pixel tits

I have a weird admiration for the Dead or Alive games. They make no apologies for what they are, and once you get over the presence of things like out-of-control breast physics (the characters in Dead or Alive 4 look like two cups of gelatin in an overclocked rock tumbler), it's a fun, accessible series of fighting games where even a beginner can do some implausibly amazing tricks straight out the gate. I even consider the live-action movie something of a guilty pleasure, even if the fight choreography is actively terrible.

(Devon Aoki is a better actress than I initially gave her credit for being, but she gets an early fight scene against a big Russian dude who might be three times her weight. The only way she would win that fight is if she brought a rifle company.)

This only extends to the fighting games. The Xtreme spin-off series is a dress-up simulator that follows the franchise's female cast on a beach paradise vacation, rich with before-its-time time-sink grinding for cash, swimsuits, and rapport with NPC characters. You can get pretty much all you're going to get out of it with ten minutes' random browsing on Deviantart. In a few ways, DOA Xtreme is ahead of its time, and feels like a precursor to modern social media/iPhone games, but that isn't to say it's fun.

A few days ago, somebody on Tecmo Koei's Facebook shot his mouth off, explicitly claiming that the reason why the third Xtreme game isn't being released outside of Japan is because of the current political environment in the West. Basically, they don't want to deal with the PR backlash.

This may very well be the actual reason. I've rarely seen a professional gaming company drop the act to that extent, let alone a Japanese gaming company, which suggests some degree of frustration behind the scenes. I wouldn't be surprised if they simply didn't want to jump into the crossfire at this point in time.

That said, if it's in any way a calculated move, I admire it. It's cold-blooded and manipulative as hell, but it's marketing gold, and it's the kind of thing that you could see taught in a class as an example of solid, ruthless marketing.

By saying that the decision to not localize the game is based around not wanting to engage with the current Western environment, Tecmo Koei has neatly flipped the script. Instead of seeming like it doesn't care about its fans, it instead places blame onto an already maligned social movement, the ill-defined, poorly labeled "social justice warriors." Not only does this make Tecmo Koei look like the underdog here, which is a neat fucking trick, but it ensures that at least a few thousand extra Americans will hate-buy the game as some kind of imagined, symbolic middle-finger towards Anita Sarkeesian. Further, as Bob Chapman points out in his latest "Game Overthinker" video, the PlayStation 4 is region-free by default and Xtreme 3 will ship with English language options, so there are no barriers whatsoever to anyone who wants to import the title.

It's impressive. They've turned a minor PR debacle into an equally minor victory in the space of one post on Facebook, and all it took was a canny understanding of how to wind up and point one of the most volatile segments of their potential audience. It's a move worthy of the most vulture of capitalists, and will serve as inspiration for bastards for the next twenty years.