese standards. This is because we, minori, are a Japanese registered company and there is always a possibility that our business may be held responsible if our releases for the western audience happen to cause problems due to such differences in standards. We believe many fans may remember the “Rapelay Incident”. So long as we remain a company registered in Japan, we cannot avoid such issues.

> However, if one were to examine other media in the Japanese market such as manga and videos, it does seem to appear that the mosaics used in bishojo games are a bit too big. So, we carefully examined the treatment of mosaics in other media distributed within Japan and decided to revise the mosaics to a level that we believe should be socially acceptable even if it were to be leaked back into Japan. (Please take a look at the sample images provided in this post.)

> (Sample 1) (Sample 2) (Sample 3)

> One day, when the bishoujo game market expands in the west and Japan becomes but one small, local market, then perhaps minori may decide to cast away its Japanese nationality. However, so long as the present worldwide market for bishoujo games remains a very small one in comparison to the market in Japan, we must abide by our domestic laws. It would be impractical for us to abandon the Japanese market at the present time (If we were to abandon the Japanese market, minori would not be able to exist in the world. It would mean death for our company.)

> It would be wonderful if one day, bishoujo games became more worldwide and we were able to establish our base in San Francisco! (Cool in the summer, warm in the winter, nice all year round! Perfect for all the fatties here at minori!) If that day comes, then surely we would be able to produce our works according to a global ethical standard.

That's interesting, thanks for the infos. But that still won't change my attitude towards censored content ;)