Regarding removed routes:
The legality of the content removed.
Neither route fell squarely into the category of "illegal" because they didn't involve minors nor did they include any real people which are very obvious and provable legal outlines. Instead it falls into this grey area of "photorealistic" or "pseudo-photograph" in regards to non-consensual intercourse which is also outlawed.
This is where I just don't trust the Government because by what metric is photorealism defined exactly?
It isn't.
The characters in my game certainly couldn't be mistaken for "real people" by any reasonable person but frankly I don't want to take the chance of an unreasonable person being handed a case with my name on it.
They are intentionally obtuse about what this means to avoid loopholes but it also leaves the law up to interpretation.
You've already created it, can't you still get in trouble?
No. I no longer create, promote or sell it. I cannot be prosecuted for something I no longer possess or distribute. If old builds of the game with this content are still distributed online then the person who uploaded or hosts it is now the distributor. Not me. The law is focused on material at the time it occurs, it will not retroactively seek to charge me if I was in violation years after I removed and destroyed any trace of it from my own hosts.
Any legal exposure I had ended the second I stopped distributing the content and the fact that the content was removed for the purpose of compliance would eliminate any prosecutorial interest anyway.
Can't you create it and have someone abroad distribute it?
No. I will not create, distribute or be in any way involved with works that could even be remotely construed as a breach of law because supplying the content with the intention of someone else distributing it lands me right back under the distributor umbrella. There is no proxy uploader "loophole.” That's not how liability works.
And yes, this also applies even if the uploader is in another country. I just won't do it. I'm not sure how aware you are of the current state of things here in the British Isles but calling it bleak would be an understatement in regards to censorship. Not in that your accounts get banned. No, the state will arrest and convict you for things you wouldn't even look twice at a few years ago and they do this by stretching the law; misinterpreting it. I do not trust that they wouldn't do the same in this instance when referencing the "photorealism" of the game's imagery.
The decision to remove the content:
Paul was removed, Duncan's content changed and with these two cuts I lost over half of the game's supporters.
I didn't choose this path lightly. It cost me the ability to quit my job and work on Lisa full-time.
However the other option carried a risk and the most extreme version of that risk was criminal conviction.
My Mother is old and she's on her own. She was recently diagnosed with melanoma. If the worst were to happen and I landed in prison, I don't know what would happen to her and that terrifies me.
Even if the chance of conviction via continuation of Paul & Duncan's content was only <0.01%, that's still not a risk I'm willing to take.
What was lost:
Paul was the casualty of the removal. He was scrubbed from the game entirely. Duncan had a single scene removed but he remains in the game regardless. Duncan's content was adjusted to conform to legal standard but that adjustment wasn't as extreme as you may think.
Nothing else in the game changed. Not in the present and not in the future.
Redistribution without my involvement:
I can't realistically stop anyone from redistributing the removed scenes or creating new scenes via mods but I am trying to estrange myself from these removed elements of the project. They exist in previous versions of the game and that's where they will stay. I would however kindly ask that if anyone is planning on continuing the removed routes - please don't post it here. 2023 was a truly awful year and this Paul & Duncan nightmare haunts me still, reminding me of my thought patterns and how desperately miserable I was during this entire period.
I don't want this thread to be a constant site of mourning. I've mourned enough and I just want to move on.
I hope you understand.
