Nintendo Switch’s infamous "Hentai Girls" series gets renamed to "Kawaii Girls" due to possible shadowban by eShop

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NeoGAF's Physical Games Advocate Extraordinaire
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Hentai Girls is a simple puzzle game series produced for the Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2. It's already had its problems with the My Nintendo Store, having multiple titles delisted over the course of this year, and is infamous among Switch users for its AI generated art, provocative namingand the tendency to clutter up the new releases and best deals section of the store. The series' publisher Pakotime announced on June 19 that all future instalments of Hentai Girls will be renamed to "Kawaii Girls." While the exact reason for the change wasn't stated, it is implied that it might be due to the titles not appearing in Switch 2's new releases section.



In an official announcement on X, publisher Pakotime announced that the upcoming entries in the Hentai Girls series will be renamed to Kawaii Girls, starting from July this year. However, they clarify that previous Hentai Girls games will not be subject to renaming. Furthermore, they advise users looking up Switch 2 versions of existing Hentai Girls titles – including Hentai Girls: Charming Chef, which released on June 19 – to use the keyword "Pakotime" instead.

I was able to confirm this myself – the games show up without any issues for Switch, but are very hard to find for the Switch 2 – they will only come up if you search the publisher's name. This means that "hentai" and other similarly sensitive words are possibly being shadowbanned by Nintendo Switch 2 store's search engine.

It is interesting to note, however, that the word "hentai" doesn't seem to be blocked in the US eshop. While the new Hentai Girls: Charming Chef still hasn't released there, past titles which include the word "hentai" appear normally on the new releases page. This suggests that the keyword "hentai" is possibly only blocked in Japan – this could be due to the fact that the Japanese word "hentai" is a lot more associated with sexual deviance/inclinations outside of societal norms, while in the West, the term "hentai" usually refers to anime-styled explicit content in general.

 
Why would it get 'shadow banned'? Almost 1 out of every 5 games are hentaii games (with 'hentaii' in the title). Eshop is a mess of soft porn and AI showelware.
 
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Why would it get 'shadow banned'? Almost 1 out of every 5 games are hentaii games (with 'hentaii' in the title). Eshop is a mess of soft porn and AI showelware.
I just searched Hentai on PSApp. There are 4 results:

Hentai Shop Simulator 9.99
Hentai Girls Succbus 9.99
Hentai Princess - announced
Hentai Girls Zombie Defense 9.99

I browse both stores constantly. They both have this problem. Personally I see no issue. Let the market decide. One man's shovelware is another man's treasure.
 
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I just searched Hentai on PSApp. There are 4 results:

Hentai Shop Simulator 9.99
Hentai Girls Succbus 9.99
Hentai Princess - announced
Hentai Girls Zombie Defense 9.99

I browse both stores constantly. They both have this problem. Personally I see no issue. Let the market decide. One man's shovelware is another man's treasure.
I agree 100% I don't mind a chaotic free market at all....but for the love of all that is good I wish all storefronts had solid search/sorting options, ignore features & tags.
 
I wish digital storefronts would separate the adults-only games from the rest of the games. Games that have adult content but not as a primary narrative (for example, Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3) would be fine in the regular store, but these porn games could be shuffled off to a different storefront so that someone only encounters them if they are specifically wanting that kind of content. This could either be accomplished with two different digital storefronts (example, Steam as we all know it, and then a separate app called Steam AO or something), or by having the existing storefront not include the adults-only content in the normal search page and store page, but have a separate tab/area that you can click to access and search for that content.
 
I just searched Hentai on PSApp. There are 4 results:

Hentai Shop Simulator 9.99
Hentai Girls Succbus 9.99
Hentai Princess - announced
Hentai Girls Zombie Defense 9.99

I browse both stores constantly. They both have this problem. Personally I see no issue. Let the market decide. One man's shovelware is another man's treasure.

Only 4 results? Edit: Wait does the store have the games spammed everywhere but they don't appear in results?
 
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