New York City Councilor Calls For RapeLay Boycott

[Andy Chalk]

New York City Councilor Calls For RapeLay Boycott

The Speaker of the New York City Council [http://council.nyc.gov/html/home/home.shtml] will be holding a press conference this morning calling for U.S. retailers to boycott the Japanese videogame RapeLay - which has never actually been released in the U.S. market.

The New York City Alliance Against Sexual Assault has announced that Amazon.com [http://council.nyc.gov/d3/html/members/home.shtml]."

This should be a relatively simple request for U.S. retailers to comply with, since the game was never intended for release in the U.S. market in the first place. Two copies mistakenly appeared on Amazon.com [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/89398-Rape-Game-On-Amazon-Triggers-Anger-Outrage] in mid-February, causing widespread outrage (and a good deal of bemusement at the irony of that outrage as well) but were immediately pulled when Amazon became aware of the error.

Despite the obvious ignorance and pandering, Quinn's condemnation of RapeLay will no doubt play well with those who see videogames as a harbinger of the end times. Why the NYC Alliance Against Sexual Assault insisted on calling it a "teenage videogame" is a bit of a mystery, however; RapeLay was only released in 2006.

via: GamePolitics [http://www.gamepolitics.com/2009/02/23/ny-city-council-speaker-will-call-retail-boycott-rape-game]


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[the_tramp]

This is hilarious how the everyone is overreacting to this. If they hadn't publicised it then 99% of people who know about it now, wouldn't know about it.

 

[Baby Tea]

This is hilarious how the everyone is overreacting to this. If they hadn't publicised it then 99% of people who know about it now, wouldn't know about it.

True story.
Ignorance is definitely bliss in this case.

 

[L.B. Jeffries]

It's always baffling what games the media uses to complain about games. Mass Effect, Super Columbine Massacre RPG...now even Dangerous High School Girls in Trouble is getting hell for talking about rape. The damn problem is that they're wigging out because it's a game with a taboo topic. How many books and films have rape in them? How many news stories talk about it regularly?

Is this a good game? I doubt it. Does it deserve to be banned because it dares to talk about a topic that we just don't let games ever go into? No.

 

[ShadowKirby]

It's always baffling what games the media uses to complain about games. Mass Effect, Super Columbine Massacre RPG...now even Dangerous High School Girls in Trouble is getting hell for talking about rape. The damn problem is that they're wigging out because it's a game with a taboo topic. How many books and films have rape in them? How many news stories talk about it regularly?

Is this a good game? I doubt it. Does it deserve to be banned because it dares to talk about a topic that we just don't let games ever go into? No.

The difference between Rapelay and Mass Effect, DHSGT is that the later talk about the subject in a mature way while Rapelay actually let you.. rape. It is really more touchy.

But yeah, pretty ironic to ask for the boycott of a game that cannot even be boycotted as it is not present on this side of the world.

 

[Royas]

I just really wish that American politicians would stop embarrassing their country by displaying their ignorance to the world. How much research would this guy have needed to realize this game isn't even available through normal retail channels in the US? This is supposed to be a leader?

 

[Milkman Dan]

Being a Canadian that pays a fair amount of attention to local politics, I can guarantee you that American leaders do not have a monopoly on stupidity and ignorance.

 

[Claymorbmaster]

"The Speaker of the New York City Council will be holding a press conference this morning calling for U.S. retailers to boycott the Japanese videogame RapeLay "

Too late... >_> >_> <_<

 

[PedroSteckecilo]

Boycott? Isn't it already illegal in the states?

 

[Hawgh]

I will now offer up a perspective from the wonderful world of books and movies.

I have recently finished the novel "La Catedral Del Mar"(The Cathedral of the Seas, or some such(also available at Amazon)). It is a quite decent book centered around the societal changes in medieval-to early Renaissance Spain. It is also a book wherein murder, vengeful ruination of others, torture by hand of the inquisition and rape runs rampant.
Within the first two chapters of the book, the new bride of the main character has been condemned to a decade of more-or-less uninterrupted rape, their young child left to starve to death, and another child clubbed to death.

Good book. A few of the accolades reads as follows "The Cathedral of the Seas will be loved by any reader, and justly so. If only all bestsellers were like this" and "Rife with tension, action & romance"

Naturally, all the snuff serves to show the brutality of medieval life, couldn't very well be called halfway accurate without it.

Hell. Even classic movies like say, Braveheart(Produced by an American studio, I believe), have people being raped and tortured.

But for a video game to contain any of such things? MADNESS!

Granted, Japanese rapegames may a bit of a stretch from the Scottish rebellions, but that's not the point.

 

[scotth266]

Our politicos are ignorant fools. I already made a post on my thoughts on this game/banning of it in the previous thread, but here's a rehash:
1)Game got made in Japan.
2)Game was sold ONLY in Japan.
3)Some dude put up two copies on Amazon.
4)Politicians do what they do: act batshit bonkers over something that doesn't matter/apply in an attempt to win the votes of the common man.
Nice to know everyone sees how dumb this guy is for saying this crap. Just saying: our politicians are the most ignorant/stupid group of Americans. The rest of us are vastly superior to them (for the most part).

 

[mattttherman3]

Well in this case, the media has every right to complain, if you want to play this game, then you should either be put in jail, or move to Japan. He may just be trying to put himself in the spotlight, and the game may not have been sold in North America, but this game should not even exist IMO, and freedom of speech or expression is all fine but not when you encourage rape..

Ah, you know what, I just realized while typing this that you can kill people in games, and since I find killing worse than rape, so by that standard, this game has the right to exist, I just won't play it. And if you ban this game in America, then I guess you have to ban any game where you kill people, and if that happened, I don't know what gamers would do.

 

[DirkGently]

It's always baffling what games the media uses to complain about games. Mass Effect, Super Columbine Massacre RPG...now even Dangerous High School Girls in Trouble is getting hell for talking about rape. The damn problem is that they're wigging out because it's a game with a taboo topic. How many books and films have rape in them? How many news stories talk about it regularly?

Is this a good game? I doubt it. Does it deserve to be banned because it dares to talk about a topic that we just don't let games ever go into? No.

QFT.

I think very few games deserve to be banned. And that's more because "This game is god-awful" than "It talks about/lets you do bad things".

 

[shadow skill]

This is getting good. Anyone know if the Japanese enforce age ratings on games?

 

[Fruitloops89]

Correct me if I am wrong, but is this not an older H-Game? The only people in America who would have known up until this point would have been porn addicts, anime fans who like to look up weird shit, same for gamers, and various message boards scattered across the net(looking at you 4chan and GameFAQs)

EDIT: The Japanese use the CERO rating system for rating video games, whether or not that applies to games like this though I don't know.

 

[Hithlain]

But innocent eyes COULD see it and people COULD complain. Therefore, we must overkill everything because we are afraid of the idiot voters. Sigh.