Please completely remove the censored songs!

You’re missing the entire point. No one is saying it’s against the law.

It is if its based on an age restricted game. If someone has removed those stupid words because of the age restriction in a game that is based on what they thought was the law. Can you put someone being stabbed through the head in a children’s game? No? Well this is just a diluted version of that. But the words in these songs don’t qualify.

mom: look son, see the houses they are so tiny

kid: we are so high mommy!

audible gasp!

mom: what have they put into this cabin air!

OK responding to what I said previously about the age base of the game. OK it may be 8-18yr olds mainly, but seriously removing ‘flying high’ and other words that have many meanings is silly. Just because it could be interpreted as getting high, doesn’t mean it is. Its well overboard and I’m sure FH4 wouldn’t have got an E rating at launch if this was an issue. I’d like to know what prompted them to do this?

If they thought this may become an issue then they should have chosen their songs carefully at launch, not change them now once we know and love them.
Integrate groove support again and/or add age verification to unlock features (make uncensored access depending on parental settings of Xbox).

They better not add this to the wishlist and close the thread. Its a priority and should be addressed asap.

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Ever hear of litigation?

Kid gets high and does some reckless stuff, maybe gets injured. Blames the song for its “many meanings” lyrics. But since HE interpreted it as getting high, now they have a case again PG and T10!

It’s not about how you, or anybody else here, will interpret the lyrics. It’s about how a kid will, there’s a term for it that I can’t think of right now, but they cant leave themselves open to a lawsuit when they can just censor a song instead.

If you love the song, go listen to it, maybe buy it and support the artist.

This is not a priority. As much as you want to think it is, it’s not. It’s a song. And they kind of already have addressed it. By locking every other thread about this topic. That should tell you something

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That’s one heck of a slope you’re sliding down. It’s unfortunate that we live in a world where litigation has become so ridiculous that such obviously terrible reasoning can’t just be dismissed out-of-hand. In a sensible world, it would be quickly judged that songs don’t make people do things and idiots receive fines for wasting the court’s time.

Welcome to US laws and regulating organizations. They suck I know, but from a business standpoint it’s necessary.

None of that is true at all, that’s just made up nonsense.

You guys actually listen to the music?

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They should’ve curated a list of ‘The Wiggles’ music, e.g. Big Red Car:

I don’t think they should censor at all. I’m guessing Forza Horizon 5 won’t be about a party at all and instead will be a studio audience listening to Sesame Street and Muppet songs. The whole premise of the game is marketed to adults. It’s 95% adults who play it. I noticed the censoring and it has become annoying. Kids listen to RAP which is much worse. If a parent has a problem with a game then the parent should take away the game from the child. The rest of us like our songs the way they came thank you. Whoever thought to censor songs on a video game needs to be fired. So ignorant.

It’s got nothing to do with the law. The ESRB is not a government agency. The ESRB (and PEGI in Europe) is the games industry’s mechanism to regulate itself so that the government doesn’t step in and do it for them. Unfortunate, outdated and overdue for some review and adjustment, but necessary.

The devs wanted to target an E rating, so that kids could play without their parents getting antsy, and the songs, whether you agree with the assessment or not, were not in line with the ESRB rules for that rating. Mentions of sex, violence, drug use, religion, or song lyrics that can be… very… loosely interpreted to allude to such, were found to be a problem maintaining that rating.

That being said; yes, it’s dumb.

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This guy gets it. However, for future Horizon games I really hope Playground becomes more self aware that a game about a Coachella-esque music festival where you can race in illegal street events maybe doesn’t needed to be rated for literal babies? I respect their choice in the matter but it feels pretty pointless to highlight a music festival that censors songs to ribbons.

All you are saying there is that the rules of the ESRB are the law, so it’s still the law. These are things that have to be ignored by sensible people, and not followed.

Do you ever listen to yourself? You’re saying a law have to be ignored by sensible people.

Sensible people tend to follow the law.

And what you’re proposing as law is actually a guideline, not a law. A guideline by a group to hopefully prevent a law being created. To be a law, a bill has to be proposed, this bill must be passed, and then signed in to law.

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Yes I’m saying that the law has to be ignored by sensible people if the law starts turning bad. That’s sensible. It’s like Rosa Parks who wanted to sit on the bus all over again.

I am not under age (a long way from it) and can tell you I do not tolerate the type of music that has been edited

I really wish this type of music was not included in the game to begin with.

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When you submit software for assessment by the ESRB, PEGI, CERO and so on, you sign an agreement that your software will be complaint with the terms of the age rating for which you applied.

These organizations won’t themselves verify every single part of the software, they will just look at sample content. The work to ensure compliance is done by the development team, publisher and external QA.

If you end up with the software failing to comply with the terms, you basically end up having to patch or recall it. It doesn’t matter how silly the violations are.

The real problem is that Microsoft decided to apply for ESRB E and PEGI 3 ratings, instead of the earlier ESRB E10+ and PEGI 12 ratings. Given how deep the online integration is makes it even stranger, because neither the ESRB nor PEGI provide any age ratings for the online part of a game, implicitly leaving that rated mature. It’s entirely left up to the parents’ or guardians’ discretion in using the platform’s parental control and monitoring their kids’ online experiences.

Rating it E and 3 was just asking for the age rating organizations to go berserk on the game as soon as they discovered any violations. And they have to be asinine in order to please those who would rather ban games altogether.

I see these sorts of rules as mental health issues, and I refuse to degrade my sanity to obey those with mental health issues. If a woman blames her child’s habits on a song saying ‘flying high’ that’s definitely a mental health issue. However if I blame a company for removing those words as a way to force society towards obeying mental health issues then I have an actually case. My actual case over-rules an imaginary case.

What are you going on about? You don’t have a case lmao this was just gibberish.

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