macfluffers said:
Even without the serial killer aspect, a game about murder would still be interesting to me. A game about the mafia for example--destroying businesses who don't pay their protection money, human trafficking, threatening the families of rivals, and murdering prosecutors and judges. Such a game would be "edgy", but would it receive the same negative response that rape games do?
Hitman series has ALWAYS been a de-facto "murder simulator" even though obsensibly you are an "assassin" which is somehow more noble/cool a role. And you aren't killing innocent teenagers so much as drug dealers, crime lords and even pedophile politicians! Hitman series has always in rather hackneyed ways made the targets remarkably unlike-able or somehow deserving of killing them. Also the game hugely discourages killing ANYONE except the targets, which is weird because then the game suddenly turns from "Murder simulator" to an extremely non-violent game as you try every trick in the book to get the armed guards and police out of the way without harming them.
Treblaine said:
Look the most basic video game, Asteroids. You have polygons and you shoot pixels at other polygons. The Shapes are of course spaceship and the pixels are rockets, this is violence and it makes for a compelling and challenging game of shooting at people in form a competition. From Doom through to Quake to Call of Duty and Team Fortress 2, you set the precedent of shooting pixels at people and them shooting pixels at you in part of the competitive nature.
Rape is essentially hugely mismatched wrestling. Mismatched from the start destroys any competitive element and video games have never been good wrestling simulators. Far better at jumping and shooting simulators, direct polygon interaction falls apart. Replay isn't really a "game" as far as I can tell, it's a choose your own adventure story with live 3D animation. It's just ridiculous to have a scenario of two sides mutually trying to rape each other as if they both wanted to have sex with each other... then they would.
This is a good analysis of the situation. I guess the ultimate reason rape in media is received so poorly is that killing in games tend to be a sort of competition, while from the start, rape can only have one "winner" and "loser", if you'll pardon the terms.
That said, I like to think about Monster Girl Quest in this context, as well as other games were rape is the "penalty" for losing fights. Obviously, it's not really a penalty for the player (especially for MCG because the protagonist is a guy), but in these games, rapes can be prevented by winning fights, a more normal brand of violence. I don't know if I'm bringing up these examples for or against the depiction of rape in games, but it comes to mind.
Yeah, Monster Girl Quest doesn't have actual rape, he's only ever putting up mock resistance or dismay. It's the "bodice ripper" type scenario only with a submissive man instead.
But you're right, Rape could exist not in a player-vs-player scenario as if they both want to screw each other then they just would. But in an asymmetrical "survival scenario" such as a 'Deliverance' type scenario or rape being a motivation for the villains to hunt the protagonist and rape being of course the motivator to overcome them. Could work. Seems to be hinted at in the new Tomb Raider game though we should wait and see on that one.
The reason such a subject has not been seen in video games so much so far could be many fold:
-Protagonists in video games have usually been men, and I don't think the typical male gamer
quite is mature enough to face the prospect of male rape... until perhaps recently. Though film has been able to tackle this maturely since the 1970's with Deliverance and that wasn't a one off, it is also addressed in Pulp Fiction and American History X.
(The closest this ever got in any game was Uncharted 2 where two male characters joke in subtle ways about what'll happen to them if thrown in a Turkish Prison)
-Video games for most of their existence have suffered from the wider media's impression that they have to be child suitable, so NO sexual violence ever. Only recently with many public battles like "Mass Effect Sideboob sex scene" has it finally been begrudgingly accepted by the media that games, like film, have adult themes for adult audiences.
But I think most importantly:
-I don't think players want to have to deal with their character suffering such a loss as to be sexually brutalised and humiliated like being raped. People can deal with dying and having to load from a save. But I don't think they can deal with something like... that.
For example are Mass Effect players ready to accept a scenario where Shepard might be captured and raped by perverts? That depends on what kind of attitude you take to the game, if most players approach the series as just a fun space adventure where they think their character can get through without any real suffering beyond some scars and bullet wounds, then that would UTTERLY shatter it. I don't think Mass Effect players are ready for even the threat of that happening, and how many of their beloved crew-members would they sacrifice to avoid their own character suffering that fate? Would they boycott the game demanding they change it? That, I don't know.
The closest equivalent scene in any game I can think of is the torture scene in Metal Gear Solid 3. It was awful, I had to watch Snake - the character I played - being slowly broken apart in front of me and be permanently damaged.
But it left in no doubt at all what kind of evil bastard Volgin was, and it emphasised all that snake (aka Big Boss) had lost to compelte his mission.
