Hotline Miami 2 Devs Remove "Rape Scene" From Demo

[Something Amyss]

I don't think I've raged at the Hotline Miami devs have I?

Who said you were raging at the devs? You've spent plenty of hate on "feminists" and people who show empathy towards fellow humans in the face of a mild inconvenience to you.

 

[Imp_Emissary]

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.

Really? Rape is only seen as a big deal because it's a "mostly women's issue"?

The U.S. Military would disagree.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/may/20/victims-of-sex-assaults-in-military-are-mostly-sil/?page=all

In 2012, 26,000 rapes. 12,000 women, and 14,000 men.

Rape is an issue for everyone. Men and women. It doesn't matter who gets raped more. Anyone who thinks otherwise, isn't connected to reality.

As for them keeping it in the game? It's there choice in the end. If they really think they need it, they'll keep it.

 

[Hazy]

If emotionally vulnerable people were really that vulnerable, they wouldn't be playing a game where you stave someone's head in with a nine iron.

[small]"A-At least I can die knowing this wasn't rape!"[/small]​

 

[Something Amyss]

You mean the ones that were complaining about the comic?

Which, of course, isthe only topic related to the matter you've addressed. Ever.

Come now.

 

[Robert Marrs]

It would be a real shame to see this taken out of the game just on principle. Killing people extremely violently is ok but a rape scene twice removed from reality (in a video game that turns out to be a movie in a video game) is a big deal? Sorry but if you dont like it too bad. Don't play the game. Trying to censor this is no different then the yahoo's that try to ban violent video games. Don't be a hypocrite just because now there is something you dont like in a game. Honestly if they do take it out I may not even buy the game.

 

[carnex]

Here we go again... I havent read whole thread, read some of the firs page and some of the last. Too much time needed for me

1) I can imagine quite a few things more traumatic than rape. I have seen consequences of non-rape actions. Shell-shocked baby that, for years, hided under the table on every loud sound, woman beaten up and left in the snow unable to move, paralyzed at age of 34, quicklime poured down the throar, quicklime thrown into eyes... compared to these rape doesn't look quite up for the title of worst. Add to that huge numbers of civilians loosing body parts to accidents or long forgotten war remains. Like getting your leg is blown off or your arm shredded in cogs of machine. Those are quite more traumatic I would say.
Plus when you ark person would they rather be raped or killed, i suspect rape would be preferred option in most cases

2) 4 in 1 rape rate was tracked down to a book written in sixties by prominent member of then "female liberation" movement. Book never referenced any source and prior citation was never found. That really stinks of BS, especially when researches, adjusted by factor of 10 to allow for 1 in 10 report rate suggest less than 1% of females sexually violated in their life time.

But all that doesn?t make rape any less of deplorable crime that robs person of basic feeling of control of one?s life and can lead to many psychological complications.

Never the less, it is my firm belief that censorship is not an option. Author must be free to fulfill his vision, unchanged and untouched. It is artist?s duty to ignore any taboos and social ?wisdoms? whenever they stand in the way of his narration.

This is only medium where this discussion is seen which proves that people don?t think about games as something that has potential to be work of art, nor that game designers are artists. If they did we wouldn?t have this discussions. And I see that as sad. Games are unique medium that incorporates all others but adds another layer over it, interactivity, which dwarfs all other aspects. Games like Papers Please, Spec Ops: The Line and Planescape Torment explore themes other mediums explored but could never affect us like interactive medium can. This medium has potential like nothing before it, and with new technologies like truly encompassing VR (oculus rift) and AR (rumored next gen Google glasses with lens projection) possibilities simply go far beyond my capability to imagine.

And yet we would castrate medium in it?s infancy. Weren?t all previous controversial mediums enough to learn anything? This medium already does more to protect it?s audience with content warnings on packaging. Should not that be enough or was that enough to discredit games as artistic medium?

We should relize that there are games that conform to general demands, and games that tell story author created without caring for taboos. There there are games for fun and games for meaning. Like movies, music, books and any other medium, not all products are for everyone.

 

[Something Amyss]

If emotionally vulnerable people were really that vulnerable, they wouldn't be playing a game where you stave someone's head in with a nine iron.

[small]"A-At least I can die knowing this wasn't rape!"[/small]​

Thankfully, everyone who is set off by one thing is set off by everything else, so this is a fair and accurate statement.

 

[Robert Marrs]

Here we go again... I havent read whole thread, read some of the firs page and some of the last. Too much time needed for me

1) I can imagine quite a few things more traumatic than rape. I have seen consequences of non-rape actions. Shell-shocked baby that, for years, hided under the table on every loud sound, woman beaten up and left in the snow unable to move, paralyzed at age of 34, quicklime poured down the throar, quicklime thrown into eyes... compared to these rape doesn't look quite up for the title of worst. Add to that huge numbers of civilians loosing body parts to accidents or long forgotten war remains. Like getting your leg is blown off or your arm shredded in cogs of machine. Those are quite more traumatic I would say.
Plus when you ark person would they rather be raped or killed, i suspect rape would be preferred option in most cases

2) 4 in 1 rape rate was tracked down to a book written in sixties by prominent member of then "female liberation" movement. Book never referenced any source and prior citation was never found. That really stinks of BS, especially when researches, adjusted by factor of 10 to allow for 1 in 10 report rate suggest less than 1% of females sexually violated in their life time.

But all that doesn?t make rape deplorable crime that robs person of basic feeling of control of one?s life and can lead to many psychological complications.

Never the less, it is my firm belief that censorship is not an option. Author must be free to fulfill his vision, unchanged and untouched. It is artist?s duty to ignore any taboos and social ?wisdoms? whenever they stand in the way of his narration.

This is only medium where this discussion is seen which proves that people don?t think about games as something that has potential to be work of art, nor that game designers are artists. If they did we wouldn?t have this discussions. And I see that as sad. Games are unique medium that incorporates all others but adds another layer over it, interactivity, which dwarfs all other aspects. Games like Papers Please, Spec Ops: The Line and Planescape Torment explore themes other mediums explored but could never affect us like interactive medium can. This medium has potential like nothing before it, and with new technologies like truly encompassing VR (oculus rift) and AR (rumored next gen Google glasses with lens projection) possibilities simply go far beyond my capability to imagine.

And yet we would castrate medium in it?s infancy. Weren?t all previous controversial mediums enough to learn anything? This medium already does more to protect it?s audience with content warnings on packaging. Should not that be enough or was that enough to discredit games as artistic medium?

Could not have said it better myself. Also thank you for bringing up the 1 in 4 thing. I get so tired of seeing that statistic thrown around with zero evidence to back it up and anyone who questions it is usually just dismissed with claims of misogyny.

 

[sonofliber]

i think i understand the mentality of the people that said rape is worst than murder:

they hear rape victims speak and explain their experience so they empathize with them.
they dont hear murder victims complain about been murder so they cant empathize.

so thats why they consider that rape is worst that murder, and if you dont think this is true, give me a better explanation of why been alive and traumatize is worst that been dead (you know the last stop, the point of not return, were you dont exist anymore, etc.. etc..)

 

[carnex]

But all that doesn?t make rape deplorable crime that robs person of basic feeling of control of one?s life and can lead to many psychological complications.

My bad, forgot to write in few words. I've fixed it to

But all that doesn?t make rape any less of deplorable crime that robs person of basic feeling of control of one?s life and can lead to many psychological complications.

 

[Hazy]

Thankfully, everyone who is set off by one thing is set off by everything else, so this is a fair and accurate statement.

If you can slaughter people with reckless abandon but a rape scene troubles you, you've got bigger problems you need to sort out than making sure video games cater to your needs.


If we continue to worry about the wants of people who are offended by digital media, we will never grow as a medium.

I think he puts it best when he says

"To those people who genuinely care about triggers, let me ask you a question: do you care about war veterans with PTSD who get triggered by images of guns and weapons or violence in the media? Do you feel bad when you play a game that has guns in it... knowing that somewhere they might be triggering someone? Or what about someone who has gone through any trauma? Do you believe that all triggers for them should be censored too?"

 

[Olikar]

Which is irrelevant because you said rape was something that women face and fear on a daily basis, not sexual harassment nor domestic abuse.

Since sexual harassment and domestic abuse are things that commonly and primarily affect women, I'd say the prevalence of those two phenomena is quite relevant to the existence of male privilege.

Again you can't accurately say it primary effects women, and it still has no relevance to your ludicrous claims that women are at constant day to day fear of rape in the western world.

An offensive joke that fails to be funny is just offensive. If your joke causes offense and not laughter, then your joke is a failure, and you need better material.

Yes but that has nothing to with being offensive but the joke being crap, if a joke was offensive but funny it would have succeeded as a joke.

In any case. Censorship is the act of a governing body, and its mechanism is law.

Ha perhaps you should actually read up on what constitutes censorship.


[quote"]
It speaks directly to the issue at hand, which is your lack of empathy and inability to admit that other people don't have the same privilege you have. [/quote]

And this is exactly my point, you claim our lack of empathy with their position is down to privilege (or our inability to see past our privilege.) and not the down the fact we simply disagree with them on core issues. You have no reason to assume it is down to privilege (in fact you can't even assume I myself am privileged since you know almost nothing about me.) and you only do so because it allows you to dismiss our opinions as privilege bias. In reality it has nothing to with privilege, I simply disagree with that sort of ideology and in fact there are issues where I feel I would be characterized as non-privileged where I would still condemn people calling for censorship.

 

[Yuuki]

Really? Rape is only seen as a big deal because it's a "mostly women's issue"?

The U.S. Military would disagree.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/may/20/victims-of-sex-assaults-in-military-are-mostly-sil/?page=all

In 2012, 26,000 rapes. 12,000 women, and 14,000 men.

Rape is an issue for everyone. Men and women. It doesn't matter who gets raped more. Anyone who thinks otherwise, isn't connected to reality.

As for them keeping it in the game? It's there choice in the end. If they really think they need it, they'll keep it.

"The US Military would disagree" well...not to be rude or anything, but no shit dude, in that very same article you will see this:

The survey determined that 26,000 service members were victims of sexual assault last year, based on the 6.1 percent of female and 1.2 percent of male respondents who claimed to have suffered such abuse. With an active-duty force of 200,000 women and 1.2 million men, that amounts to roughly 12,000 female victims and 14,000 male victims.

This is further skewed by the existence of entire frontline/combat divisions which have zero women, the ONLY sexual assault reports coming out of those divisions will be male ones. But despite the whopping population different between the genders, the proportion of women being assaulted (compared to their population) is still over 5 times higher than males.
But then you'll probably say "well it says a lot of males don't report it", and then this turns into a completely other kind of discussion because we no longer have concrete numbers, etc .

Here's just a random google result on the male vs female rape ratios from a less biased population (i.e. not dominated by 1 gender and skewing the hell out of stats):
http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2013/jan/11/male-female-rape-statistics-graphic

Now about statistics, lets get back to the thread about Hotline Miami 2

 

[Hagi]

Whilst I do agree on the decision the devs here made, it wasn't the best idea to present this without context.

I really don't understand how people can say that murder and rape are so very different.

I've lived for a year in South Africa, a country with murder rates through the roof, and let me tell you, some of the stories I've heard...

Do you honestly believe that a rape victim feels any more powerless and traumatized than a man who just found out that three days before his wedding his fiancee was shot and killed during a burglary? I'm not making that up, that happened. You believe he doesn't feel powerless? His free will completely stripped? He doesn't have his normal desires completely poisoned? He doesn't feel like that was extremely personal and horrifying?

Because that's what real murder is like. It does leave survivors. It leaves friends and family completely devastated, powerless and forever affected.

And if I'm honest, although I'll probably piss some people off, if you ask any of those survivors if they'd suffer a brutal rape in return for that murder never having happened? Well... I know what I'd pick...

 

[CJ1145]

I'd never actually seen social justice bloggers in action before this thread, and I'm pretty appalled by what I see. You're so caught up in wordplay and political "theory" you've lost sight of any actual meaning. Rape and murder are both terrible, disgusting crimes. Neither can be condoned in real life. And for all the people who are about to get on my case, note I said "murder". Not killing. Killing can be justified in rare circumstances. Murder cannot and is a crime by definition.

But we're talking about real life. In the world of fiction, anything can happen. And not everything that happens is pretty. Terrible things happen to innocent characters, but that's what fiction is. Conflict, and the overcoming of it. Drama. If the stories lacked weight and were all sugarfests we would get sick of them. Sometimes murders happen. Sometimes rape happens. But it's the creator's choice to implement those things in their stories. It's also their choice to change them like this team, but it is not something that anyone but the creator should decide. If you are offended by what you see or read, fine. It's your right. So look away. If it isn't a story you enjoy then don't follow it.