Dead or Alive Xtreme 3, the latest in the series by developer Team Ninja and Koei Tecmo, won’t be coming to our shores after all. In a Facebook discussion, the page editor confirmed that there would be no release, stating that there’s “too many issues happening in [the] video game industry.”

It was looking so promising, wasn’t it? We had all the potential just waiting in the wings, from statements that the game could see a release if demand was high , to the English subtitles more recently. Sadly, it’s not to be the case, which will undoubtedly leave fans a bit upset. Particularly so when you hear the reason for their decision. Anyone who has been on the internet lately will know there’s something of a dramatic culture war going on right now, and tempers are high. Unsurprisingly, it’s exactly this that caused Koei Tecmo to make the announcement.

The news came from a Facebook page titled “Dead or Alive Game”, and was in the form of a response to a fan. The question posed to DoAX3’s creators was “any words of bringing the upcoming Xtreme 3 Game to US and EU regions or no?” A simple question, really, and one that you would completely understand given all the news surfacing that it could happen. The Facebook page clearly isn’t manned by someone whose first language is English, so the quotes may seem a little off, but the answer was essentially “no.” “We do not bring DOAX3 to the west and won’t have any plan change in the future,” said the page editor. There isn’t a whole lot there, and it only raised more questions. Of course, people began asking for a real reason, and some hours later, we got a reply.

“Do you know many issues happening in video game industry with regard to how to treat female in video game industry? We do not want to talk those things here. But certainly we have gone through in last year or two to come to our decision. Thank you.”

Even with the broken English and poor grammatical form, the message is pretty clear. The issue is, of course, one that has raged on for over a year, and isn’t likely to stop any time soon. That issue is women in video games. Essentially, Koei Tecmo has decided that due to outrage culture, victim culture, and all manner of other dogmas, it’s just not worth the headache. It’s hard to really fault them; you just have to look at recent events to see why. SXSW cancelled two panels due to threats of violence after they tried to provide an equal platform; Lionhead Studios was forced to apologise after swathes of angry mobs demanded they remove a National Cleavage Day image. There are many more instances of this, but that’s for another article outside the scope of this one.

The Dead or Alive Xtreme franchise has always had its niche. It’s hard to say what’s going through Koei Tecmo’s minds on this one. Japanese developers often have their own views on how things should work; living half a world away will bring different ideals. It shows that they do pay attention to the West in some capacity, however, if they’re willing to alienate an entire market because of it. It perhaps speaks volumes about recent censorship moves, like Fatal Frame or Xenoblade Chronicles X, which had even more to worry about on top of all that.

The move has, and will, give rise to a few camps. The first camp, fans of the game who are now missing out, will likely blame the climate and the progressives themselves. The progressives are likely to deflect that claim back on to Koei Tecmo, as one article states. “Progressives haven’t somehow barred Dead or Alive Xtreme 3 from entering the US/EU, but rather Koei Tecmo have decided to do so of their own accord”. That’s very true, as Koei Tecmo have made that decision. They didn’t, however, create the climate. They didn’t contribute to outrage culture; they didn’t engineer the angry mobs that are willing to ruin careers over a disagreement.

Without more input from Koei Tecmo, Team Ninja or a spokesperson for either, it’s hard to say what their true thoughts are. PR is a nightmare at the best of times, and a small response on a Facebook page isn’t likely to help. It’s also odd that the EU would be lumped into a very American climate, but that’s a cultural lesson best learned another day. There’s the notion that Koei simply felt the game wouldn’t perform well enough to justify it, but then why cite neo-reactionaries as the cause? They’ve already done half the work translating it into English as well. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like anything will change, though, as the current climate is still wrought with angry people who don’t really know what they want. All we know is they want to shout, and that they want to be the loudest when they do.

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