Video Game Rape Fest

[Babbylonian]

One day, we humans will evolve to the point where we aren't obsessed with vicarious sex and violence.

You bring up an excellent point.

Can we hurry up as a society and mainstream vicarious sex as thoroughly as we have vicarious violence? There aren't nearly enough genitalia in mainstream media!

 

[sadhatter]

What bothers the hell out of me is this.

Parents are ignorant of video games, some people would see this as a reason to educate themselves about different kinds of video games, who they are geared toward, and at the very least, how to get a feel for what a game is going to contain.

But the majority of people seem to have this " we don't know about video games, and we don't want to, so the world should have a safety net." attitude.

It is not a game manufacturers fault you can't gather up the initiative to learn about video games to protect your kids.

 

[Arthur Denton]

I think it is sad that they're, in a way, making references to rape frivolous. But, in fact, I must say that violence in games is a great way to vent off your day-to-day frustration. When I was younger, it helped me lots. I don't mean it will help everyone, of course. If you consider that the following titles use lots of swearing and violence, and came and went from the shelves without much fuss, this one won't be a great deal as well:
Fallout Series
GTA Series
Bully
Duke Nukem (even contains a bit of nudity and rape-theme)

The ignorance of the parents regarding what they children do is, unfortunately, caused by their lack of proper focus on their kids. I can't say I was a wondrous child, but, after being born in a catholic home, and being left unnatended while playing violent games, I can't see this as neglecting their parental duties. Many parents - such as mine - wouldn't be able to understand how to prevent me from playing those games, especially because I would go to the shop and buy/choose them.

I consider myself rather ok for a violent games fan; I even traded violent gaming for linux installing and computer maintenance on a regular basis. I would only remove the rape 'apology' from those games and move on.

 

[A Laughing Baby]

I think it is sad that they're, in a way, making references to rape frivolous. But, in fact, I must say that violence in games is a great way to vent off your day-to-day frustration. When I was younger, it helped me lots. I don't mean it will help everyone, of course. If you consider that the following titles use lots of swearing and violence, and came and went from the shelves without much fuss, this one won't be a great deal as well:
Fallout Series
GTA Series
Bully
Duke Nukem (even contains a bit of nudity and rape-theme)

The ignorance of the parents regarding what they children do is, unfortunately, caused by their lack of proper focus on their kids. I can't say I was a wondrous child, but, after being born in a catholic home, and being left unnatended while playing violent games, I can't see this as neglecting their parental duties. Many parents - such as mine - wouldn't be able to understand how to prevent me from playing those games, especially because I would go to the shop and buy/choose them.

I consider myself rather ok for a violent games fan; I even traded violent gaming for linux installing and computer maintenance on a regular basis. I would only remove the rape 'apology' from those games and move on.

If that is your issue (and it is a legitimate issue, in my opinion), you would be appalled by gamer culture. If someone dominates someone else in performance in at least 3 different popular games that I can think of right now, there's various catchphrases and so forth that involve the word (i.e. "raped," "he's a rapist," "raped with ease," etc.). A game making frivolous references to rape won't inure that mindset to rape--it's already happened.

 

[NWO Sentryman]

Fox would have a fit if they saw Dungeon Keeper.

 

[TubbaBlubba]

If that is your issue (and it is a legitimate issue, in my opinion), you would be appalled by gamer culture. If someone dominates someone else in performance in at least 3 different popular games that I can think of right now, there's various catchphrases and so forth that involve the word (i.e. "raped," "he's a rapist," "raped with ease," etc.). A game making frivolous references to rape won't inure that mindset to rape--it's already happened.

Yeah, that's so much worse than saying "killed", "he's a killer", "killed with ease"

 

[A Laughing Baby]

Yeah, that's so much worse than saying "killed", "he's a killer", "killed with ease"

I didn't say or imply that and I apologize if it seemed so. The discussion was centered around the issue of rape and I continued it. There has been an implicit argument for some time now that violent video games inure young minds to violence (and by extension, encourage violent behavior), and that argument has been hashed and rehashed by this point. The incorporation of the concept of rape into this argument, however, is novel, and I intended to focus on that. As I said, I apologize if you thought otherwise.

However, to address the actual argument you put forth, in a way, yes it is. In the actual games being discussed, you "kill" characters on screen, so saying that someone is a killer could easily be encapsulated within the vocabulary of the game itself and the actions it contains within its rule set. However, unless you start looking into the darkest corners of the internet (or Japan, as it were), I believe you would be hard-pressed to find a game that contains the actual action of rape being performed by the player upon enemies or other players within its rule set. Therefore, it may be considered that while "kill" can be considered an actual description of what had occurred in the game, "rape" can only be construed as a metaphor, which leaves open the question of why that particular verb has been chosen, as opposed to "dominate" or some other such verb.

 

[Juniversal]

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/02/08/bulletstorm-worst-game-kids/#ixzz1DOxn4PD4

Umm this is nonsense. You can probably count the mainstream games (read: non AO games) with overt sexual content on one hand. There seems to be a meme from overbearing parents that believe kids are stupid and don't know right from wrong. They aren't. I grew up on plenty violent video games and the fact is I knew that I was sitting in front of a TV playing a video game. It didn't compromise or remove my moral compass.

Also i'll tell you real life violence and cartoon violence are two different things. Cartoon violence does NOT desensitize you to real violence. There are plenty of websites that show real gruesome deaths and being a seasoned video game player doesn't necessarily make them less disturbing. That being said I believe real violence desensitizes you to real violence.

 

[dudalb]

Fox would have a fit if they saw Dungeon Keeper.

Espicially the Dark Mistress.....


This whole thing reminds me of the whole Postal controversy. The problem with the Postal games is not that they were violent, it is that the gameplay sucked,Postal 2 in particular. They cashed in on the controversy, and put little effort in actually making a good game. They have a right to do what they want, and I have the right to say it was just a cheap exploitation gimmick by a bunch of no talent designers.

 

[Arthur Denton]

If that is your issue (and it is a legitimate issue, in my opinion), you would be appalled by gamer culture. If someone dominates someone else in performance in at least 3 different popular games that I can think of right now, there's various catchphrases and so forth that involve the word (i.e. "raped," "he's a rapist," "raped with ease," etc.). A game making frivolous references to rape won't inure that mindset to rape--it's already happened.

Unfortunately, yes, evidence points to you being right. Kids don't even care nowadays. I remember when I was younger, that killing someone was outrageous - really. Stealing was outrageous. We would have list of forbidden words, and even though I knew the words, I was also outraged when I heard them for the first time. (I feel like granpa Simpson while writing this).

I believe that gaming has been trying to stretch violence, and reached boundary after boundary without stopping. Rape wouldn't be a barrier, but possibly will be an end, since, what can you appeal to once you get into sexual abuse? Complete eradication of a species? Maybe you can appeal to creationism but thent that would be stretching too far.

 

[Ferguson]

I believe that gaming has been trying to stretch violence, and reached boundary after boundary without stopping. Rape wouldn't be a barrier, but possibly will be an end, since, what can you appeal to once you get into sexual abuse? Complete eradication of a species? Maybe you can appeal to creationism but thent that would be stretching too far.

In Mass Effect, you have the option of killing the Rachni queen, the last of her kind, thereby genociding the Rachni species.
Though the Rachni virtually exterminated the entire Krogan race, so you could say what goes around comes around.
Nevertheless, killing the Rachni queen gives you Renegade points (i.e. bad karma).

 

[TubbaBlubba]

Complete eradication of a species?

That's the OBJECTIVE of Metroid 2: The Return of Samus.

 

[NWO Sentryman]

another game they'd lose their marbles over would be Supreme Commander, where NUKES are considred another weapon in your arsenal and behave like actual nukes. As well as that, one of the campaign missions has you commit an act of Genocide.

 

[Ryokan]

I have committed genocide numerous times in Master of Orion 2 and Civilization.

 

[Normal Dude]

One day, we humans will evolve to the point where we aren't obsessed with vicarious sex and violence. It'll take a few million years and near-famine conditions but we'll get there.

In the meantime, I am so stoked that this is coming out in time for the husband's birthday.

This made me laugh.

 

[Normal Dude]

A violent video game, where you can shoot off body parts and cut people in two in killing sprees, but the worst part is calling the moves "topless" and "gang bang"?!?!

Only in America.

This is a peculiar thing that I've never been able to wrap my head around. I've never been able to understand the idea that seeing dismemberment, gore, and torture on the screen is not as bad as seeing some genitals or sexual acts - or even faint ALLUSIONS to such.

As an aside and in the same vein as this thread, I highly recommend the South Park episode Good Times with Weapons. I think they covered this topic pretty well.

 

[Blackadder]

Fox would have a fit if they saw Dungeon Keeper.

I am playing Dungeon Overlord right now, the first ever facebook game I enjoy (basically it's a Dungeon keeper clone)

You can even name each and every little minion (ok except goblins) Right now I have 15 warlocks, named after popes (Benedictus, Gregorius, Anastasius, Pius etc etc

 

[dirtywick]

a) What increase in rapes?
b) What study is it that found even a correlation between rape and "sexual scenes in video games," let alone causation/attribution?

For what it's worth, here's the Wikiality of US rape statistics:

Japan is among the lowest rapes per capita in the world, among other sexual crimes. Among a lot of other factoids related, the relevant one is instead of making prolific games with vague references to sex, they simply make hundreds of games about rape and being a rapist.

I don't think this author/psychologist tried very hard.

 

[Lyrandar]

I didn't say or imply that and I apologize if it seemed so. The discussion was centered around the issue of rape and I continued it. There has been an implicit argument for some time now that violent video games inure young minds to violence (and by extension, encourage violent behavior), and that argument has been hashed and rehashed by this point. The incorporation of the concept of rape into this argument, however, is novel, and I intended to focus on that. As I said, I apologize if you thought otherwise.

On this subject - I will say that, from personal experience, desensitization is very real. I would buy one game, telling myself that "I don't think I'd like anything worse than this"... then six months later, I find myself looking at something worse and seriously thinking of getting it.

It's particularly jarring given that I even had a specific list of criteria which I saw as going too far... naturally, the game I ended up buying later violated all of those standards. (Incidentally, I've been trying to readjust my level of tolerance for these things, so I no longer own that game.)

That said, there remains a certain barrier in my mind, which refuses to allow me to use simply anything from a game as a justification for or an example of anything in the real world. As long as that barrier remains intact, I'm confident I won't be using my games to motivate any real-life tragedies. I think those people that make a big deal about violent video games simply ignore the fact that most healthy people can distinguish between reality and fantasy in that fashion.

I should also point out, given that I am talking about Japanese games, that the inclusion of sex and rape into this discussion isn't really all that new (and in fact, I am not talking about shooting games, or other games that just feature violence, with my anecdote above). Perhaps for American games, I suppose, but there have been a few cases of Japanese games causing problems in other countries - the major one I remember was a group called Equality Now raising a fuss over a British person reselling a particularly nasty game on Amazon, if I recall correctly. I think that was a little less than two years ago. I suppose it's debatable how much these arguments actually influence similar arguments about other countries' games, but it is certainly true that Japan has been over this ground before, so to speak.

 

[Corsair 115]

"The makers of Bulletstorm would like to express our thanks and undying graditude to Fox News for their tireless effort to increase our sales beyond our wildest dreams.

Thanks!"

Signed,

The makers of Bulletstorm.

The fact that those pre-ordering the "Epic Edition" of Bulletstorm get early, guaranteed access to the Gears of War 3 beta is also helping drive sales. Quite a few folks over at the Epic forums have said they purchased Bulletstorm specifically just to get that early and guaranteed access to the GoW3 beta (yes, there are some really dedicated Gears-heads out there).That said, some of those posters subsequently stated that, after trying out the demo, they'll be happy with the game itself.

If that is your issue (and it is a legitimate issue, in my opinion), you would be appalled by gamer culture. If someone dominates someone else in performance in at least 3 different popular games that I can think of right now, there's various catchphrases and so forth that involve the word (i.e. "raped," "he's a rapist," "raped with ease," etc.). A game making frivolous references to rape won't inure that mindset to rape--it's already happened.

On the other hand, can't it be argued that's just an example of the evolution in meaning and usage that some words in the English language undergo? "Terrific" now means the exact opposite of what it originally meant; "gay" is not used in the same way it was in the past; etc.