I know it has been in the news for other such things. Not the national news levels that the portal 2 story got but he online news does like to pick up on stories like the examples above. since greenlight they became more common as regular people wanted games that were not generally accepted and valve got the blame for allowing such.
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Because rape, you cant get away. Its like a tourture simulator. No it IS a torture simulator. Rape isnt just sex, and isnt the only way in any sense to relieve sexual frustration. Porn is the accepted form of relief for this. Again where both parties agree.
A fps isnt a torture simulator. If anything its much much more mild. I cant think of a single FPS where you rip peoples toe nails off one by one smileing as you do?
Now if this rape sim has the victim giving a speach at the end saying thats what they wanted. Then you may have something acceptable in todays culture. But otherwise this rape sim is going to be screaming, crys and fear.
It is not a simulator. It is a visual novel, more or less a choose your own story with pictures. It just happens to be electronic so is classed as a game.
I was thinking about this while browsing around. It really is not any different from a book in this regard as it is just reading with accompanying computer generated pictures to go with it.
You could get the same effect by reading a story and having a porn site open.
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Then the article is giving the gist its rape when it could just be bdsm. Fake news lol
Well it is the name of the game, and the background of the character. The choices would constitute rape, in that it would be presented as non consensual.
I can see the outrage, it is not for me certainly, but also think that the games industry and the way it is treated and represented needs to grow up.
And I did not mean to cut you off, just trying to keep this on track and not spiraling out of control.
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necessary!
EDIT;
But yes, it does raise some questions of where the industry is going in some corners of its being.
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Q: is “in game” rape (even if it IS a rape simulator in which the user “commits” the act - in the make believe digital representation of a fictional world) morally any different to use of sex toys?
e.g., is fucking a fleshlight rape, because it can not consent, but is merely a simulation of part of a female human? Much like digital content is a representation of part of a human?
“Rape day”, no matter how controversial the title is, is essentially a digital (1s and 0s) representation of a fictional event.
or put another way: is “raping” an “in game” AI character even possible, as it is not a being capable of consent or impacted in any way by the action.
Don’t get me wrong - if people start raping real people that’s another issue. But that’s not the topic at hand here… (and there’s no definitive link between in-game behaviour and in-real-life behaviour anyway).
tldr: i consider it impossible to “Rape” software.
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There is no question, that you aren’t actually raping the ingame character as, as you stated, that isn’t really possible.
You aren’t murdering people in GTA either.
The discussion though, isn’t if you are actually commiting a crime (which you aren’t). It’s more a question of what happens in/with your head. Is the fact you give a broader audience the possibility to experience the act of murder or rape (even though it isn’t acutally that, but a digital representation) possibly lowering the “barrier of entry” for such events in real live?
I agree, that there is no link between in-game behavior and real-life behavior. That has been shown when all the “Call of Duty causes School masacres” thing went through the news.
Games don’t make “normal” people kill others or rape someone. But what is with those, that are already predisposed. Those that have such things already happen in their head and that are held back by reallity. Do such games lower their inhibitions to a point where they commit to such an act? Or do those games help stir the fantasy of such people more, than their own mind could?
It’s a multifacettet discussion with no clear answer i think. I don’t think this will make “normal” people into mass-murderers or rapists (is that a word?). But i do think such digital experiences can have negative impact in those that already have a problem with aggression or that already do have strange things happening in their head.
Notice please that i said “can”. There is no conclusive study i’m aware of. I might just as well be the case that such games help vent the aggression and the act of actually showing the action could help steer those people around. I’m not a psychologist…
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And it has been taken off steam…
The developer very polite about the decision and knew it was a possibility, steam is a private company and so on…
Which now raises the question of why? They said we think ‘Rape Day’ poses unknown costs and risks and therefore won’t be on Steam. which actually annoys me in light of finding more and more games on steam that allow rape in game, there is even as I found DLC that adds the option to a game all ready on steam. This is incredibly two faced on Steams part.
So all it takes is some bad press and steam will bend to any and all pressure it seems.
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I think with the recent “me too” and feminist stuff going on at the moment, and international women’s day (or something) today, they’re probably being hyper-sensitive to the issue.
And at the end of the day if you are steam:
- lets say, x copies of this at y revenue for valve per copy … probably FAR, FAR less than the potential legal, political and financial exposure from hosting and re-selling it. people who would have bought this will probably spend that money on something else on steam anyway, so as far as valve is concerned i doubt it would be any significant lost revenue.
i.e., it isn’t worth the risk for them. there’s almost NO upside for valve to sell this, but a heap of potential fall-out, if not legally, at least politically.
They all ready allow the sale of other games that cover the exact same ground.
My main concern is that they never presented any reasonable point for why other than money. I know private companies and money, its their job so on so forth. They made no attempt to make the judgement sounds reasonable. They still face financial backlash from the other games they sell that have the same topics, even with more control over the actions in some cases, so why this one?
They had a chance to move gaming on as a whole for everyone and they just threw it away because of money, which they could easily take the hit on and set a precedent for future releases that are not as controversial but want to have adult themes.
they have no obligation to.
In this case, legal/financial/reputational/goodwill risk would have massively outweighed any potential financial or other gain.
Its basic maths… hence, it got pulled.
Which is true.
Makes them come off as assholes.
They still have all of the for every other game that cover this topic currently on sale on their store, why is this one different.
Why? For valve, it is basic risk vs. reward. It isn’t asshole behaviour - or censorship, it is financially sound decision-making.
Would you rather valve maintain/lower their reseller costs, or be forced to increase them to maintain their margin in the face of people trying to sue them and/or defend themselves from government scrutiny? Because irrespective of legality, as demonstrated by some of the opinions in this thread, SOMEONE will try suing them because their kid bought and downloaded it. And even if it doesn’t go to court, or if valve WIN, there’s no good that will come from that and it WILL cost them money. Its better to just not expose yourself to that risk.
Whilst i’m the first to proclaim the developer’s right to produce and sell such a game, it is up to them to figure out how to do that. You can’t expect everybody to host content like that for you, especially when the risk/reward equation is so massively lopsided towards “not worth it”.
Again what makes that risk worth it for the other games.
This makes no sense on their part.
It’s a management judgement call based on both tangible and intangible things such as the current political climate, maybe management attitudes/personal biases, etc.
When you run your own software distributor, you can make your own calls that may vary, i guess.
Think of it like athlete sponsorship. If an athlete does something that is culturally unacceptable, it is common for companies to pull their sponsorship support (but not always). Valve not selling this is kinda similar.
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But AGAIN they are selling it. So why this game in this case.
They pulled it? (where “it” = this specific title)
Okay selling many other games that cover the topic if rape. So what was the basis for not selling Rape Day.
It cannot be financial like they said or they would have removed all of the other games too. Why pick and choose?