***Update 5 – 2016-03-13 – 00:45 CET***

It´s been about two weeks since I update this post the last time. And during that time the flames have grown higher and higher around the Treehouse studio (that´s why I decided to update this post yet again). In the matter of fact, there is even a #FireAlisonRapp hashtag on Twitter now. And there are rumors going around that Nintendo has started to clean up the mess at Treehouse as we speak (the rumor started when it became publicly known that Nintendo is searching for a new localization talent for Nintendo of America). Even so. It still remains to be seen what kind of an effect this will have on Treehouse and their upcoming localization jobs, and speaking of localizations. I don´t know if you’re familiar with the #TorrentialDownpour hashtag (or its intentions and goals), but Mr. Immahnoob has made a really good picture gallery (with explanations) for #TorrentialDownpour.

So if you want to know more about #TorrentialDownpour, then I would recommend you to check out Immahnoob´s page as soon as possible. Other than that, I hope to get some more information about how I can support the cause of #TorrentialDownpour in the best way possible (I sent away an e-mail to DDD-kun about this). Nevertheless, I think Immahnoob´s pictures will work as a good guideline for me (and you) for now. I also hope that our “A message to Japanese game developers from a US game developer” article, will get the Japanese game developers, Gamers and publishers to understand and see what´s going on the Western Gaming culture (censorship, bad localizations and so on). And “hopefully” that will result in having better Western localization game studios, because I (and many others) sure don´t want to see any future Western localization nightmares of the same caliber as Treehouse´s “Fire Emblem: Fates” localization mess.

Credit:
Zeroroute
Immahnoob

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***Update 4 – 2016-03-01 – 00:30 CET***

The moment when the press brings up Alison Rapp´s stand on pedophila and childpornography 

I think it´s safe to say that the pressure is on for Nintendo at the moment, and I´m not even exaggerating either. Because since I did my update on this post on the 26th of February, the Alison Rapp (Product Marketing Specialist at Treehouse) PR-nightmare has skyrocketed through the roof. And here´s the thing, as you might remember. I did indeed tell Nintendo of America and Japan upfront via Twitter that they needed to look into the case with Treehouse asap, as it would be a big mistake to neglect Alison Rapp (Product Marketing Specialist at Treehouse) and Nich Maragos (Nintendo localizer at Treehouse) past statements and scandals. Well, it seems like Nintendo didn´t follow my advice.

Instead the news about Alison Rapp, her previous pedophilia statements and her controversial academic paper discussing laws banning depictions of underage sex (“Speech We Hate: An Argument for the Cessation of International Pressure on Japan to Strengthen Its Anti-Child Pornography Laws.“) has been spread all over the world. And it was Mirror´s Jasper Hamill “Nintendo urged to FIRE feminist employee at centre of furious child pornography censorship row” article that set the sea in motion:

And I have you know that it´s not “just” Gamers that´s really angry at Nintendo, Treehouse and Alison Rapp at the moment. No, it´s also a lot of concerned parents who have started to pressure Nintendo to fire Rapp on the spot. So right at this very moment, angry parents are bombarding Nintendo via social media with comments such as:

“let them know we love our children more than to support someone like Alison Rapp”.

Not to mention the fact that people such as Jamie Walton (president and co-founder of the anti-sex trafficking Foundation “The Wayne”) have stated the following about Rapp:

“Better fire Alison Rapp before Monday or there is going to be reckoning.”

Blame everything on #GamerGate, yes, that should work like a charm

You know, even though I´ve been covering the Treehouse and “Fire Emblem: Fates” case for quite sometime now. I honestly never thought that things would turn out this bad, In the matter of fact. If you read through this article update for update, then you will probably come to the same conclusion as I have. And that would be the fact that not only has the Treehouse scandal (s) grown for each day that has gone by, but the scandal (s) has also become even more bizarre in its nature. In short, Treehouse has placed Nintendo in a very uncomfortable situation. Especially since Nintendo is a well-known family-friendly company (Nintendo has promoted itself as a family-friendly company since the 80s). So I´m somewhat curious to know what Nintendo is waiting for? I mean, do they honestly believe that these scandals will just go away if they pretend that none of these “incidents” ever occurred?

Well, funny enough. I just found out that Nintendo claims that they had no idea about Rapp´s past statements. At least that´s what Jamie Walton  (president and co-founder of the anti-sex trafficking Foundation “The Wayne”) stated just now on Twitter:

So I take it that Nintendo have finally come to the conclusion that they need to do something about Alison Rapp *clap clap*. Good, however. Earlier today Rapp made things even worse for herself by playing the professional victim role (Zoé Quinn 2.0 going down?). And Rapp did so by blaming everything (the outcome of her past blunders) on GamerGate:

Well, I don´t know about you, but as far as I know. It was a lot of angry parents who urged Nintendo to do something about Alison Rapp (Nintendo picked up on that request/demand today), and not #GamerGate. So, no. It´s not #GamerGate that´s destroying you Rapp, but a lot of angry parents who are concerned about their kid’s safety and health. As they are not all that fond of having a person who speaks so warmly pedophilia working as a Product Marketing Specialist at Nintendo (Treehouse to be exact). I would also like to mention that Rapp is not being fired over “opinions” but highly unprofessional business practices (Rapp´s blunders have messed up Nintendo´s “family friendly” image for sure). It´s as simple as that.

And before I wrap up this never-ending Treehouse nightmare. Yesterday I was contacted by thebaconfromhell (A Youtuber) who informed me that there had been false flag claims against his Alison Rapp Youtube video (“Nintendo’s Public Relations Employee Alison Rapp Now Vocal for Pedophiles With John Kelly“). And before I knew it, Johnny Fox Show (Another Youtuber) reached out to me on Twitter and gave me more information about Rapp (“Nintendo Treehouse PR Lead Wants Child Porn Legalized – JFS Rants“).

Any ways, the part about Youtube and the false flagging reports got me thinking. Because someone is obviously putting in a lot of time and effort into false flagging Youtube videos that talk and criticize Alison Rapp. And I don´t believe that it´s a pure “coincidence” either, as even the smallest of channels and Youtube videos has been targeted. Sure, I highly doubt that it´s Rapp herself that´s been doing this. However, it´s most likely some of her supporters who’ve been pulling off these false Youtube flag stunts as of lately. Not that it will matter all that much now, as it seems like Nintendo will fire Rapp.

Even so, I find it to be somewhat disturbing that “some” people think that it´s alright to silence whistle blowers. Because it´s not, and you know what? The truth will always prevail in the end. So don´t ever be afraid to get the truth out there (no matter the cost), as it´s really important for people to know the truth.

Credit:
thebaconfromhell
Johnny Fox Show

Source:
Pterodactyl Princess on Twitter
Alison Rapp Discusses her Thesis with Friends
Jamie Walton
Johnny fox show
Mirror
Jasper Hamill

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***Update 3 – 2016-02-26 – 22:15 CET***

For the last 48 hours, I have had to deal with angry SJWs and brute force attacks against our homepage (I can´t prove that they were behind it, but the attacks started as soon as I tweeted out the update of this article). Yes, they did not like my “Fire Emblem: Fates” article all that much. However, we did reach out to quite a few about the Treehouse scandals (I sent my article to Alpha Omega Sin Sargon of Akkad as well). That´s just the half of it though, because I´ve been given a lot of information about Pterodactyl Princess (Alison Rapp, Product Marketing Specialist at Treehouse) as of lately. And I have to say that I´m somewhat surprised that Nintendo of America hasn´t done anything about Pterodactyl yet.

Especially since she´s been tweeting out crazy statements for over five years time. From my point of view. There is no doubt about that Pterodactyl Princess is a full-blown SJW/feminist supporter, who likes to inject her agenda into everything she has access to. Sadly enough though, the madness doesn´t stop there.

As Pterodactyl thinks that sexism against men is none existing, and she also holds the following thoughts about video games and social justice:

“If u wanna have intelligent convos about games, you need to educate yourself on life & intersectional social issues totally outside of games”  – Alison Rapp, Product Marketing Specialist at Treehouse via Twitter

You better hold on to your hat though, because it seems like Pterodactyl is more than just an SJW/feminist supporter and an agenda pushing localizer (she also seems to suffer from some really serious mental health issues?). Please allow me to explain. You see, here´s the really interesting part. Because back in 2011 and 2012 Pterodactyl made some truly disturbing tweets (as seen in the pictures down below), and those tweets made me wonder if she´s a supporter of pedophilia as well?

And keep in mind that Pterodactyl didn´t join the Treehouse crew before August, 2013. In other words, Nintendo couldn´t have done a proper background check of her. I mean, Pterodactyl´s twitter timeline is literally full of crazy statements and SJW/feminist/PC-bro nonsense. So it´s no surprise to me that Treehouse slaughtered their localization of “Fire Emblem: Fates”. As it seems to be their in-house agenda to do a full “SJW transformation” of every single game that they come in contact with. In the matter of fact, I bet that everyone that works at Treehouse has the same exact SJW mentality as Alison Rapp (and Nich Maragos for that matter).

So I´m somewhat curious to find out how Nintendo of America couldn´t have noticed any of Pterodactyl´s previous crazy statements for the last + two (almost three) years? I have no answer to that question as for now. Nevertheless, Nintendo of Japan no longer has an excuse for not pulling Nintendo of America, Nich Maragos (Nintendo localizer at Treehouse) and Alison Rapp (Product Marketing Specialist at Treehouse) in their ears.

And why is that? Well, I showed this article to Nintendo of Japan via Twitter just recently. So they cannot pretend like they haven´t been informed about these issues. So it´s up to Nintendo to clean up this mess now, as for Treehouse´s poor localization and censorship of “Fire Emblem Fates”. I think  Leonardo Cornejo Bernal (a Spanish translator) made a really good point with his comment on this matter:

“You see. I am a translator. To me this is horrible in so many ways. Now, I am an English-Spanish translator, and honestly I don’t feel compelled to learn Japanese. Doing so is more or less like giving up and allowing censorship to happen. We must find a way to fight back for real.” – Leonardo Cornejo Bernal, a Spanish translator

And I think Leonardo is right (SilverScarCat made some good points about video game localizations as well). However, I am yet to find the best way to fight back against censorship. Personally though, I do boycott publishers and developers who bow down for censorship and the SJW movement. Other than that, I do import Japanese games as a last resort. Because I do not like the idea of video game piracy, and I want to support developers and the games which I really like (for example, it´s not Intelligent Systems fault that Treehouse messed up their localization of “Fire Emblem: Fates”).

With that said, I hardly doubt that the Treehouse scandals will become fewer (or smaller) in the future. As there seems to be no end to them…

Credit:
Best Mom Eva
Caim [email protected]
Philip Weigel
Zeroroute
RedStarWarrior

Source:
archive.is/3340s (hxxp://bit.ly/qbf22r )
hxxp://archive.is/IEVz4
hxxp://archive.is/Kt0PJ
hxxp://archive.is/pONlG
linkedin

—————————————————–

***Update 2 – 2016-02-23 – 00:00 CET***

I just wanted to inform you ladies and gentlemen that I´ve been given some new information about Treehouse. And there seems to be no end to scandals either, as they keep on pouring in. Mr (or Miss) Honkimus Maximus just had me know that Aevee Bee has also reviewed “Fire Emblem: Fates” (the person which Nich Maragos supports via Patreon). So that means that it´s yet another conflict of interest case that´s been pinned down on Nich Maragos (Nintendo localizer at Treehouse), and matters are just about to get worse on the behalf of Maragos. As I found out that Maragos made a video called “Nich Maragos – #roomforeveryone ” back in November, 2014 (thanks Zeroroute!). So, what´s the deal with that video then? Well, this is the actual video description for the video (you can also watch the video further down the page):

“A veteran localization writer discusses the fear that social justice issues are in danger of killing gaming, and explains why it’s not founded. There’s #roomforeveryone in games–if you’re a game developer, send your testimonial video to [email protected]!

Now, read these words slowly for yourself “social justice issues are in danger of killing gaming” and “#roomforeveryone in games“. Yes, Nich Maragos is a big hypocrite. I´m curious to know when his full-scale SJW transformation took place though (obviously after the making of his “#roomforeveryone” video, but when exactly?). And all of this gives you a pretty good clue about how and why Treehouse butchered “Fire Emblem: Fates” with their SJW nonsense. It´s simple. It’s their in-house agenda to do so. That´s also why Nintendo needs to find themselves a new US localizer for their future games, because Treehouse has proven that they’re not cut for the job.

I know that all of this is a really sad and upsetting read. However, I do have some good news to share with you guys and girls (against all odds), because a fellow video game localizer and translator called Leitung (@LeitungVG, he or she is currently working on the English translation for “Great Ace Attorney” to 3DS) reached out to us on Twitter just now. And this is what Leitung and I said about Treehouse and “Fire Emblem: Fates”:

I also took the liberty to tweet out the following message to Nintendo of America and Nintendo Japan:

So I have done what I could to get the word out about all of this, and “hopefully” I caught Nintendo´s attention as well. As they really need to deal with all these Treehouse-related issues right away. I would also like to add that there is a third conflict of interest between Nich Maragos and Aevee Bee (scroll down to “Third COI”). So there you have it ladies and gents, Treehouse. Where the wood and the people are rotten to the core…

Credit:
Honkimus Maximus
Jaime Bravo
Zeroroute

—————————————————–

***Update 1 – 2016-02-23 – 21:18 CET***

I don´t know if you´re a fan of the Matrix series, but if you are. Do you remember that part when Morpheus said “You take the red pill – you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.” to Neo?. Well, I went down the Treehouse rabbit-hole yet again. And this time I went even deeper into the matter of Treehouse´s relationship with “Fire Emblem: Fates”. And I can´t really say that I like what I´ve found, because I never thought that things were this bad. Well, I was wrong. However, before I go into those details, as promised. Here´s my e-mail conversation with Patrik Johansson (PR Manager Bergsala AB, Nintendo Sweden), on the matter of Treehouse and their translation (“localization”) of “Fire Emblem: Fates” (I translated the text from Swedish to English):

Robin TGG:
Hi Patrik =)

I just wanted to hear with you if you have any connections with Nintendo in Japan? Because the Western Gamers are pretty upset over the lousy translation of “Fire Emblem Fates”.

Thank you in advance, with friendly regards Robin TGG.

Patrik J Nintendo Sweden:
Hi!

I believe that you should get in contact with Nintendo of America, because they are usually the ones who handle all the English translations. However, I have no contact with the person who´s responsible for the translation over there. Nevertheless, you can send a mail to their info e-mail address. You could also send them criticism and feedback via Nintendo´s social media pages. As Nintendo reads all the comments that they get on Twitter and Instagram. So the critique will most definitely reach them.

With friendly regards, Patrik Johansson  PR Manager Bergsala AB (Nintendo Sweden)

Robin TGG:
Hi again Patrik =)

I understand, because Treehouse has created a huge scandal with their English translation of FEF. So much so that both Nintendo US and Japan get bombarded with criticism via Twitter as we speak. And to be honest, it´s a lot worse than I originally thought. I mean, Treehouse has more or less slaughtered the game, and as far as I know. A translator should just do his (or her) very best to transfer the game´s message, the emotions and the jokes to his or her native language (I´m aware of the fact that some Japanese jokes and such doesn´t work all that well in English, but you get my point). FEF is a really good game, no doubt about it. However, Nintendo sure needs to step in and pull Treehouse in their ears.

Thank you for the information. Have a nice day. With friendly regards Robin TGG.

Patrik J Nintendo Sweden:
Ok, we’ll see if they respond. Technically, they can of course arrange a patch and fix the problem.

Sincerely!

Patrik Johansson
PR Manager

With that said, let´s look into the Treehouse scandal shall we? First of all, it´s not just one scandal. There is a handful of scandals that surrounds Treehouse right now. And it just gets worse for each hour that goes by (Nintendo of Japan needs to step in and clean up the mess right away!). So I will go through each and every one of them based on what I know right now.

Well, since I´ve already gone through the translation (“localisation”) and censorship part (you can read all about it further down the page). I´m going to move on to Nich Maragos (Nintendo localizer at Treehouse). Maragos got caught red-handed with supporting Andrea Ritsu (he/she is an aggressive proponent of censorship in Fire Emblem: Fates) via Patreon just recently. And as if that wasn´t bad enough already, Ritsu is also said to be the very same person who has lied about “gay therapy” and  “date rape drugs” in Soleil’s conversations in “Fire Emblem: Fates”.

So why on earth would Nich Maragos give financial support to a person who both screams for censorship and then lie about the very same product which he is working on? (FEF´s “localization”). I have no idea really, as it´s beyond my understanding. And it´s about to get worse, because it seems like Nich Maragos enjoyed the idea of having the Western version of “Fire Emblem: Fates” censored:

Don´t hold your breath though, because I have just warmed up. Since there is also a conflict of interest case to be found in this mess, to be exact. It´s a conflict of interest between Nich Maragos and Aevee Bee. You see. Nich Maragos was the project lead for “Etrain Odyssey” (he was also s involved with Persona Q’s localization) at the time. And Maragos gave money to Aevee´s Patreon (this was back in November, 2014). So what did Maragos get in return for his money then? He received a “Persona Q Review” article by Aevee…Sure, all of this took place before Maragos had anything to do with “Fire Emblem: Fates” (which is said to be his first project at Treehouse). Even so, as you clearly can see for yourself. There is a recurring pattern of scandals, corruption and censorship to be found in the case with Nich Maragos.

So I didn´t hold back one bit when I called Treehouse out on Twitter earlier today (because enough is enough):

And let´s not forget Treehouse´s Pterodactyl Princess, because she has created more than one scandal over time on Twitter. In the matter of fact, Pterodactyl created yet another scandal today by blocking a disabled Gamer (Canadian Capicollo, who simply voiced his opinion about video games being really important to him):

And just for the record, Pterodactyl Princess is a big hypocrite:

Pterodactyl Princess also believes a lot shoving down SJW/Feminist agenda into other people’s throats:

I don´t know about you, but I have seen enough. Nintendo of Japan needs to address these Treehouse scandals immediately and start doing something about it as soon as possible. Because if they don´t, then it´s just going to get far worse for Nintendo over time. So the best thing that they could do right now, is to deal with Treehouse straight on and right away. And for those who want to read up on some more scandals on this matter, it seems like RM-2R ‏(@ramtower) is a localization manager at Nintendo (Treehouse?):

RM-2R Part 1
RM-2R Part 2
RM-2R Part 3

With that said, what do you guys and girls think about all of this? Let us know your thoughts in the comment section down below?

The Tree house and Nich Maragos scandals so far:
– Conflict of interest
– Censorship and a really sloppy Western translation/localization of “Fire Emblem: Fates
– Nich Maragos supports Andrea Ritsu financialy via Patreon
– Treehouse´s Pterodactyl Princess many outbursts on Twitter
– Nich Maragos likes censorship

Credit:
Best Mom Eva
Pory

Source:
Conflict of Interest Between Nich Maragos and Aevee Bee
Nich Maragos supports Andrea Ritsu
Andrea Ritsu´s lies about “Fire Emblem: Fates”
KotakuInAction
Nich Maragos likes censorship
—————————————————–

Here we go again. Western localization, censorship and feminism/SJW agenda in video games

Oh dear…Since I made my last update for my “Fire Emblem: Fates” censorship article (which I did on the 29th of January), things have just become worse over time. And I´m not even exaggerating either. Sure, I already knew that things were really bad with FEF when it comes to censorship. However, I had no idea that Treehouse (it´s a development division at Nintendo of America) was injecting SJW and feminist agenda into the US version of “Fire Emblem: Fates” (the translations). At least, that´s what the Gaming community thinks and accuses them off right now (I will try to get an official statement from Treehouse on this matter), and based on what I´ve seen so far today (as seen in the pictures down below). I have to say that it leans more towards being the truth, than anything else.

And the person who have been nailed to the cross for all of this is Treehouse´s Pterodactyl Princess (a footnote, she has blocked us on Twitter…):

However, I did notice one odd thing just now. Well, it´s not strange in its own right. Even so, it becomes strange when you combine Pterodactyl Princess (who is said to be an SJW/feminist supporter) with a “Puella magi madoka magica Anime Sexy Hug Body Pillow Cover” (yes, it´s on her Amazon wish list. As seen on her Twitter profile page). Simply put, you can´t help to wonder if Pterodactyl is somewhat confused on where she stands in terms of being an SJW or not. I mean, I hardly doubt that anyone from Feminist Frequency would buy (less own) a pillow of that kind. Well, I think you get my point. Anyhow, as I was saying. Once the Gaming community found out about what Treehouse had done to “Fire Emblem: Fates”, they got really upset over the whole thing (and rightfully so):

The alternatives to censored Western Video game localizations

I know that things don´t look all that bright and promising in the games industry right now (censorship and the SJW/feminist plague), but there are still hope and happiness to be found elsewhere. You see. Play-Asia sells the Japanese version of “Fire Emblem Fates” (“Fire Emblem if Hakuya Oukoku” and “Fire Emblem if Anya Oukoku“. And there is another really good turn-based RPG for 3DS called “Stella Glow” (you can buy that game via Play-Asia as well). My point would be this, now is a really good time to start learning Japanese. As that allows you to enjoy games that haven’t been e to a full-blown Western localization censorship/SJW transformation.

That might not solve the problem with censorship of Japanese games in the West, but it´s at least a good alternative while we´re fighting back against the SJW and censorship madness (you could also try to find and install an English fan translation of the game in question). Besides, I always wanted to learn Japanese. So this will work as a great motivator for me (and others) with no doubt.

With that said. What do you think about all of this? Let us know your thoughts in the comment section down below!

Source:
Fire Emblem Fates Changes
TorrentialDownpour

Credit:
Bensmusicification
Leo058

***Disclaimer***
This is a personal opinion of the writer, and it doesn’t necessarily represent the other writers (nor The Gaming Ground´s) opinions.

***Disclosure***
We (TGG) are a part of the Play-Asia family, and we may receive a profit cut out of your purchase via the Play-Asia links in this article.

Robin “V-Act” Ek
The Gaming Ground
Twitter: @TheGamingGround

More by Robin Ek:

• The moment when Microsoft´s own Twitter A.I bot prefer PS4 over Xbox One
• Disposable Heroes launch day giveaway – 10 Steam keys for 10 lucky winners!
• IGN´s questionable Quantum Break Xbox One Youtube ad, a breach of media ethics?
• MegaDriver interview with Nino MegaDriver, old memories and plans for the future
• GOG has launched their Sleepy sheep insomnia sale!

Tags: 3DS, Censorship, Fire Emblem Fates, Nintendo, Treehouse