Comments: 7 Comments (Go to Comments)
Categories: Commentary
Tags: censorship, gta, rapelay, violence
You might have heard that Amazon.com recently banned a game based around raping a mother and her two daughters. This is true, but before I get into a discussion about it there are a few points I’d like to clarify.
1. Amazon.com did not stock this game. This game was listed by one of Amazon’s third party dealers. Amazon pulled the listing when the content of the game was brought to their attention.
2. This is not a widely available game. This game would never appear on store shelves. This game would never be authorized by Microsoft, Sony, or Nintendo.
3. That this game exists is not a reflection of the video game industry. Anyone with sufficient computer skills can create a game — just like anyone with sufficient skills can write a book or make a movie.
4. The Internet is a wretched hive of scum and villainy. Years ago I wrote about a video game put out by the neo-Nazis. Before that, I tried to provide some context for the JFK Assassination Reenactment. Today I’m writing about a rape game. Who knows what the future will bring.
Okay the game in question is RapeLay, a 2006 game created by a Japanese company called Illusion Soft. RapeLay is an extreme example of hentai — fetish-based erotic entertainment intended for adult audiences.
Since I have no desire to play the game, I’ve relied on reviews to get a feel for the game’s content and it’s telling that the game is too awful for Something Awful who use the word “disturbing” three times in their review as well as “soulless” and “horrid.”
RapeLay is a rape simulator — sexually explicit, violent, bloody, and cruel — and children are among the victims. I will not defend RapeLay. I fully support Amazon’s decision to pull the game.
What surprises me is the number of gamers who feel that Amazon’s decision has empowered the Jack Thompsons of the world (see this GamePolitics thread).
Defending RapeLay doesn’t defend Grand Theft Auto or similar games; it diminishes them. Any Grand Theft Auto game is a brutal descent into the criminal underworld — yet violence has repercussions and the player always has choices. GTA IV received acclaim from the New York Times and the GTA series has been analyzed in scholarly works like The Meaning and Culture of Grand Theft Auto.
When the Jack Thompsons of the world say that GTA IV is a murder simulator game based on killing cops and prostitutes, we can explain how the violence in GTA IV works. We’re able to describe the role of violence within the narrative and explain how the violence is an aspect of the game’s overall commentary on society. We can even draw parallels between GTA IV’s violence and the violence found in notable movies.
For people defending RapeLay, can you explain what it means when you rape a child?
We can defend our right to play violent video games without defending every form of electronic entertainment which comes across our table. Placing RapeLay under an “it’s just a game” tent doesn’t help our cause. And we shouldn’t confuse a business decision with censorship.
RapeLay may be legal, it may have an audience, and I’m assuming that Illusion Soft has methods of distribution — Amazon.com has simply decided not to be one of them (even tertiary).
If you’ve reached the bottom of this article and you’re still incensed that RapeLay exists and want to do something, I recommend making a donation to RAINN, the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network.
Aramis:
I’m divided on this issue. Rape is a horrible thing and if a child is involved it becomes something even more monsterous, however I think it is important to defend the freedom of ideas, even and especially of those ideas we find personally repulsive.
I agree that amazon is within their rights to remove this game from their shelves, but I stop short of saying that evil and villany in games must be “justified”, in any way, for it to be defensible. If this logic were applied to books or other works we could easily find works that did not meet our criteria of defensibility and argue that they are not worth defending. And once you start drawing circles around things and saying “these things are not fit to exist” those circles always seem to widen. Like I said, I wouldn’t play this game, I think it’s gross and detestable, but I think it does have a right to exist and I think the arguement that it is just a game is valid and should not, does not, diminish ourselves or our ideals or freedoms in any way, because it is in fact, just a game.
Silvercube:
I like this article – its very interesting.
I of course oppose games like these, nice to see Amazon.com shut it down.
Can’t people find better things to do with their talents than to make games like that? Yeesh…
I guess some people might buy it.. creeps.. >_<
Alia:
You can defend and encourage the ideas of free thinking and free speech without having to endorse a game like this. Go talk to little kids about thinking outside the box and helping out the community, you don’t need to support something like a rape game to support freedom of speech and ideas. By the way, this isn’t freedom of speech or ideas, this is a company thinking okay this generation likes……sex and violence SO sex+violence=rape, rape video game! rape video game=money!
Cooro:
God, how sick can you go? Your raping children for god’s sake! Children!! I fully support Amazon for taking this messed up game off their shelves! Why would anyone want to rape CHILDREN!! I bet only pedo’s would buy that game -_-
Stranger:
You know, in some countries, the age of consent is a lot lower then some others. So what is defined as pedophilia might actually be a valid pornographic hobby. Not like that diminshes any creepiness of course but……Seriously, there are a lot more people into these kind of things then you’d think. And no. I’m not into this, I’m more into paizuri.
Frank:
i don’t know, i belive the game should be out there for sell. At least in USA where the constitution give us the freedom of speech, and press..don’t get me wrong is an awful game, cruel and inmoral…But that’s MY opinion, if you ban Thoughts next is gonna be a book, than movies and later the press…i believe in freedom, and if you are a thinking adult and you decide to buy it is your choice…just keep away from me…I disagree with what you say but i’ll die for your right to say it.
Terry:
@Frank
Yes, the Constitution provides for freedom of speech, but it’s not an unlimited freedom — especially when it comes to sexual depictions of children.
Christopher Handley, a manga collector, is facing jail time for possessing manga featuring the sexual abuse of children. And this is a legitimate collector who didn’t have this for salacious reasons.