Japanese Eroge Company Renames Rape Games to "Platinum Games"

[IrrelevantTangent]

Creating a rape simulator is never justified no matter what you try and call it.

What if said rape simulators were keeping actual rapists off the streets?

It's a stretch I know, but I'm just trying to be awkward

Not really, I imagine for some it may actually be a harmless way to ... vent their urges. Face it, most of us can't control our fetishes, neither can paedophiles and rapists, but I think we'd all rather them play computer games then go after real life victims.

It's possible, but I haven't really heard of it being implemented successfully.

 

[_Cake_]

We agree as a society that murder is worse then rape. You can murder in games and we are all fine with it so rape in a game shouldn't be an issue.

The main problem is western society is so repressed when it comes to even consensual sex in video games. Remember Hot Coffee? Hillary Clinton(CURRANT united states secretary of state) and Joe Lieberman protecting children 18 years and older(this is a M rated game) from seeing a man have blocky pixilated fully clothed sex with his girl friend after dating and making her happy... Rather then just hearing a man have sex with hooker he's 2min away from killing to get his money back like past games.

So we see rape games, freak out at japan without even thinking. It's just a fantasy. Most people with non consensual fantasies are repelled by the idea or real rape too.

Does anyone really think that there is someone out there who needs a game to become a rapist? Like murder, if a someone is going to go as far as to rape a person I don't think any game will make a difference.

 

[brabz]

Singling out people who have these types of fantasies is discrimination and an invasion of privacy. And what constitutes an act of depravity? If I looked at porn depicting anal sex, in some states or countries, that would be an act of depravity. Sodomy is still against the law in some places, ridiculously. Would I have to be investigated by the government? That's ridiculous, not to mention logistically impossible.

Also, holding another culture responsible for our moral code is fundamentally wrong. We shouldn't force Japan to do anything unless they threaten us. We have no right to go to Japan and tell them how to do things. We can only tell them what to do if they come here.

Agreed. I don't think anyone here is defending the material itself, just the right for it to exist. You can't police thought, and you most certainly can't decide the morality and laws of another country or culture simply because it clashes with your own world-view.

 

[geldonyetich]

I will proceed to point out the things we disagree with that you've yet to address in posts which you ignored.

Do I believe RapeLay is a "rape simulator?" Absolutely, on the grounds that the very company that makes it would agree it is intended to be a rape simulator. However, such a thing is merely a label, it does not promise to be a good or highly feasible simulator, it's just being marketed as one.

I've said this probably 4 times. It's not a rape simulator, and I think it's a safe bet that the company wouldn't market it as that.

And you were wrong every time you said that. But, honestly, if you're so thick as to not understand that the company putting "RapeLay" on the cover and making it all a scenario about stalking three girls as raping them out of revenge makes it a rape simulator, albeit not a very realistic one, there's simply no convincing you.

I'm not really in favor of using popularity to prove a point like you are, but go plug +rapelay and +"rape simulator" into Google and find out just how many people agree with me here.

Actually, I looked up information on that case, and he wasn't charged with possession of child pornography, because it's not considered child pornography!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_status_of_cartoon_pornography_depicting_minors#Further_developments

Turns out he only got obscenity charges. Thus, your point is moot - animated minors are not considered child pornography by law!

An obscenity charge is still a charge, and he earned it from not being magically obscene, but rather from owning depictions of child pornography.

Well... I believe individuals who fantasize about acts of depravity should probably be investigated to see if they will act out these fantasies, and perhaps these individuals should be reminded that such acts would be considered severely negative (even in Japan they are) but I do not believe individuals should be prosecuted until negative intents are made clear.

Singling out people who have these types of fantasies is discrimination and an invasion of privacy.

And yet, sex offender registry exists. All I'm suggesting we do is see if we can catch them before they ruin somebody's life, but no, I guess privacy is more important for you.

But then, I think you will find more people agree with you. It's a lot more popular to assume that we simply don't have the resources to properly enforce this kind of thing, and this step would bring us too close to a police state to realize.

The thing you have to understand about me is, if I were in charge, I'd probably have robotic death machines sitting on everybody's front lawn pointing in the direction of the living-room windows, ready to open fire with twin 50mm gatling cannons the minute somebody goes too far over the line. Big brother is watching. So I guess I'm not real sympathetic over such wussy privacy concerns - what I'd do to this pack of easily corrupted monkeys called a society is far worse.

My idea of how to rule a country is an example of why it's a very good thing there's a firm difference between fantasy and reality.

 

[Aardvark]

I <3 Japan.

 

[Samurai Goomba]

We agree as a society that murder is worse then rape. You can murder in games and we are all fine with it so rape in a game shouldn't be an issue.

People keep saying this: do we? Do we murder in games?

I know we commit homicide, but do we really commit unjustifiable, inexcusable homicide with malice aforethought?

Aren't we soldiers a lot of the time, or trying to escape people intent on causing us death or grievous bodily harm, or people trying to prevent the end of the world?

How often do we actually commit murder as opposed to legal homicide?

Hitman. GTA. Stealth games where you can kill civilians or people just doing their jobs. And Sandbox games in general.

Lots of games feature acts of murder.

 

[Amnestic]

How often do we actually commit murder as opposed to legal homicide?

A lot of free roamers have murder. Prototype, inFamous, GTA...I'm sure I could think of more examples given time but free roamers/open world jump off the top of my head.

The Elder Scrolls as well can have it, as well as Fallout.

Baldur's Gate series and associated series (Icewind Dale, NWN)

There's just a few game series there.

 

[annoyinglizardvoice]

Normally I'm opposed to censorship, but this sort of thing is about where I draw the line. The facts that a) one of the victims is a kid and b) the designers have put so much effort into making the distress that the victims suffer part of the aim of the game push this outside of what I consider acceptable.

Personally, I do think that rape is worse than killing, not because of the affects, but because of the motivation: There are loads of reasons for killing. Most are bad but not all. All possible motives for rape can be simply boiled down to the rapist being a degenerate arsehole.

Calling the games "platinum" instead sounds like both a silly scam to avoid the law and a (possibly entertaining) accident waiting to happen.

Anyone know why crying is considered erotic in Japan?

 

[geldonyetich]

My point in bringing up that you can get convicted for possession of those materials had more to do with establishing where are we, right now, in terms of social mores.

Maybe, but, you also said it's the law, when it's not.

Well, you know, I just assumed it was the law considering this guy was successfully convicted.

It states right in the article that he plead guilty on the advice of his attorney:

Chase says he recommended the plea agreement (.pdf) to his client because he didn't think he could convince a jury to acquit him

And this refutes my point that what he was doing defied societal mores how? If anything, this whole line of argument can end right here: that a jury wouldn't acquit him after seeing what he collected proves definitively that what he was doing defied societal mores.

If you remember, that was the only reason I brought up the case to begin with.

And, to answer your other question, I probably do a better job reading what you wrote than you did I. Just most of it was inapplicable.

 

[geldonyetich]

Well... I believe individuals who fantasize about acts of depravity should probably be investigated to see if they will act out these fantasies, and perhaps these individuals should be reminded that such acts would be considered severely negative (even in Japan they are) but I do not believe individuals should be prosecuted until negative intents are made clear.

Singling out people who have these types of fantasies is discrimination and an invasion of privacy. And what constitutes an act of depravity? If I looked at porn depicting anal sex, in some states or countries, that would be an act of depravity. Sodomy is still against the law in some places, ridiculously. Would I have to be investigated by the government? That's ridiculous, not to mention logistically impossible.

This I agree with--saying "acts of depravity" clears up nothing.

I'm kinda surprised I'd need to spell it out for you.

Sure, it's ambiguous, but we're talking about societal mores here.

Raping a kid off the street? Good or bad? Come on, I think you know this one.

 

[Altorin]

Why are they pushing this genre? What the actual hell.

Because people buy them?

But more people complain and blacklist the company for it, causing them possible loss of profit.

I'm sure people would also find a way of suing them for corrupting their children's precious little minds... Not that I care for that part.

americans complain and blacklist them... where they weren't even being sold. They aren't losing any sales, because anyone who'd buy a rape game isn't going to be detoured by people in a backwards country halfway around the world telling them it's evil.

Let's say Germany discovered that after all these years, we'd been playing games with red blood in them. And suddenly, they stood up and said "STOP MAKING THESE BLOODY GAMES!! THEY PROMOTE VIOLENCE!!"

we'd go "heh, whatever Hans, I want the new gears of war, and I like blood."

It's sort of the same thing.

 

[Amnestic]

This, I do not. The thing about moral codes is that they are, well, moral: and if morals are not the same everywhere, then they're not morals, they're just customs like driving on the left or right side of the road.

Cultural relativism says hello.

Unless you care to point out where humanity objectively obtains its moral code(s) from.

Shouldn't we tell the Sudan how to do things, even if they're not threatening us? The real issue here is that what one person calls "morality" another person calls "civil rights."

Even then, aren't they simply the civil rights we as a culture have granted them? "Civil Rights" to me just seem like a community's (country's?) set of morals put down into law.

It's a complex issue

Too true, but luckily in this specific case it's about a video game and not real people.

 

[MagnetoHydroDynamics]

Lol. I loose faith in humanity when I read things like this.

 

[Tyr-Elhaz]

apparently Japans sex industry is the largest in the world, but they dont actually have that much sex, greeks have the most actual sex (theres a Youtube vid Im using as my reference so I could easily be mistaken)
the point being that Japan invented this genre of game to satisfy a demand, theyre capitalists. I agree that if manhunt and GTA are legal, that there shouldnt really be an illegal game, but I cant help but wonder when there will be a pedophile game, or take-someone-photo-and-upload-it-to-make-a-character-you-can-rape scenario.
All these things are morally wrong in RL, but is there a moral code in games? if so where is the line? Sex? Rape? Animals?
personally I think that these games should be banned for no better reason than I disagree with them on a fundamental level to me, but part of me has to wonder, would I want people banning games I like for the same reason...