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.