Yesterday a crowdfunding campaign for a game was suspended from Kickstarter despite being very close to its funding goal. That game was Super Seducer, a "realistic" Full Motion Video dating game about seducing women in a variety of locations. According to Kickstarter, the game was suspended due to "inappropriate content, including but not limited to offensive or pornographic material". The developer, which includes dating expert Richard La Ruina, is protesting this decision, calling it "political correctness taken too far".
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Super Seducer described itself as the first live action dating game on Kickstarter, with the choose-your-own-adventure style of Telltale games or Heavy Rain combined with Full Motion Video over 10 "levels". The goal is to "realistically" seduce women over a variety of locations, including stores, coffee bars, and offices. The game, which is basically finished, was seeking funding for polish and marketing, and would probably have made its €23,000 goal as it was at €21,649 went it was stopped.
According to the email, the campaign for Super Seducer was suspended due to "…one or more violations of Kickstarter's rules, which may include inappropriate content, including but not limited to offensive or pornographic material". Richard La Ruina, creator of the game and dating advice guru, released a press statement calling this decision "totally out of line" and "political correctness taken too far".
"We followed Kickstarter’s rules very carefully so we believe we have been suspended due to “inappropriate content” which is totally out of line. In the creation of the game we made sure to create something that will be positive for both men and women. Players are rewarded for the right behaviour and shown how to give women what they want - a respectful and interesting interaction."
"We have been discriminated against many times as a company that teaches men seduction skills. It’s very hard for us to buy advertising on google or Facebook, to receive positive press, or to get publishing or content deals. In the current politically correct climate, the idea of men learning to be better with women is abhorrent. On the other hand, there are many violent games that are played by children which feature images as graphic as any R-rated film. It’s a surreal double standard."
La Ruina also says that the game features "no nudity". Having reviewed everything on the Kickstarter page (er, for purely journalistic reasons) the worst the campaign features is one picture of girls in their underwear, so either Kickstarter merely reviewed the subject matter rather than the campaign itself, or there's some other reason the campaign was suspended. There is a lot of swearing for example, and we don't know how Kickstarter is with basically-finished games, and in particular this statement on the game's page:
"The game is fully-funded to completion irrespective of reaching the target goal. The Kickstarter donations work both as a pre-sale of the game and also to provide a global translation, marketing and PR budget for the title."
A game called "Super Seducer" was always either going to struggle or be looked down on, but we're not entirely sure of Kickstarter's reasons for suspending the campaign here. Regardless, the game will be finished anyway and released February 14 2018 on Steam and PS4. Personally we just want to check it out to click the dialogue option "hey, I've read that book! She dies at the end!".
