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Amazon Blacklists Adult Video Games
Have you ever played a porn game? No, of course you haven’t. Neither have I. And if I ever did, it would have been purely for research purposes.
This week, in Robot Punch!, we’ll discuss a genre of video game that doesn’t often find much coverage in the media, despite its significant role in the industry: The H-game. Also known as eroge (short for “erotic games”), the genre recently caught some heat and now we’re feeling a little more guilty about ourselves.
Last week, Amazon received several complaints about selling a Japanese hentai game, RapeLay, causing them to remove the listing from their site. The object of the game is to stalk and rape young women. In the event that one of the women becomes pregnant from the encounter, the player must then force her to have an abortion so that he may escape the natural consequences of his actions. Why, what from that could those customers have possibly found offensive?
This mishap has generated some press in the blogosphere, exploring the morality of video games’ role in indulging personal fantasies. The majority of those discussing the matter are women; most of which expressing disgust over the face of gross misogyny that these games reveal of our culture. Their bias (while fueled by anger) is understandably legit, since these games target women specifically for victimization.
The big debate resembles the dilemma we often see regarding video game violence: Are they causing more harm than good (or are they good at all)? Some argue that supplying outlets for deviant impulses satiate people from going out and committing the acts in real life. Yet others believe that supporting a market for games that glorify rape only serves to perpetuate the attitude that it’s acceptable behavior.
Before I throw in my two cents, I want to preface with this disclaimer: Rape is wrong. Abusive brutalization of women (or anyone, for that matter) is wrong.
With the above being a rare exception, I try to avoid judging whether a behavior or persuasion is “right” or “wrong”, since morality is a subjective concept. And even if we could agreeably define such a thing, we’re seldom faced with black & white situations. Most times we have to decide what we’re more willing to accept, based on the lesser of evils.
Probably not healthy.
Alternatively, I prefer to view topics in terms of what is healthy or unhealthy. If a guy wants to get his rocks off to a simulation of women being raped, he’s not hurting anybody. “Different strokes”, you might say. However, I would also say that his habits are incredibly unhealthy. Yes, it does affect his chances in deciding to make his fantasies into a reality, where someone really could get hurt. But it also distracts him from facing his inner-demons and holds him back from forming meaningful, intimate relationships with others.
The trick to the matter is recognizing what is the symptom and what is the disease. If games like Battle Raper 2: The Game actually cause people to go on raping sprees, then the cosmos has a greater sense of humor than I could imagine. The pathetic geek described above probably has deeper emotional issues that lead him to his obsession. Some ill-guided upbringing could have skewed his values or some childhood trauma may have instilled an unconscious anger against women. Those are the realities that our culture needs to face. If we devoted more attention toward those ails, the markets for perverted entertainment would quickly begin to dissolve.
I find it unfortunate that adult games aren’t covered more in journalism. The more we discuss a topic, the better we can understand it and the people who subscribe to it.
Quality tested!
Accept no imitations!
The good news is that H-games are like most other forms of pornography. Whether or not it appeals to you erotically, you can’t deny that H-games are ridiculous. They take ideas that would otherwise be horrifying (like rape or pedophilia) and run them through the theater of the absurd. Much in the same way Tom & Jerry cartoons do with excessive violence when they start chasing each other with hatchets and chainsaws. It’s all in good fun!
Popular retail outlets like Amazon and eBay may have blacklisted these H-games from their virtual shelves, but they can still be found at hundreds of specialty stores around the web. Not that I would know any of them…
Tags: Amazon.com, doujin soft, Girls, h-games, hentai, Morality, rapelay, sexuality
The best part of battle raper is the introduction. The announcer says, “BATTLE RAPER… 2!!!” and he’s so excited about it too. The rape’s pretty good too…
I’m tickled more by “The Game”. As if it’s based on a novel or TV series named “Battle Raper 2″
Some day I hope the idea makes its way to Broadway and we’re treated to “Battle Raper 2: The Musical”.
From a certain perspective, popular mainstream games like Grand Theft Auto can be considered “worse” than Rapelay.
It can be argued that GTA sanitizes the effects of your crimes. Innocent bystanders in GTA are little more than nameless targets to be killed/robbed, and then forgotten. The only repercussion for such crimes is rather abstract and minimal: your wanted meter goes up a little bit. Furthermore, in GTA there are ways to get instant forgiveness for your crimes. Lastly, the story and mission cinematics of GTA regularly present the player as a cool anti-hero, no matter how much he robs and murders innocent people.
Now, in Rapelay, the player character is clearly presented as being outright pure evil, with nothing heroic about him. There is no forgiveness or “undo” in Rapelay. Your victims do not merely disappear to be forgotten, and you cannot escape the consequences of your actions on them. The only possible endings are “bad” for the player, making it impossible to “win” the game; the most the player can do is delay inevitable judgment.
When you compare the two, it can be argued that GTA sends the message that you can senselessly kill and murder innocent people without consequence, and still be the big bad-ass hero. Rapelay sends quite a different message: rapists are evil, rape has real consequences on its victims that can never be erased, and those consequences mean that rapists will eventually face judgment for all the “fun” they had.
Rapelay may cater to rather twisted fetishes, but at the same time it fully acknowledges and communicates the inherent wrongness of rape. In some ways, it is more “moral” than how many mainstream games treat violence.
See, I didn’t know much about how the games endings play out. I’ve honestly played the game, but only enough to explore the general gameplay and features.
While it’s admirable, if in the end, the behavior is proven to be bad for all, but there’s poor execution in that. With all the options, features, and bonus material outside the main game, I don’t see a lot of players sticking with the plot to its completion. I mean, this is a porn game; I’d assume once the player “accomplishes his goal”, the game quickly goes off.
It’s like the ending to the original Postal game, where The Dude realizes he’s a monster and kills himself. (I hope I didn’t spoil it for anyone.) Unless the player invests that much into completing the game, the message may as well not be there at all.
““Different strokes”, you might say. However, I would also say that his habits are incredibly unhealthy. Yes, it does affect his chances in deciding to make his fantasies into a reality, where someone really could get hurt. ”
This is ridiculous. Dooms, Quakes, and 99% of the games in the market over last 20+ years that revolve around single subject - murder, from small fries to mass genocides - didn’t turn its audience into mass murderers.
Hentai games also didn’t turn Japan into mass rapist nation.
Actually its a nation where amount of sexual assaults IN REAL LIFE is at the bottom of any statistics. But then again, they don’t treat sexuality as a taboo.
You have to be a bit open minded to realise that.
I agree… Even if all rapists or murderers played their respectively themed video games, they still make up a small fraction of people who play those games as a whole.
Strangely, the way Asian culture views sex and violence are almost reversed to how we feel about them in the West.
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