f13.net

http://blogs.sega.com/usa/2010/02/24/whats-up-with-yakuza-3/

In a surprising move (TOTALLY SURPRISING) Sega does something retarded. Japanese history I can understand. But removing the hostess bars warrants a wtf.

After all the ways they've mishandled the Yakuza series, I can't even bother being concerned with this.

Don't follow Yakuza 3, but does the removal of the hostesses warrant the responses to that blog? I will say I'm pretty disappointed in how they didn't actually explain why they were removed. Just some canned response.

Edit: Read the comments and it looks like they cut a whack load of rich content that gives context to Japanese culture. All with the reason of "Either you get this or nothing."

I was on the fence about this game and this announcement pushed me right off the fence and into "no buy". I might pick it up later from the used bin at gamestop or something but it will no longer be a day 1 purchase. I'm so sick of American publishers editing games like this either because they're lazy or think we'll faint if we see boobies. (Sadly the second is more or less true.)

I actually don't think it's either of those reasons.  It just gives the game a larger potential audience, much like when movie studios decide to cut stuff out in order release a movie as PG-13 instead of R.  Which is kind of stupid with a game like this that isn't going to have a big audience anyway.

Murder is okay but prostitution is not :awesome_for_real:  :oh_i_see:

I can understand redoing the trivia parts.  I remember that Persona 3 and 4 both replaced some of the questions asked during class.

I guess on the whole the later Persona games are a guide on how to do bring over Very Japanese games well and the Yakuza series... isn't.  Either because they way overspent on a niche game or in this case, are trying to make it not a niche game and are likely to fail horribly at doing so.

I think that a lot of the attraction with Japanese stuff to westerners has to do very precisely with cultural differences.  I think more people are opening up to the possibility that it is their misunderstanding of it that makes it weird for them, and learning to accept the cultural differences for what they are.

That said, hostess bars are not really a pillar of Japanese culture.  Yakuza culture, sure.  On the other hand, who really cares enough about this to make them remove it?  God damn Mothers of America.

Hostess bars are a part of the East Asian business culture. Asian gangs/mafias may be involved with some but that's not why business men go to them.

From what I've read, the strip clubs are still in, so it's not about the boobies.

Cutting either the hostess clubs or the Japanese trivia seems silly though, since the intended/only market for Yakuza 3 would eat that shit up.

I'm assuming the Japanese version doesn't have english subtitles, which sucks. The demo intrigued me. Is it worth it to pick up 1 or 2?

From what I've read, it doesn't.