Casey Goddard said:
I find myself agreeing with pretty much everything Jim is saying, but I still have a hard time buying into the idea that rape is objectively worse than murder. I actually wrote an post on my blog a while back about Rapelay. The main point I wanted to make was the game kind of got scapegoated to avoid facing much larger social issues.
Here's a link if you want to read it:
http://caseygoddard.blogspot.jp/2011/05/in-defense-of-indefensible.html
There's also some links at the end of the blog post to some other interesting views others have had on the game.
Yes, murder is worse than rape. But do you actually "murder" in video games?
Is rape worse than killing your opponent in combat? Murder is UNJUSTIFIED killing. Rape is unjustifiably having intercourse with someone. You justifiably have sex with someone with their consent, when it is not rape but simply sexual intercourse.
I'm not saying soldiers "consent" to being killed by enemy snipers. But by taking up arms and aggressive stance, there IS the agreement to "kill or be killed". That's the often enumerated code of war that all humans have understood since pre-history, to submit and accept domination and fight. A recent development is the concept of surrender, that one can even after taking up arms my put down arms and submit to capture and not be killed, and that if arms are laid down then to be killed then is murder except in extreme circumstances where they cannot be taken prisoner.
And of course, games don't "really" have death. Team Fortress 2 where everyone respawns so easily and you of course never feel any pain of dismemberment, how is this death? Death is painful and PERMANENTLY ends life. But that doesn't happen in video games. It's an inconvenience. But rape is a traumatic memory, you can't just rewind the clock or die and re-spawn it will always have happened.
But compare the controversy over Rapley (Rape-lay? Ra-Play?) with the "No Russian" level in Modern Warfare 2.
See the No-Russian level had MURDER! Killing civilians en mass in unmistakably murder - unjustified killing - and it was controversial as hell, only got a free pass as you did not "have" to shoot, it was not your actual mission, just to stand there and walk with them. Grand Theft Auto has gotten similar flack for the ability to kill civilians but it was never what the game was actually about so barely sneaked through.
There isn't a grey area between rape and sex.
But there is a grey area between justified killing and murder, which is why as controversial as murder is in games it will more likley get through on that ambiguity where rape won't as it is so black and white.