Developer AdHoc Studio has issued a statement insisting it was not “trying to hide” a disclaimer about censored content on Switch, but did admit it had inadvertently put the notice in “the absolute worst spot” on the Nintendo eShop.
Earlier this week, Dispatch released on Switch consoles. However, many were disappointed to learn explicit content censorship would be implemented as standard. As we reported at the time, this meant black boxes would conceal explcit graphics, and sex noises would be toned down.
AdHoc said this would not impact Dispatch’s gameplay or narrative, stating these “core” experiences remain “identical to the original release”. Nintendo’s own statement said: “Nintendo requires all games on its platforms to receive ratings from independent organisations and to meet our established content and platform guidelines”.
Now, acknowledging it has been “quiet for the last few days not because we don’t want to address this stuff, but because we’ve been trying to make sure we’re being good partners with Nintendo”, the studio has issued a statement.
“As Nintendo states, any game that’s going to be on the Nintendo platform needs to ‘meet [Nintendo’s] established content and platform guidelines’. This is the key point. Nintendo has content guidelines. Our game didn’t meet those guidelines, so we made changes that would allow us to release on their platform. That’s what happened here. Honestly we thought this would be obvious since we’re the devs that released the fully uncensored version of the game on other platforms,” AdHoc wrote.
“We initially assumed, like some of you, that because games like Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk are on the platform with similar types of uncensored mature content, Dispatch would be allowed to do the same. During the porting process it became clear that was not the case. So we asked that we include a disclaimer on the store page to inform customers that content would be different than on other platforms. We worked with Nintendo to get storefront language approved.”
The statement adds that AdHoc “absolutely need[s] to take full ownership” of the placement of that disclaimer, and while it “didn’t have complete control of the language” the disclaimer contained, it did have control of its placement.
“It was our intent to go out of our way to tell people looking to buy the game that the content was censored. Wires got crossed and we put the disclaimer in the field literally titled ‘Disclaimer’, instead of the ‘About The Game’ section. We didn’t catch this until after the launch when we saw people saying we should have called out the changes on the store page, and we went to go make sure it was there. It technically has been the entire time, just in the absolute worst spot that makes it look like we were trying to hide it.”
The team takes ownership of this, writing: “This is 100 percent our mistake and it was fixed in the Americas store pages a few hours after launch to give more visibility. We’ve also added a disclaimer before purchase. As of writing this, the other regions have either published this change or are in the process of review.”
Looking ahead, AdHoc says it is “already working with Nintendo on a path forward”, and while “can’t make any specific promises just yet”, it is “confident we’ll be able to push an update to address at least some of the censored content”, albeit in several weeks’ time due to the console submission process.
“To our fans who were looking forward to playing the uncensored version on Switch, we’re truly sorry. People have a right to be pissed,” the statement concluded. “Lots of lessons learned here. Thanks for sticking with us. More soon.”
Dispatch is already hugely successful, having sold over 1m copies in just 10 days. Thanks to this success, the studio is now considering a second season, possibly with even more sex scenes given the “ravenous” response to the first season.
