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Google removes "Doki Doki Literature Club" from Google Play
- cynicalsecurity 6mo agoSoviet Union collapsed, bit its cause lives on, now unexpectedly in the West.
- oceansky 6mo agoWell, at least we can "sideload" this easily with minimum attrition, right?
- zb3 6mo agoIf you wait 18 years before being able to install apps outside Google Play you get a nice bonus of automatically becoming age verified in a private manner. So don't complain, it's for your own good.
- kcb 6mo agoIn a few months Google will automatically deploy new software on our devices. This will be for our benefit and to help protect us. If you still want to sideload dangerous unnaproved applications, first just ask Google for permission and then a day later they'll let you sideload applications to your device. I'm so grateful that they are allowing us to do this and protecting us.
- gumby271 6mo ago[dead]
- jhbadger 6mo agoDDLC is a disturbing (good, but disturbing) game that opens as a bright cheerful one. So long as the description explained what the user is in for later on, I think Google shouldn't have done this. I haven't seen the Android version; I played it on PC, but as it is basically a "visual novel" I doubt there was very much difference between them.
- throwaway290 6mo agothat's valuable info. wikipedia actually makes the game sounds interesting unlike a typical dating sim. WARNING possible spoilers, don't read if you plan to play, but just know it's not just a dating sim. > while it appears to be a light-hearted dating simulator, it is a metafictional psychological horror game that extensively breaks the fourth wall. > Reviewers pointed out that the game's horror was built on the destruction of a sense of control over what happens in the game and the feeling of helplessness that stems from the distortions in the game's world
- mghackerlady 6mo agoIt's totally free, give it a try if you're interested! It's also been ported to a variety of platforms unofficially (Wii and 3DS ottomh)
- nottorp 6mo agoIt's worth the experience to play that game once. And I guess it's not worth porting games for adults to walled gardens. Note that i said games for adults, not adult content. If you're expecting porn, move along.
- YawningAngel 6mo agoI played this game recently and you have to click through several screens telling you that it's disturbing to open and play it
- subscribed 6mo agoNice! That sounds very interesting actually.
- esperent 6mo agoI downloaded the Android version yesterday to see what everyone is on about. It's absolutely stuffed with trigger warnings. I had to click through about 4 screens saying that yes, I'm definitely ok with seeing disturbing content, and there's even a setting that will warn you before each individual disturbing screen. I played 30 minutes and realized my personal trigger is sickeningly "cute" anime girls, and there's no warnings for that. Maybe I'll keep going and try to treat it as an artistic experience but I'm definitely not enjoying it so far and I'm just in the introduction.
- throwaway85825 6mo agoWalled gardens are antithetical to personal computing. Google is killing ChromeOS in favor of Android.
- anonymous908213 6mo ago1bil+ people have surrendered their right to artistic expression to Google, and another 1bil+ to Apple, and another 1bil+ to Microsoft. Many more billions have surrendered it to Visa and Mastercard. The world will only continue to get worse for the foreseeable future as five corporations assert global control over what is allowed to be published. It is mournful knowing that humanity's peak is behind us.
- oceansky 6mo agoBrazil and India have created alternatives to Mastercard/Visa duopoly. EU is seeking to do the same.
- gambiting 6mo agoMany countries have alternatives already. In Poland Blik is ubiquitous and very very easy to use. And I love how it's implemented, Visa and MasterCard could learn from it. Tldr - you open the app on your phone and it gives you a 6 digit BLIK code, you give that code to the seller, then a notification comes up on the app saying "seller X is trying to debit your account by amount Y, agree?". It's brilliant because then the seller gets nothing identifiable about you. Even if someone overhears the code, it's only valid 60 second so it's useless. Unlike with regular cards there is no risk of losing one or using a fake terminal that scans your card instead. And any transaction has to be explicitly rather than implicitly approved. Love it.
- floam 6mo ago6 digits effectively the time salted … the other digits are your lat long lol.
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- lxgr 6mo agoThis is indeed one of the biggest weaknesses of "pull-based" payment cards, and something most if not all natively phone-based methods do better. The best credit and debit cards can do is PIN verification or biometrics (for Apple/Google Pay), but even there you still trust the terminal to not show you a different amount than you'll be charged (assuming the screen is even pointing towards you; I've often been asked to tap without seeing what I'm even consenting to). Online, there's 3DS, but that's not required everywhere and for every transaction. There once was a vision to extend both positive cardholder approval and cardholder authentication for each card transaction, but it turns out the friction of that is higher on average than just letting everything but the most egregiously suspicious fraud go through by default and handle the rest via the disputes process. Out of curiosity: > you open the app on your phone and it gives you a 6 digit BLIK code, you give that code to the seller Is this the flow for online payments as well, or only for in-person payments?
- bengotow 6mo agoJust want to drive by and mention - a friend told me to play DDLC and I was highly skeptical given the anime pin-up girl art style. I eventually gave in and gave it a shot. It's an amazing "playable story" unlike anything I have ever played. Super creative and well worth the couple hours it takes to play. I think it could use a few trigger warnings and it should be rated PG-13 / R, but there's stuff on Netflix 10x more disturbing so I don't quite grok the Google push back on this one.
- oceansky 6mo agoThis genre of games are called visual novels. Doki Doki was created with the Ren'Py Visual Novel Engine by the way.
- ryukoposting 6mo agoAnd it's also one of the most impressive displays of RenPy's capabilities you'll ever see. Plenty of games do amazing things with ren'py that you wouldn't think were possible just by looking at the dialogue DSL. Maps, HUDs, minigames, incredibly dynamic pathways through the game. But DDLC takes it to a different level, partly by looking so "normal" on its surface. In college I made some spare cash writing Ren'py games for some creatives online who had the writing and illustration chops, but needed programming help. At the time, DDLC was the model for great game design in Ren'Py. There are plenty of more technically impressive Ren'py games nowadays, but DDLC is still a terrific example of technical sophistication facilitating the story. Ren'py is awesome by the way. A tour de force of software design, in my opinion.
- crashabr 6mo agoAny examples of other impressive Ren'py showcases?
- ryukoposting 6mo agoI personally helped develop a game with an entire inventory/crafting system, and an isometric map. Final product never saw the light of day, sadly. People have made some pretty slick turn-based combat systems. Some deck builders, others more spellcasting/mana oriented. And it's renpy so like 80% of the games are straight up porn, so I'm not naming a single one here lol.
- CivBase 6mo agoThis is why we need developer verification - so Google can protect us from threats like this /s
- zb3 6mo agoGoogle and Apple know better than you what you want to play and what you want to do on your phone. Visa and Mastercard know better than you what you want to buy. Don't disagree with them, because they're only doing this for your own good.
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- j-bos 6mo agoI guess they don't like Monika.
- kulahan 6mo agoJust Monika?
- wavemode 6mo agoSurprising, even by Google's standards. DDLC is a violent game but not much more. What app store rule exactly is it breaking?
- the_pwner224 6mo ago"Violent"? Do you consider news reporting to be violent too? This isn't remotely in the league of all the shooter games you can find on the store.
- stratos123 6mo agoGore in shooters is culturally treated as much less "violent" than e.g. graphic scenes of suicide. You could make an argument that it shouldn't be, but it is.
- hackable_sand 6mo agoMost shooters are an abstraction, i.e. you're not really shooting anyone. You are, but you're not. Most of them are in the same league of violence that an aggressive debate would be in.
- bawolff 6mo agoWhich is really sad. Video games with dehumanized violence: a-ok. Video games that show you the actual consequences of violence, well that is a bridge too far. Perhaps soiety would be better if it was reversed.
- xboxnolifes 6mo agoWhen journalism shows death or gore, they do often call it violent imagery. So... yes? Violent imagery is imagery of violence. The news report is not itself violence, but it contains violence.
- kcb 6mo agoThere are countless games on the store that let you kill endless hordes of humans in detail...
- bawolff 6mo agoSad day for freedom of expression. [Spoilers] For those who haven't played, DDLC has subject matter related to self-harm, mental health, suicide that sort of thing. It generally treats the subjects seriously. It has content warnings on it, so people know what they are getting into. Its weird how we seem much more hung up on censoring video games we are than books or movies. There is way more disturbing books and movies out there. If this was a book i doubt anyone would care. There probably wouldn't even be content warnings on it. On the other hand, maybe someone trying to ban you is how you know you have achieved the status of "great literature" like all the other banned books.
- bunnie 6mo agoAnecdotally, from when I did first amendment activism, my lawyers would always recommend that I stick to doing it with dead tree editions as much as possible. Literal book banning and/or burning has direct judicial precedent that is hard to contest, enforced by lots of precedent. The problem with moving out of the dead tree medium is that suddenly a whole host of alternative, untested legal theories can be thrown at you. Even if they are preposterous or 'obviously wrong' to the lay person, these alternative theories increase the cost of litigation, and limits the quick remedies you can seek, because the judge has to consider now if your situation is different from precedent. If your adversary is well funded they can just keep on throwing up 'but what about...' theories to the court for years and years, effectively achieving censorship without setting any meaningful legal precedent. Then they can reuse this strategy again and again, and anytime a litigant gets close to winning they settle out of court, avoiding clear legal precedent and thus preserving this 'legal purgatory' path (settlements do not create legal precedent). Basically, they learned from experience with books how to avoid other media getting the same level of effective legal protection. It's a clever exploit on the legal system, but not great for actual justice.
- raxxorraxor 6mo agoI think history generally lacks to really identify the perpetrators of censorship. In this case something triggered the ban and I think people responsible need to justify themselves for that in any free society. Medicine are usually ridicule and it is fairly needed in the climate of modern society.
- luxuryballs 6mo agofun game, I don’t want to spoil it but it’s got some elements that you will def appreciate more as a software dev once you get that far in
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- shevy-java 6mo agoThis is why a monopoly is bad. Google can dictate who has access or retains access.
- krapp 6mo agoGoogle can dictate who has or retains access to their market, but that doesn't make them a monopoly, since other markets exist. This game is still available on Steam and probably elsewhere.
- j2kun 6mo agoSelf-harm (especially when depicting minors) has special standards. The recent court ruling on child safety against Meta probably led directly to this decision.
- bawolff 6mo agoI don't think it particularly does in other media. Plenty of books have that as a theme. On netflix, 13 reasons why was one of their big hits.
- j2kun 6mo agohttps://www.npr.org/2019/07/16/742386829/netflix-edits-out-controversial-suicide-scene-from-13-reasons-why-season-1 https://www.npr.org/2019/07/16/742386829/netflix-edits-out-c... And that was in 2019. Explicit depictions are the target in most of these controversies.
- dangus 6mo agoAside from the comments on the rest of this thread, I’ll point out this unique point: If this game’s content is objectionable, where was Google 5 months ago when it was released? Are they admitting that they don’t review apps that are submitted? Do their reviewers have zero familiarity with major multi-platform game releases? How are they justifying the availability of the Grand Theft Auto or Resident Evil series on the Android platform if this game can’t be published? Hopefully this turns out to be some kind of error or misunderstanding that gets corrected.
- numpad0 6mo agoI suspect someone got upset after indulging in the game mistaking it to be a rare undeleted porn gem remaining on major platforms. There was a(likely co-incidentally) weird, sternly worded warning letter issued by Jordanian government specifically about this game few weeks back. My reading of that event is that likelihood of wrong people falling into the trap the wrong way is not zero.
- cyberrock 6mo agoIt's obvious that the game was yanked as a reaction to the current moral panic regarding technology and mental health in minors, not for the violence or gore. This is just how moral panics are. We can say we just wanted social media to be 16+, but after the lawsuits roll in, no one is going to take a nuanced stance. Steam and EGS didn't stand up for Horses either, even after those devs changed the objectionable content, because earlier headlines made the work toxic in the current world.
- DoneWithAllThat 6mo agoAs someone pointed out why do we even bother with age ratings if we’re just going to ban games entirely for having wrongthink?
- krapp 6mo agoBecause there are always moral panics, always some "thing" that's corrupting the youth, be it television, rock-and-roll, D&D, video games or now social media, and people keep thinking giving in to the moralists will protect the children. But the moralists are never satisfied, and their war on free expression, art and culture never ends.
- groundzeros2015 6mo agoYou’ve got the 80s and 90s covered. But you’re missing the more recent post-2016 moral panics, like being able to listen to an episode of Alex jones, which spurred the current issue in tech especially YouTube.
- farfatched 6mo agoIt's available on Itch: https://teamsalvato.itch.io/ddlc https://teamsalvato.itch.io/ddlc (I've never played it.)
- kulahan 6mo agoGOG as well. https://www.gog.com/dreamlist/game/doki-doki-literature-club-plus-premium-edition-2022 https://www.gog.com/dreamlist/game/doki-doki-literature-club... (I have played it, and I enjoyed it somewhat)
- farfatched 6mo agoThat page shows it's not on GOG, but someone has added it to the dreamlist.
- kulahan 6mo agooh, that's... weird
- kulahan 6mo agoEDIT: it's not on GOG, they just have google-searchable pages for games they don't have but might at one point have if someone wants it?
- zurn 6mo agoThe Android version doesn't seem to be.
- PunchyHamster 6mo agoSeems Google needs Mastercard/Visa treatment. Provide the content, content provider
- MarsIronPI 6mo agoSeems like we should not be centralizing control like this. Take control of your computing, user.
- numpad0 6mo agoIt's a relatively old game, so I'll put up here a spoiler so to remove potential confusion: DDLC is a __horror__ game that contains some gore, death, and self harm content, as well as small fourth wall breaking, disguised as a Japanese Visual Novel style soft/hard porn game. The entire game is a figurative jumpscare. Which makes it technically true to call it a "disturbing and shocking" game, but not as in """disturbing and shocking""" as in the euphemism for pornographic. It is technically correctly rated and marked as such. It just doesn't say viewer discretion of what kind is recommended. And also: a lot of these Japanese pastel colored things, Visual Novel games included, are in fact not intended for kids, especially under 15. It's not like picture books for 6-12 year olds. Audience gender distribution is often closer to 50:50 than what many assumes.
- phendrenad2 6mo agoI'm intentionally not reading your post, but the "it's old so I can spoil it" is never an acceptable stance in a world where they keep making more people. The world doesn't begin and end with your experience.
- protocolture 6mo agoPeople are allowed to discuss things they have experienced. If those people make a special allowance for others to catch up and experience something recently released, all the better.
- catcowcostume 6mo agoNot spoiling something to others is a courtesy, not an obligation. People live by their own rules.
- __s 6mo agosnape kills dumbledore
- mrexroad 6mo agosigh. this exact type of post spoiled this plot development for my kid when they were getting into reading and were only a few books in. not everyone has been around as long as you and I.
- torginus 6mo agoI think the issue is that Google deliberately decided to market its closed down app store as a necessity to regulators, in order to 'keep users safe'. Which invites censorship from morality police types.
- inopinatus 6mo agoLet's not mince words. Whoever made this call is a lily-livered, paternalistic chickenshit startled by their own shadow. A nasty case of moral cowardice, coupled to poor judgement, to no-one's benefit.
- eucyclos 6mo ago(spoiler) The conspiracy seeking part of my brain is fascinated by the fact a company whose decisions are increasingly ai made or moderated doesn't want people to play a game that requires deleting a psychotic stalker off your hard drive...
- stavros 6mo agoFor those of us who didn't know the game but want to try it due to the Streisand effect, is there an official APK download? Since it's free on Steam, I thought the official website might list an APK, but I haven't found anything other than the Play link.
- throwatdem12311 6mo agoWhy not just play it from Steam? System requirements list both Windows and MacOS and the requirment as are puny it should run on any potato.
- stavros 6mo agoMy phone is more convenient than my PC for games.
- throwatdem12311 6mo agoIt only takes a few hours to get through the whole thing and I don’t want to spoil anything but playing on a PC was pretty vital to the experience for me. I don’t know how they’d recreate it on a mobile device. Now that I’m mentioning it I might just play the iPhone version to see…
- stavros 6mo agoHm, I see. I believe you, it's just that when I'm at the PC I always have something better to do, so I might have to choose between playing it on a phone or not at all. Was it, like, impossible to recreate the experience, or just more inconvenient for me? Did it need some special keyboard controls or similar?
- jldugger 6mo agoIIRC, not controls but the second act onward features "4th wall" breaks and glitches.
- lobito25 6mo agoWhy doesn't DDLC release a webapp bypassing app stores?
- jquery 6mo agoPlay the game to completion and you’ll understand why that’s not ideal. It is doable but I recommend the PC experience first.
- knaik94 6mo agoThis game was released via a physical release on the Nintendo Switch. It's very clearly intended for teens+.
- hmry 6mo agoThe switch release is rated PEGI 18, ESRB M 17+
- ropable 6mo agoDoki Doki Literature Club is a game that I played, and then replayed, purely on the basis of recommendations by trusted reviewers. The genre (visual novel) and theme (anime pin-up schoolgirl) are ones that I have no interest in. I was extremely glad that I did play it, though; it was a profoundly thought-provoking experience. It was extremely disturbing in the best possible way. Definitely not for kids, though, and it's worth taking the content/trigger warnings seriously.
- charcircuit 6mo agoIf you want to play bishoujoge, just play the PC version so you don't have to deal with things being censored. The Play Store and App Store do not allow R18 images so the games have to be censored.
- jldugger 6mo ago> If you want to play bishoujoge This is almost certainly not banned for pornographic reasons.
- charcircuit 6mo agoIt's just one more reason to avoid the platform in favor of PC or a cloud PC to avoid the censorship of game consoles and phone platforms.
- jquery 6mo agoWouldn’t be the first time people assumed it was porn just from the cover. Chaos;Head/Noah was mistakenly banned from Steam for this reason until there was an outcry.
- bawolff 6mo agoTo be clear, the most sexual thing that happens in this game is that two characters almost kiss, but are interupted by a third character before it happens. The romance in this game is about as explicit as a disney movie. The controversy is entirely because it deals with themes of mental health and suicide.
- throwatdem12311 6mo agoThe game is free and should run on any potato PC or even Mac (w/ Rosetta on Apple Silicon). Google can suck on a lemon.
- redrix 6mo agoDDLC is one of those once in a lifetime gaming experiences. Like most people commenting - I had no interest in the style or genre, but I am immensely glad I played it! I distinctly remember sitting there in silence with my mouth open at a number of points during the game. I went down the ~~MONIKA~_ route, though I was intrigued by %]~JUST_MONIKA%]€_ - She seemed like an interesting character.
- red-iron-pine 6mo agoJust Monika. Ok
- Adachi91 6mo agoThis is a great game especially on PC. I don't know if the hidden files are available on mobile, but it was a great dive into hiding data in plain sight, with the game files, from decoding binary hidden in images, to spectrograph QR codes hidden in audio. Friend recommended the game to me and I'll never forgive them, only Monika.
- opan 6mo agovivid/stasis (gratis VN/rhythm game on Steam) has some cool ARG stuff like this as well. I'd highly recommend it.
- fnord77 6mo ago[flagged]
- jquery 6mo agoI’m glad I had to scroll down this far to find such a breathtakingly ignorant take. DDLC has zero fan service. It’s a story that happens to deal with subjects often encountered by adolescents. There’s no good reason for this except general Western bias against Japanese moe
- dev1ycan 6mo agoI really despise these christo fascist led tech companies that think they can dictate what we are able to see/play, etc. Meanwhile the people that lead them go to certain islands.
- ro_bit 6mo agoWhich fringe puritanical lobbbyist group is going to step up and take credit for this one (reference https://www.engadget.com/gaming/steam-now-bans-games-that-violate-the-rules-and-standards-of-payment-processors-and-banks-164222173.html https://www.engadget.com/gaming/steam-now-bans-games-that-vi...)
- wincy 6mo agoBinding of Isaac is a game that takes hundreds of hours to beat, and worked well on iPad. It cost $15. It was removed and so Edmund McMillen the creator resolved to never publish on Apple platforms again. Disappointing for me because his new game is Windows only, but I can’t blame him. I could have sworn there was a discussion about this years ago but I went looking for it on HN and just found a comment I made years ago, funny how that shakes out.
- catlikesshrimp 6mo agoThere is a windows emulator called gamehub which can run this game on Android. Android is still leas restrictive than ios
- EagnaIonat 6mo ago> Edmund McMillen the creator resolved to never publish on Apple platforms again It was only temporarily banned. It's currently still on the App store since 2017.
- opan 6mo agoFWIW I witnessed a friend of mine playing Mewgenics via Proton on his Arch desktop. Seemed to work fine. So, only Windows-only to the usual degree, it doesn't seem to have any sort of problematic DRM or anti-cheat to worry about.
- tapland 6mo agoBinding of Isaac runs great via steam/Proton haven't even thought about if its native Linux or not.
- nathanmills 6mo agoNeither Windows nor Linux is owned by Apple
- kelnos 6mo agoI'm so tired of the paternalism from Google and Apple. And of course we have little choice, since we've surrendered to monopolists and walled gardens. It's disgusting, really, that most of the world is totally fine with this. Most people probably don't even realize how bad this is.
- trendbuilder 6mo ago[flagged]
- Telaneo 6mo agoMy first reaction to this was that someone made a mistake somewhere. They saw the game title and the front page, assumed it was a porn game due to it's rating or whatever, or made some other assumption that doesn't hold up to even cursory research, which would confirm the game's had two releases, the former of which has 100k+ reviews on Steam, and the second of which was even physical on consoles. But no. The post mentions it was pulled due to a TOS violation with regards to its depiction of 'sensitive themes'. That would seem to suggest the problem lies with the game depicting suicide or just its other depictions of mental health problems in general. It could still be a mistake, in that they researched it to the point that they figured out it was dealing with those themes, but not to the point of figuring out it's a successful darling of a game. This seems rather unlikely. Either way, fact that it's even possible to pull from the store, several months after it was first published without issue, without at least having a chat with the publisher first, is worrying.
- linzhangrun 6mo ago[flagged]
- PurpleRamen 6mo agoThe game was only 5 months ago released on Android. And no, this is absolutely niche, most people who are gaming on mobile have probably never even heard of this game.
- ohlookcake 6mo agoI've never played this, but this move has made me curious. Is there a way I can still play this on Android? An apk or fdroid or a mobile web version?
- nickdothutton 6mo agoNever heard of this game so had to look it up. Well, that was quite. rabbit hole!
- animuchan 6mo agoGood thing casino apps remain up — otherwise the teenager in me would become bored with such a smartphone.
- kotaKat 6mo agoDon't forget the nearly naked Kardashian skins in Fortnite. Gotta allow those so Timmy Tencent can get his cut off preying on 13 year old boys.
- rldjbpin 6mo agoweird situation regardless. this came out like a decade ago, and while there is a serious undertone, this has been widely discussed during the original virality period. funnily enough one of the largest Youtubers made a gameplay video of the desktop game [1]. don't believe anything was modified when the port was made. hope this gets resolved just like the recent wireshark fiasco. [1] https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYH8WvNV1YEnYtfmH-sGRRfCcVhwA7TDD https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYH8WvNV1YEnYtfmH-sGR...
- butz 6mo agoSo, there is no need for any age verification anymore, after Google removes all "bad" content, right?
- butterNaN 6mo agoI'd say they can move to fdroid but Google is killing that bit of freedom also