No More Heroes' Goichi Suda Won't Engage in Self-Censorship
"That's not really the way we do things here."
Image Credit: Grasshopper Manufacture, No More Heroes
With most AAA and AA game development studios in the market trying to appeal to as wide an audience as possible to maximize their potential consumer base, the phenomenon of self-censorship in the game industry is far from a fresh revelation and is most likely a common practice among big-league developers.
As is always the case, however, every rule has an exception. The Founder of Grasshopper Manufacture and the creative mind behind such titles as No More Heroes, Killer is Dead, and Lollipop Chainsaw Goichi Suda, a.k.a. Suda51, has stated during a recent interview that he will not compromise his and his team's artistic integrity solely for the sake of appeasing the audience and won't engage in self-censorship in order to avoid online criticism.
Speaking to VGC, Suda addressed the question of whether instances, when controversial products faced backlash from social media users, had prompted him to reconsider the explicit content and provocative language often present in his studio's games, emphasizing that his studio's primary objective isn't to intentionally court controversy. At the same time, they don't proactively steer away from delving into controversial themes with the aim of avoiding criticism altogether, with Suda saying that it is "not the way [they] do things".
"While I don't purposely set out to put lots of adult themes or risque themes into the games, at the same time I don't really try to hold back on anything either. If I think this is how a character would talk or look naturally, then that's what it's going to be like," commented the developer. "So honestly, I don't really see myself pumping the brakes a bit, or trying to hold back consciously from here on out, just because that's not really the way we do things here."
Suda has also explained that the studio is not opposed to removing content from its games, but such decisions are never made in anticipation of how the content will be received and only as "a matter of creative choice".
"Once the game starts coming into shape and the scenarios are laid out, the dialogue's written out and the characters are drawn out, once we actually start putting it into the game there are times when we'll speak with the staff and say 'okay, actually, maybe this should be changed a bit, maybe this isn't the best fit for this character or this scene'," Suda explained. "So obviously there are going to be things that get taken out and changed, and things that maybe we'll feel later on that we should dial back a bit, but I guess you could say it's purely a matter of creative choice, not a need to hold back in case people get angry or anything."
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