In yet another reminder of the Western tech sector massive bias against Japanese media, video game news outlet Automaton Media has reportedly taken a brutal blow to their ad revenue due to Google‘s own personal distaste for developer qureate’s risqué Bunny Garden series.
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Released in April 2024 exclusively for the Nintendo Switch and PC platforms, the original Bunny Garden puts players in the shoes of Haito Kanda, a young man who has recently found himself unceremoniously booted from his job due to a “serious mistake”.
One night while attempting to drown his sorrows in alcohol, Haito is approached by a beautiful woman who invites him to join in her for drinks at a different venue – but much to his surprise, rather than a regular bar, the woman instead drags him to the titular Bunny Garden, a host club whose staff is known for wearing bunny outfits as their work uniforms.
Upon arriving, Haito makes the acquaintance of hostesses Kana, Rin, and Miuka, all three of whom quickly take a liking to the newly unemployed man.
From there, the player will spend the game drinking with, charming, and romancing their preferred hostess of choice, all in the hopes of making a more personal connection with them than ‘customer and server’.
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Enjoying a significant amount of success upon release, in particular thanks to its popularity among VTubers, Bunny Sim was recently confirmed to be receiving two new
Releasing to significant success, particularly thanks to its popularity among VTubers, Bunny Garden was recently confirmed to be getting the franchise treatment, with Hebereke Bunny Garden – a “staggering action game” in which players must control a drunk Kana as she attempts to walk to various locations – set to release this year and a proper sequel coming at a later, currently undisclosed date.
Notably, while Bunny Garden certainly plays up its ‘fan service’, the full extent of the original game’s content was not only left untouched, but also deemed worthy of just a ‘T for Teen’ rating from the North American ESRB.
Unfortunately for Automaton Media, it seems Google sadly has much more restrictive standards than everyone else, as the tech giant was reportedly unhappy with their use of official Hebereke Bunny Garden screenshots, as taken from its brief teaser, in their coverage of its announcement.
Per a recap of the situation provided by Automaton Japan Editor-in-Chief Ayuo Kawase, “Here’s how it works: we embed a bit of Google AdSense ads within our articles – this brings in revenue based on how many impressions/clicks the page gets. However, if the content of an article is found to be in violation of Google’s policies, ad revenue gets halted for it. And it looks like our article on Bunny Garden set something off, the result being a nasty dent in our ad revenue.”
“This is the article in question, and as you can see – yes, the screenshots are a little risqué, but a far cry from explicit,” he noted. “The text of the article is even more innocent, simply giving an overview of the game. Nevertheless, Google AdSense seems to have decided that it qualifies as ‘adult content.’ As a result, ads on the article have been restricted.”
Unfortunately, far from a one-off incident, Kawase speculates, “How did one Bunny Garden article set off a barrage of Google policy violations? It’s likely that Google has qureate titles flagged in advance.”
“Maybe it’s the result of accumulated AI-based judgement, but it seems Google is out to get any coverage of qureate games, even if there’s nothing explicit about it,” he added. “Moreover, our article on Hebereke Bunny Garden blew up pretty nicely – over 10k reposts over on X, big spikes in impressions and all. I think Google’s system saw all the traffic and panicked, handing out violations left and right.”
“To be clear, none of this is qureate’s fault,” he concluded. “The responsibility lies with us, the publication. And if anything, it’s proof that Google does actually check content pretty closely before running ads, so this kind of thing is bound to happen now and then. Still, as a publication, we can’t help but feel a bit wronged. And since the incident has impacted our revenue, we’ve chosen to cope in the only way we know – by turning it into more content.”
All in all, while a given internet media outlet taking a non-debilitating hit to their revenue is not normally a news worthy event, what makes the Bunny Garden/Automaton situation noteworthy is its use as a reminder to creators of all stripes that Japanese media, perhaps more than any other, is subject to the knee-jerk reactionary whims of Western censors.
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