Japanese Eroge Company Renames Rape Games to "Platinum Games"

[IrrelevantTangent]

Too...many...flames...

I'm leaving this thread now before something gets said that shouldn't be said, and the banhammer comes down on all of us. I never thought I'd be flamed like this for expressing my opinion.

You were not flamed for expressing your opinion, you were flamed for expressing a contentious opinion which you defended with morally superior statements. Had you dealt with the rebuttals to your statements in a logical, cool-minded manner you wouldn't have been flamed. Please don't play the martyr.

And had you bothered to read my other posts in this thread, you'd notice where I apologized for expressing such a strongly-worded opinion and while I still disagreed with those that said that the Eroge company's games shouldn't be banned, that I didn't hate them personally.

 

[Shogoll]

I believe the problem is the fellow didn't understand what he was getting himself into.

What I've actually been arguing here is this: the Internet proclaims everything is about the free exchange of ideas, and that's just awesome. However, outside of the Internet, there is a definite prevalence of social mores and laws which the users of the Internet may not be aware of.

You might think that Lolicon is cool because nobody real is being harmed in it. However, the real issue is deeper than that: You, yourself, are not the authority that determines whether this is an acceptable within your society. If you are, hey, it's really easy to get away with anything because you deemed it acceptable. No, it doesn't work that way, sorry.

This entire forum could agree with you, but it's pointless, because the context in which I'm operating here is an Internet forum. An an argument, it's an impossible one for me to show a dominant agreement with because, by and large, I've chosen a very poor context to operate upon. So, instead, I refuse to argue.

Simply know this: there are plenty of examples you can find, right now, in Google where people possessing something like RapeLay can actually get convicted for it to be in their possession. You might think it's okay because you played the game, but you were actually at risk. I'm not going to bother to argue the right or wrong of it because, like you, I, too, am not an authority that determines whether or not this is an acceptable activity within our society.

So, basically speaking, this debate you and that other guy have been trying to spark with me? Pointless. Neither of us will accomplish anything on this thread, so why bother. Instead, just open your eyes and know that it is, in fact, illegal right now. If you don't like it, go talk to a lawyer.

Sounds to me like you're trying to back out of an argument you are losing by changing the argument and downplaying it by claiming that we somehow have absolutely no power in real life society, so it doesn't matter anyways.

 

[Srkkl]

With good comes the bad I guess, first was the whole PETA thing(yin) and now this whole rape sorry I mean "platinum" thing(yang). With the good comes the bad I guess haha.

 

[geldonyetich]

Sounds to me like you're trying to back out of an argument you are losing by changing the argument and downplaying everything by claiming that we somehow have absolutely no power in real life society e.g. outside of an internet forum.

That would be the first assumption, yes. However, if you really know the nature of message boards, the reality is much simpler: everybody interpreted what I was trying to say incorrectly from the start.

They figured I just waltzed in here, Jack Thompson style, to start provoking the awesome might of censorship as being the super-duper savior to us all. Their brains were fossilized in 'for or against us' mode. They really needed an opposition to sit on their "against" side, so I became that...

... but I never really so very against. I was arguing a third, completely separate tangent entirely. People just assumed I was arguing the "against" side because most forum goers have seen 1001 of these threads and figured they knew how all of them go so naturally I would have to be on an against side.

That third tangent again: I'm neither for nor against censorship of video games, I'm just pointing out that we don't live in a world where possession of portrayals of acts of indecency such as rape or lolita porn is going to earn you anything but scorn and potential legal action.

 

[Krakyn]

What you don't understand is that laws are in place to protect people. Playing a fantasy game doesn't hurt people. When you understand this, we'll talk.

Okay.

The law agrees with me [http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/05/manga-porn/] and so you apparently have no idea what you're talking about.

Done.

Yeah, but I don't agree with the law. Do you agree that all games that can't get a rating in Australia should be banned?

Every comment on that page you linked to completely disagrees with the conviction. I believe that's because people like you on moral crusades created the problem, just like you're doing now. That guy had never hurt anybody in his life, no child was ever harmed because of his purchase of magazines, yet he was imprisoned.

I believe the problem is the fellow didn't understand what he was getting himself into.

What I've actually been arguing here is this: the Internet proclaims everything is about the free exchange of ideas, and that's just awesome. However, outside of the Internet, there is a definite prevalence of social mores and laws which the users of the Internet may not be aware of.

You might think that Lolicon is cool because nobody real is being harmed in it. However, the real issue is deeper than that: You, yourself, are not the authority that determines whether this is an acceptable within your society. If you are, hey, it's really easy to get away with anything because you deemed it acceptable. No, it doesn't work that way, sorry.

This entire forum could agree with you, but it's pointless, because the context in which I'm operating here is an Internet forum. Frankly, that some of the people who are agreeing with you have 4Chan inspired avatars is pretty telling. An an argument, it's an impossible one for me to show a dominant agreement with because, by and large, I've chosen a very poor place to operate upon: I'm amongst those who live on the Internet, I can't get them to agree with reality's real priorities are truly more important. So, instead, I refuse to argue.

Simply know this: there are plenty of examples you can find, right now, in Google where people possessing something like RapeLay can actually get convicted for it to be in their possession. You might think it's okay because you played the game, but you were actually at risk. I'm not going to bother to argue the right or wrong of it because, like you, I, too, am not an authority that determines whether or not this is an acceptable activity within our society.

So, basically speaking, this debate you and that other guy have been trying to spark with me? Pointless. Neither of us will accomplish anything on this thread, so why bother. Instead, just open your eyes and know that it is, in fact, illegal right now. If you don't like it, go talk to a lawyer.

You seriously believe we have no power? Go back to school. The reason we have the election process is so that we can proxy our desires through representatives. Sometimes, I just wish people who wanted to censor didn't have a voice. That's the double-edged sword of free speech.

 

[geldonyetich]

You seriously believe we have no power? Go back to school. The reason we have the election process is so that we can proxy our desires through representatives. Sometimes, I just wish people who wanted to censor didn't have a voice. That's the double-edged sword of free speech.

OMG, lawl-worthy.

"YOU DON'T THINK IS A PLACE WHERE WE HAVE THE POWER TO MAKE A CHANGE! GO BACK TO SCHOOL! WE VOTE ALL THE TIME! THIS IS A DEMOCRACY!"

I'm talking about an Internet forum as being a place where it's unlikely I'll find that many people sticking up for social mores is all. Geeze, I'm not talking about your ability to flippin' vote. If you think this forum is any threat at all to your ability to vote, you're out of your skull.

 

[GenHellspawn]

You, yourself, are not the authority that determines whether this is an acceptable within your society. If you are, hey, it's really easy to get away with anything because you deemed it acceptable. No, it doesn't work that way, sorry.

Free Speech is often misconstrued as a belief you can undermine common decency.

This is quite amusing. Not only is your only argument against people who justify rape games is that they're an operative from the other side and can't possibly be right, you are also a blatant hypocrite and apparently have no idea on how to conduct an open debate. Please, for all our sakes, either stop being close minded and ignorant about a topic that only concerns you by proxy, or just stop.

 

[Shogoll]

Sounds to me like you're trying to back out of an argument you are losing by changing the argument and downplaying everything by claiming that we somehow have absolutely no power in real life society e.g. outside of an internet forum.

That would be the first assumption, yes. However, if you really know the nature of message boards, the reality is much simpler: everybody interpreted what I was trying to say incorrectly from the start.

They figured I just waltzed in here, Jack Thompson style, to start provoking the awesome might of censorship as being the super-duper savior to us all. Their brains were fossilized in 'for or against us' mode. They really needed an opposition to sit on their "against" side, so I became that...

... but I never really so very against. I was arguing a third, completely separate tangent entirely. People just assumed I was arguing the "against" side because most forum goers have seen 1001 of these threads and figured they knew how all of them go so naturally I would have to be on an against side.

That third tangent again: I'm neither for nor against censorship of video games, I'm just pointing out that we don't live in a world where possession of portrayals of acts of indecency such as rape or lolita porn is going to earn you anything but scorn and potential legal action.

Sorry, but in this case the entire argument is your fault. Your first posts in this thread failed to explain your position in this matter at all, and the whole time you came off as a righteous prick who refused to listen to other people's arguments. All the while making rather ignorant-sounding statements which pretty much amounted to trolling.

Through your inability to properly explain this supposed misunderstanding and situation, you escalated the argument.

 

[geldonyetich]

You, yourself, are not the authority that determines whether this is an acceptable within your society. If you are, hey, it's really easy to get away with anything because you deemed it acceptable. No, it doesn't work that way, sorry.

Free Speech is often misconstrued as a belief you can undermine common decency.

This is quite amusing. Not only is your only argument against people who justify rape games is that they're an operative from the other side and can't possibly be right, you are also a blatant hypocrite and apparently have no idea on how to conduct an open debate. Please, for all our sakes, either stop being close minded and ignorant about a topic that only concerns you by proxy, or just stop.

What? Those two quotes agree.

The first says that a person does not determine social mores all by themselves. The second says that people sometimes take Free Speech as believing that they can determine social mores all by themselves but it doesn't work that way.

I'm sorry you're unable to grok that.

 

[Agayek]

Now for a little change of pace: from the previous page, I saw some "it's just a game" replies. I know where you guys are coming from, but will there come a point when "it's just a game" is no longer enough?

No. "It's just a game" is more than enough to support any level of depravity, perversion or any other form of expression that someone can find objectionable.

You don't like it? There's a very simple solution. Don't play it.

Censorship is never appropriate, and thus, any game can, and should, include any form of content the developers feel is appropriate.

 

[geldonyetich]

Sorry, but in this case the entire argument is your fault. Your first posts in this thread failed to explain your position in this matter at all, and the whole time you came off as a righteous prick who refused to listen to other people's arguments.

Through your inability to properly explain this supposed misunderstanding and situation, you escalated the argument.

It's interesting how, on an Internet forum, a person is apparently under no obligation to understand what you're writing, and if they don't get it, it's apparently your fault that they failed to read.

No, I won't even go that far. I'll say it's 50/50 reader/writer, but the readers only went about 10% because they wanted me to be Jack Thompson.

 

[TsunamiWombat]

AHAHAAHAHAHAHAH ahh...

 

[BGH122]

I believe the problem is the fellow didn't understand what he was getting himself into.

What I've actually been arguing here is this: the Internet proclaims everything is about the free exchange of ideas, and that's just awesome. However, outside of the Internet, there is a definite prevalence of social mores and laws which the users of the Internet may not be aware of.

You might think that Lolicon is cool because nobody real is being harmed in it. However, the real issue is deeper than that: You, yourself, are not the authority that determines whether this is an acceptable within your society. If you are, hey, it's really easy to get away with anything because you deemed it acceptable. No, it doesn't work that way, sorry.

This entire forum could agree with you, but it's pointless, because the context in which I'm operating here is an Internet forum. An an argument, it's an impossible one for me to show a dominant agreement with because, by and large, I've chosen a very poor context to operate upon. So, instead, I refuse to argue.

Simply know this: there are plenty of examples you can find, right now, in Google where people possessing something like RapeLay can actually get convicted for it to be in their possession. You might think it's okay because you played the game, but you were actually at risk. I'm not going to bother to argue the right or wrong of it because, like you, I, too, am not an authority that determines whether or not this is an acceptable activity within our society.

So, basically speaking, this debate you and that other guy have been trying to spark with me? Pointless. Neither of us will accomplish anything on this thread, so why bother. Instead, just open your eyes and know that it is, in fact, illegal right now. If you don't like it, go talk to a lawyer.

I'm sorry, but this might well be the most facetious argument I've ever read online simply due to the fact that you clearly think you're making sense.

What your argument boils down to is that complex moral issues about whether or not it's "right" for a certain subject to be made into entertainment is the same as the laws regarding that activity. You stumble into the following nonsense argument put forward by Thrasymachus in The Republic:

"justice is the advantage of the stronger" (338c) "injustice, if it is on a large enough scale, is stronger, freer, and more masterly than justice'" (344c)

The claim here is that what is morally right is simply whatever the person in power says is morally right. It should be obvious that the claim is nonsense, but I'll explain why that's the case nonetheless:

There's two distinct branches of morality (ignoring Nihilism): Cognitivism and Non-Cognitivism. Broadly, a Cognitivist ethicist makes the claim that statements about ethics are falsifiable factual statements; there really is an objective truth about the matter at hand. So if I say "Rape is bad" then I'm making a verifiable, factual statement that relates to a fact in objective reality in the exact same way that a statement such as "That tree is green" does. For the cognitivist, we'd all agree on all morality if we were all enlightened on the moral facts.

A Non-Cognitivist makes the opposite claim about ethics: ethical statements don't relate to objective reality and are entirely subjective i.e. no-one is 'right'. For a non-cognitivist a statement such as "Rape is bad" would only express a personal distaste of rape and nothing more. For the non-cognitivist, such a thing as 'moral facts' (properly called 'normative facts') is ludicrous and people can't necessarily agree on moral claims.

In both cases a government's law has no tie to whether or not a thing is or is not morally acceptable in society unless it is also supposed (and this is only for the Cognitivist) that the government is infallible in their statement of that law so that it 100% matches objective truth regarding whatever moral fact the law represents. Do you really want to make that statement? Because if so you'll be forced back into an argument defending why it's the case that the government is right and I think that's precisely what you're trying to avoid.

 

[Agayek]

What? Those two quotes agree.

The first says that a person does not determine social mores all by themselves. The second says that people sometimes take Free Speech as believing that they can determine social mores all by themselves but it doesn't work that way.

I'm sorry you're unable to grok that.

Free Speech means you can say whatever you wish without fear of government repurcussion. It has nothing to do with social mores.

That said, social mores do not dictate limits on what can be said. They simply dictate what should be said if one wishes to be considered "polite". Personally, I find the whole thing a gigantic pile of bullshit, but that's neither here nor there.

Social mores are the societal codes that dictate what we as a culture find acceptable to discuss. Thus, in this case, they do not apply. The game was made in, and for, a Japanese audience, with a vastly different culture and set of social values. Using social mores to argue for or against it is thus inherently invalid.

 

[geldonyetich]

So, instead, I refuse to argue.

I'm sorry, but this might well be [an] argument

No, it isn't.

To clarify, I believe that any argument on any Internet forum is a complete waste of time. I know I've never convinced anyone on a debate in a forum, so I'm not bothering.

So, if anyone here is hoping to convince anyone of something of a forum, stop wasting your time. Internet forum debates are a farce.

 

[Krakyn]

That third tangent again: I'm neither for nor against censorship of video games, I'm just pointing out that we don't live in a world where possession of portrayals of acts of indecency such as rape or lolita porn is going to earn you anything but scorn and potential legal action.

The entire game plays out as a rape simulator with its difficulty level set to "unfeasibly easy," but it's a rape simulator nonetheless, with quite a remarkable amount of detail spared to ruining lives.

These are separate arguments. Agreeing with another poster that a game is a rape simulator and inherently wrong is not the same as playing a third party tangential role explaining that media involving things like rape and lolita porn are socially frowned upon.

Game over.

 

[geldonyetich]

That third tangent again: I'm neither for nor against censorship of video games, I'm just pointing out that we don't live in a world where possession of portrayals of acts of indecency such as rape or lolita porn is going to earn you anything but scorn and potential legal action.

The entire game plays out as a rape simulator with its difficulty level set to "unfeasibly easy," but it's a rape simulator nonetheless, with quite a remarkable amount of detail spared to ruining lives.

These are separate arguments. Agreeing with another poster that a game is a rape simulator and inherently wrong is not the same as playing a third party tangential role explaining that media involving things like rape and lolita porn are socially frowned upon.

Game over.

These are separate arguments, therefore, game over?

Okay...

Regarding that first argument, "rape simulator" is but a label. It's an easy one to apply to RapeLay. It's in the flippin' title, for God's sake. If you still want to argue nobody can label it as something, you're less a proponent of Free Speech than you think you are.

I mean, plug in +"RapeLay" and +"Rape Simulator" into Google. You might even run across an official game company site that calls it that. I wouldn't be surprised.

 

[The_Echo]

Aren't Sony's classic games already sold under the Platinum name?

I can't wait to hear what they make of this...

Define classic? Aside from normal packages, they have different packages with red banners on them saying "Greatest Hits." However, Microsoft labels such games with "Platinum Hits."

 

[Shogoll]

That third tangent again: I'm neither for nor against censorship of video games, I'm just pointing out that we don't live in a world where possession of portrayals of acts of indecency such as rape or lolita porn is going to earn you anything but scorn and potential legal action.

The entire game plays out as a rape simulator with its difficulty level set to "unfeasibly easy," but it's a rape simulator nonetheless, with quite a remarkable amount of detail spared to ruining lives.

These are separate arguments. Agreeing with another poster that a game is a rape simulator and inherently wrong is not the same as playing a third party tangential role explaining that media involving things like rape and lolita porn are socially frowned upon.

Game over.

These are separate arguments, therefore, game over?

Okay...

Your feigned ignorance of the (extremely obvious) connection between the two statements leads me to believe that you are nothing but an elaborate troll.

Either that, or you're such a hypocrite that you can't even make 5% of the necessary reader effort in your supposed 50/50 reader/writer effort distribution to understand such a basic statement.

 

[IrrelevantTangent]

Can we try to have a serious discussion here without making ad hominem attacks? I know the main topic concerns rape, but there've been articles like that before.