# Game developers Against CEnsorship (GACE)

(Temporary name)

## What is GACE?

GACE is a proposal for an international organization dedicated to combating censorship in videogames, while all forms of media are facing these issues we decided to focus on one topic we are knowledgeable about it as industry veterans: Videogames.

Videogame censorship is an old issue, it has happened since the very early days of gaming and it seems to be mostly come in waves, many developers are concerned of the current direction the industry is heading.

GACE is generally non-partisan, we do not look at your party card as long as you're interested in ending game censorship and agree with our reasoning.

## What will GACE do?

GACE will do whatever is possible to fight against videogame censorship, some of the "demands" or "objectives" are:

- That developers stop being forced to censor videogames.
- That users are informed when the games they already owned games have been censored after the fact.
- That users are informed if pre-release material depicts a pre-censorship version of the game.
- To help developers make available "extraofficial" patches to uncensor their games in territories where they've been censored.
- To ensure games aren't forcibly censored after release without the explicit consent of players (such as Far Cry 3 or Skullgirls).
- To collect a database of games that have been censored and include as much information as possible so that users can make an informed purchase.

## What does GACE consider "acceptable" when it comes to censorship?

As a general rule GACE will be against ALL forms of videogame censorship unless it complies with a very narrow window of requirements:

- The game contains a direct specific call to action for something that demonstrably would harm innocent people (such as directly calling for the genocide of a specific group of people).
- The game contains content that is demonstrably harmful to a specific real individual, for example a pornographic game where one of the actors or actresses featured in it didn't consent to it. GACE does not accept "generalized" rules of something being "harmful" to a specific group of people without peer reviewed scientific proof.
- To reasonably restrict certain games based on age range of the player without invading their privacy, thus we are entirely against personally identifiable age verification.
  
The general rule is "law exists to protect people" anything else is unnecessary.

## The complicated balance

Often developers find themselves needing to censor their games due to external factors, such as pressure from the government and pressure from publishing platforms, as well as payment providers.

GACE does not make a distinction between these, censorship is censorship regardless of who causes it, but it does believe that unelected bodies such as platform owners and payment providers are especially egregious.

GACE also understands the dichotomy these developers find themselves in, and wants to help them, it is important for the users to somehow know that the censorship was forced on them, rather than an internal marketing decision. The former is unfortunate, but the latter is unacceptable and completely within the control of the developer.

## Membership & funding

Membership to GACE will be free, for both individual developers who may or may not remain anonymous and would also welcome corporations and groups.

Initially it will be self-funded, but if it gains steam it could look into allowing donations.

## Certification

It would be possible for GACE to certify games, but what exactly should it certify? That they are censorship free or that they don't contain any non-forced censorship? Perhaps a multi tier system could be developed.

## The golden frog

The golden frog would be a symbol that developers could "hide" more or less in their games and that would serve the same purpose as the canary in a coalmine, if one day users find the frog missing then it means they were forced to censor the title, this allows communication between developers and users without explicitly stating it, which may be disallowed by company or national policies.