Hotline Miami 2 Devs Remove "Rape Scene" From Demo

[Yuuki]

I'm going to agree with Maiev Shadowsong here, Killing and Rape are two different kinds of evil but there is one important distinction you have to keep in mind with this discussion.

Sometimes Killing is justified, but Rape is NEVER justified.

Killing is the act of taking another human being's life away. There are situations where Killing is, regrettably, a justifiable course of action or the only course of action. For example, I don't think that anyone would argue that Killing isn't justified when a person is confronted by an angry mob intent on doing grievous bodily harm to a them or killing them or their loved ones. Likewise killing is justified when a lone psycho with a gun storms a workplace and takes innocent people hostage.

Let's contrast this with Rape which is the act of forcibly using someone else's body for the rapist's sick pleasure. It's never justified. There is never a situation where Rape is a justifiable course of action, and believe me the Japanese have been trying for DECADES to contrive one with no success. When you get down to it, all Rape is is using someone else's body so you can get off. There's never a higher cause and Rape can never serve any other purpose than the Rapists pleasure.

There is never a reason for torture either, it's just someone forcing pain (or grievous harm) on someone else's body for their sick pleasure. But that hasn't stopped it being a pretty common part of movies...in some cases entire franchises being based around brutal torture.

I think rape is a special case because the majority of convicted rapists are males with female victims. Abortion is also treated extremely carefully because it's only something that happens to women, and society naturally tends to be vastly more protective of women than men (simply something that has gone without saying for thousands of years), in war there are no worse casualties than women (and children).
Torture and murder is fine because it can happen to any gender, right?

You're all missing the point. It's not about what is good or bad or justified or whatever else. The question is whether the game should be changed to protect the emotionally vulnerable. The answer is no.

So far it's mostly been about weighing rape as a more serious crime than anything that can possibly happen to a human being. Many people continue to insist that rape is the most heinous crime and should NEVER be shown in any entertainment medium under any circumstances, even if said medium has been strictly classified R18 and contains endless brutality/gore/violence.

All those things are far away from reality and rape is the only thing that really matters. That's the primary argument I've heard in this thread.

I'll bring up something that has been more censored/avoided in media than even rape - the killing of children. It happens a LOT in real life, but you will have extreme difficulty finding scenes in entertainment mediums where we are shown someone killing a child in front of our very eyes. Whenever it does happen, it's simply "implied" and never shown, e.g. we may be shown the dead kid's body (the result) but that's the extent of it. It's simply on the list of "never show to human beings, ever".

I question the need for it, but as long as the devs did it to genuinely make it better rather then to appease people I'm ok with it.

Amen.
/thread

 

[Phrozenflame500]

This thread will go has gone downhill fast.

I question the need for it, but as long as the devs did it to genuinely make it better rather then to appease people I'm ok with it.

 

[The Artificially Prolonged]

In this case in was probably not the best idea to show that scene in the demo as getting the right context for what was happening is not going to be very easy in such a short space of time. Plus internet is not going to wait around for clarifications before going into full on rage mode.

I do think if devs want to tackle these controversial issues in their games they should be able to. Though it would be probably be best from now on to not mention it before releasing and just let people make their own minds up when they play the game themselves, experiencing everything in the proper context. That we can avoid all these controversies based on small pieces of information we actually know.

In this case I think the devs are probably doing the right thing re-evaluating the scene to make it better if they think that they aren't currently handling it as best they could. Though I hope they don't actually completely remove because some people where offended. If you start going down that road it may start getting very hard to draw a line of acceptable and not acceptable.

Do we now change games that depict brutal murders, as it may offend people close to a victim of a brutal murder?
Do we now change games that depict war, as it may be uncomfortable for war veterans?
Do we now change games that depict acts of crime, as it may offend victims of said crimes?

Granted each of these things are different to rape in many ways, and you could argue all day (and I bet this thread will) whether murder or rape is a more taboo act. However the principal in for all of them is the same. While they are all terrible acts that affect their victims and those close to them, this does not mean that they are off limits to being depicted in books, films, paintings, music and theatre for sake of not causing offence. Why should games be any different?

 

[Entitled]

They made a decision. Maybe you people should respect it.

But how could we protect Free Speech, if we are not even allowed to force the hands of artists to make them keep the scenes that we don't want them to remove???

 

[Warachia]

This is smart of them, if the scene is taken out of context, as it appears to be in the demo, and it requires you to know things that the demo doesn't show, then it shouldn't be in the demo.

I'm sure most people can imagine being murdered far more vividly than they can imagine being raped.

Sometimes Killing is justified, but Rape is NEVER justified.

You clearly haven't played Hotline Miami then.

Please tell me two things, A) How it feels to be murdered, which you can't since you aren't dead, and B) Where was there EVER a rape scene in Hotline Miami? And how was/would it be justified at all?

 

[Dark Knifer]

I think this still shows gaming's adolescence. Removing it from the demo without context, very good move, should not have bothered putting story elements in a demo, just gameplay. But keep it in the game because it can be a powerful story motivator and good imagery. Movies, books and other things are ok with r18 stuff doing this provide it makes sense, such as watchmen.

 

[You Can't Take the Sky From Me]

*Snip*

[HEADING=2]Murder and rape are not the same.[/HEADING]

*Snip*

I'm going to agree with Maiev Shadowsong here, Killing and Rape are two different kinds of evil but there is one important distinction you have to keep in mind with this discussion.

Sometimes Killing is justified, but Rape is NEVER justified.

Killing is the act of taking another human being's life away. There are situations where Killing is, regrettably, a justifiable course of action or the only course of action. For example, I don't think that anyone would argue that Killing isn't justified when a person is confronted by an angry mob intent on doing grievous bodily harm to a them or killing them or their loved ones. Likewise killing is justified when a lone psycho with a gun storms a workplace and takes innocent people hostage.

Let's contrast this with Rape which is the act of forcibly using someone else's body for the rapist's sick pleasure. It's never justified. There is never a situation where Rape is a justifiable course of action, and believe me the Japanese have been trying for DECADES to contrive one with no success. When you get down to it, all Rape is is using someone else's body so you can get off. There's never a higher cause and Rape can never serve any other purpose than the Rapists pleasure.

Up front I just want to say that overall I agree with what you have said, but one thing that I always see in these debates (that I read for reasons only a skilled psychologist could tell you) that I feel should be addressed is that killing someone in self defense is not murder. Murder can never be justified. If someone attacked me and killed me they have committed a murder (with varying degrees depending on intent), if I kill them I have not. Murder is a legal principle, not just the act of taking a life. This is the same reason that a soldier killing during wartime is not a murderer. Of course with manslaughter definitions do become somewhat muddied.

On Topic: It probably would have been a better idea to wait until the full context of the event could be made clear before releasing this scene, especially with what a powder-keg the inter-net's been over such issues in recent times.

 

[DEAD34345]

You're all missing the point. It's not about what is good or bad or justified or whatever else. The question is whether the game should be changed to protect the emotionally vulnerable. The answer is no.

Actually I think it's the folks on your side who are mostly missing the point here.

You whinge about censorship and about the freedom of the artist - well, the artists here made a choice to edit their scene.

Read that again.

The artists made a choice.

Their scene was making people uncomfortable. This wasn't the reaction they wanted. So now they're reworking the scene, so that they reaction the audience has is closer to the reaction they wanted to invoke. They made a decision.

Maybe you people should respect it.

The artists were forced to make that choice because of the ridiculous complaints that were put against their original choice, which was to have the "rape scene" in the demo in the first place. I don't blame the artists for changing their work due to this pressure, in fact I don't even really blame the people that complained, since I'm sure they were only doing what they thought was right. I just think it's sad that an artist should have to censor his own work in this way, and that people still have such a weird double standard when it comes to rape.

Hotline Miami was about a psychopath who spoke to voices in his head and traveled around Miami indiscriminately and brutally murdering dozens, probably hundreds of people. That people can seriously claim that a rape scene takes it "too far" boggles my mind. That people try to justify it, and claim that rape is somehow worse than murder or any other crimes, just worries me.

 

[anthony87]

As long as they're not changing the game, just removing the rape(even though it's not) scene from the demo then I don't see much of a problem.

Still, I really don't think that the "Some people find this offensive so lets remove it" train of thought is the best way of going about things in general.

 

[Warachia]

A) How it feels to be murdered, which you can't since you aren't dead

I'm talking about people who haven't experienced being murdered or being raped. I imagine that being murdered is rather painful, don't you?

B) Where was there EVER a rape scene in Hotline Miami? And how was/would it be justified at all?

I meant that there was barely any justification for most of the mass-murder in Hotline Miami (other than the fact that all of the enemies were mobsters, but that changes by the second act when there's no justification at all). I'm not saying that rape is ever justified.

Aside from the pain I can't imagine what it would be like, would I be disappointed that I won't get to do the things I wanted to do? Would I be worried that the murderers might go after my friends and family next? Or would I just want the pain to end? My point was that you can't know unless it happens to you.

I apologize for that second one then, I misconstrued that since you only replied to the rape quote, no the mass murder (mostly) isn't justified, which is a good thing since you are clearly not playing as the hero in that game, just a nut job who's killing mafia members, but at the same time, when you are in the building it becomes justified (as far as the player is concerned) because if you don't kill them they WILL kill you. In some missions you just walk into the lobby of some place and they immediately gun you down for no reason, imagine if the character wanted to turn himself in during that police station mission, you enter the front door, and get shot in the face, in those cases I'd say it is justified, but I can't say the rape was ever justified, just like how the two really brutal/torture murders in the game aren't justified.

 

[wulf3n]

You will probably never know a murder victim. You will know a rape survivor. You will probably see multiple rape survivors every day.

I know more murder victims than I do rape survivors.

Because what people tend to forget is that a single murder has many victims.

The Mother and Father that lose a child.
The person that loses a sibling.
The child that loses a parent.
The person who loses a friend.

Not to forget those that may be unfortunate enough to witness said murder. Seeing someone laying on the ground half their head missing severely traumatizes a lot of people.

Sure Murder and Rape aren't the same thing. But don't try and play one up as worse than the other.

 

[Warachia]

The artists were forced to make that choice because of the ridiculous complaints that were put against their original choice, which was to have the "rape scene" in the demo in the first place. I don't blame the artists for changing their work due to this pressure, in fact I don't even really blame the people that complained, since I'm sure they were only doing what they thought was right. I just think it's sad that an artist should have to censor his own work in this way, and that people still have such a weird double standard when it comes to rape.

Hotline Miami was about a psychopath who spoke to voices in his head and traveled around Miami indiscriminately and brutally murdering dozens, probably hundreds of people. That people can seriously claim that a rape scene takes it "too far" boggles my mind. That people try to justify it, and claim that rape is somehow worse than murder or any other crimes, just worries me.

Weird, I read the article that said the developers didn't intend for people to take the scene the way they did, and as such are changing it so as to better bring out their original intentions. Nobody forced them to make this choice, and they didn't have to censor anything (and according to the article it's still going to be in the full game), and if you seriously think they did, then explain how, because telling a developer how you feel isn't forcing them to change something.

Also, people getting upset at rape, but not at murder, isn't a double standard, if you want to know why people feel the way they do, just look up the Jimquisition episode where he talks about both.

 

[wulf3n]

Also, people getting upset at rape, but not at murder, isn't a double standard, if you want to know why people feel the way they do, just look up the Jimquisition episode where he talks about both.

You mean this [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/5972-Rape-vs-Murder] one where he talks about killing and death but not murder and trivializes the plight of those that are victims of murder?

 

[Olikar]

snip

They where clearly pressured to make the 'choice' to remove the rape scene from the PAX demo, in what way is that not censorship?