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

Why are so many games released on Fakku retaining their mosaics? I thought Fakku prided themselves on seeing the the images the way they were meant to be seen (aka. not having mosaics) yet it almost feels like Fakku doesn't care too much when it comes to the games catalog? I wished for better from Fakku since Jastusa and Mangagamer could do it for almost all their titles except a very limited few, and hoped fakku would be able to leverage their exposure to get other companies online and push for no mosaics.

While I'm rather disappointed by the mosaics as well, Fakku itself has only published one game so far, which is free of any such silliness. Anything that does have mosaics is other publishers' (mostly Sekai Project / Denpasoft) games that are simply being sold in the store as well.

Really wish they asked to republish the censored games without mosaics. I mean it seemed possible for Nekopara the artist herself said it's possible when she has more time, so would really love to see something happen along their lines.

I almost rather they only put uncensored games on their site and avoid all the mosaic ones since in the store you almost cannot tell which ones are censored or not unless you visit the game page outside of store. Fakku has been giving mixed signals all over the place lately with this problem.

FAKKU as a game distribution platform is a relatively new thing, so this is unfortunately to be expected. I imagine most developers make their games thinking they would never be uncensored, so they might not have any uncensored artwork. However, now that they know they have a platform that doesn't enforce any censorship, they can do things differently going forward.

One example of this is the artist isya. Their first few releases were censored because that's all they had, but they started drawing newer doujinshi uncensored knowing that they could put them up on FAKKU. I think you'll see a similar evolution for games.

Why did Fakku not consider only getting uncensored games on their platform? It would have stayed more consistent with your platforms message about no censorship. I mean most of the games you have that are censored are already widely available other places. You could have selected the ones that are uncensored while licensing new uncensored titles no?

These games were made in an environment where they often didn't have any distribution channels that allowed uncensored art, so I don't think it's fair to punish the people behind the games by denying them access to the platform. Again, this is only the first step: by showing there's a demand for these games and building relations with various developers and publishers, they can prepare uncensored releases in the future.

Although I do agree with your line of thinking here and it's why I decided to come to the forum and pose the same question about a new game release I just saw on the store, I think YQII has the right of it. By still selling these games that currently have no uncensored releases on a platform that supports uncensored content, and that people still really enjoy the games, it could help these other devs/publishers decide to create uncensored content for their games in the future. We could get patches or new re-releases of the games down the road. It's kind of like planting a seed and making an investment.

Once it's on the store and selling there's no reason for them to go back and re-edit it for since people are already buying. If fakku remained the premium hentai service for the west and they kept the only uncensored rule they might have been able to convince those publishers to uncensored to get on the platform eventually. However I don't see that happening when denpasoft/sekai, fakku, steam(with patch) both have mosaic games now. I mean why would they even bother when they already have the exposure without going through the trouble of uncensoring their games?

They are already on other platforms like denpa and steam (with patch) so how is it punishing them when they already have a platform to sell it? Rather it would make Fakku seem like a better platform and entice them to uncensor their games to get on it if Fakku builds a big consumer base due to quality uncensored stuff.

Fakku definitely needs to address the no censored tag problem on the store pages. If you go into fakku and look you can see the tags, however they don't state which games are censored in the store for checkout.

The fact that you already have other platforms shows the need for one that won't enforce censorship. If their only option so far was to censor their games, you can't blame them for only having censored assets at hands. The problem with older content is often that the unaltered artwork no longer exists, which is true for both games and manga. Preparing uncensored art for future release would in many cases not require any additional work, compared to redoing old artwork.

Again, we don't want to punish our partners retrospectively, but we'd expect something else for newer releases.

Okay thanks, I just expected Fakku to follow the steps of Mangagamer and JastUsa in trying their hardest to get uncensored art for VN's when possible. So was simply disappointed and surprised when many censored VN's were being sold on the site, probably mostly because my bad impression of Sekai/denpasoft how they lied before or simply didn't try hard to get the uncensored assets, only to add in the uncensored assets for one of their VN's months later after Mangagamer was able to get uncensored assets from that same company. Hopefully one day all new releases on Fakku will be uncensored.

I mean that game is also on denpasoft, Why all the sekai/denpa games instead of jastusa/mangagamer games more? Those 2 have way more catalog of uncensored games if you really want to compare with sekai/denpa anyway. I was really hoping when they released Sekai/Denpa games they were going to be uncensored. Like nekopara would have been a huge thing to get uncensored since so many ppl know about it, and the artist herself said she is considering it when she has time.

A lot of this also depends on the Japanese side. While many companies are fine with having western releases of their games be uncensored, some (minori being a good example on MangaGamer's side, only agreeing to somewhat reduce the censoring) are also afraid of the uncensored files making it back to Japan and possible repercussions to their company due to that. In the end, what really is affecting the export of Japanese adult games here are still Japan's ridiculous censorship laws and the country really should rethink these, seeing how getting rid of these would only benefit Japan in the end.

No uncensored version, no buy. It's easy as it is. I really want to play the upcoming Maitetsu but 40$ for stupid mosaic censorship? Hell no! It is annoying to see that Fakku adds more and more censored games just for the sake of a growing library. Please stop that!

I live by that myself. I simply don't buy anything that is censored as well. I regret backing sekai's kickstarter when they just started only to have a bunch of censored stuff with almost no chance of them becoming uncensored now. One of their games Chrono Clock was censored on Denpa when they first released it claiming original assets were lost, but after Mangagamer was able to get an uncensored game from that same company Denpa stealthly released the uncensored patch for it months later.

Hi, I'm an eroge blogger and anti-censorship advocate. Some might recognize me as the one behind the Censored English Eroge List. I became interested in FAKKU after the announcement of Maitetsu. I visited the forums and saw this topic, which is highly relevant to my mission.

I agree with FAKKU's stance here, as espoused by YQII. Censorship comes in multiple varieties. You can have mosaics, which obscure the genitals (to an extent that ranges greatly, from slight blurring to complete obfuscation). You can have content cuts, which excise text, images, or even entire themes. But also, you can have selection bias: a refusal to carry certain games due to controversial themes or other factors (which might or might not qualify as "censorship").

While I focus mostly on content cuts, which are easy to identify and decry, I'm equally concerned about selection biases that limit the variety of titles we see in English. As YQII pointed out, not all JP developers have access to the unmosaiced art assets. Others are skittish about selling controversial content that violates Japanese standards of decency. Still others are worried about reverse-importation that puts their Japanese fans at legal risk. You can disagree with the merit of these reasons, but what should be clear is that overly strict standards limit the variety of titles available to us.

The problem is even more severe when we consider that some flexibility is needed to work around credible threats to freedom of expression. There ARE groups whose goal it is to limit expression, and they've passed laws that restrict this industry in tangible and intangible ways. Unfortunately, you CAN go to jail or be fined for offending people in the US. But companies have come up with various strategies to mitigate this risk. One strategy is to excise the problematic content and separately distribute a patch (through unofficial channels) that lets users reinsert this content. JAST used this strategy, for example, with Shiny Days (Why I endorse JAST’s censorship of Shiny Days). If we forbid companies from using such workarounds, that won't necessarily result in uncut releases of such titles. It will typically result in no releases, resulting in gaps in availability of titles with controversial themes. And that too is a form of censorship.

Back to the mosaic issue, I've worked to convince companies that demosaiced releases are in their best interests. Most recently, I and others argued strenuously that Ninetail should demosaic Venus Blood Frontier to appeal to the widest audience for its upcoming Kickstarter campaign. And the result: they listened. I'd rather see users vote with their voice and wallets on a case-by-case basis with individual titles and/or developers, as demanding strict stances by publishers limits their ability to strike compromises that promote overall freedom of expression.

What a shitty move from Denpa ...

Good to know, thanks. Next time I consider twice before I buy something from Denpa.

In regards to the thread as a whole, we always ask for uncensored versions of games, however, sometimes the artists who create the CGs do not draw details on the 18+ parts. So they don't want the mosaics removed as it'll show the non-detailed work, which is not a true representation of their talent. Sometimes the artists will be willing to re-draw the scenes to add the details but are unable to do so due to time constraints, overlapping projects (especially if it's an older title), or money issues. Other times, the project's source files (layered file) get lost over time, causing for de-censorship to become extremely difficult.

It's rare to find a company who intentionally wants to censor something or not try to un-mosaic something (not saying that they don't exist but it's rare). If they do, it's typically due to a restriction by the original creator (for the reasons described above), or a limitation due to lost assets, or it can sometimes even be a restriction from card processors or other local legal restrictions.

In regards to the Sekai / Denpa specific comment. As you stated before, the claim they made that the original assets were lost is true. It's not unheard of for original assets to go missing and found later. Sekai / Denpa release some pretty great games, lots of which are here on FAKKU. Sometimes it's hard for localization companies to convey the real issues going on with some of these topics, mostly it's due to showing respect toward other companies or the original creators. The localization companies will most the time shoulder the burden of the issues to ensure the other companies involved don't look bad.

Just know that in this business, no one is intentionally trying to prevent the customers from getting their content in its full glory. Sometimes things just happen that are out of their control.

Fakku has released a ton of books and doujinshis and strangely the issues you have described are not-existent here. I can't believe that the most mangas are re-drawn especially for Fakku. Why should this be such a big issue on games? And no matter what the circumstances are, I stay at my attitude: no uncensored version, no buy. I don't pay for mosaics or other forms of censorship, even if it's the best game, manga or anime of all time.