So....There's A Game Called Rape Day

[Darkening Demise]

Rape Day is a game that was apparently going to be published on Steam. But was taken down and Valve issued a statement. Now its turning into a debate on 'damn libtards hate muh free speech reee!!!' and 'rape culture of the patriarchy and we must impeach Trump'. So in other news its the internet reacting to something as per usual.

 

 

Sources

https://www.ign.com/articles/2019/03/06/controversial-game-rape-day-wont-be-allowed-on-steam

 

https://www.pcgamer.com/steam-is-currently-listing-a-game-called-rape-day-in-which-you-play-as-a-serial-killer-rapist/

 

https://www.polygon.com/2019/3/6/18253585/valve-rape-day-steam-statement

 

https://steamcommunity.com/games/593110/announcements/detail/1808664240304050758

[FauxFurry]

Are Westerners so bereft of new things to stoke outrage about that they have to dredge up old controversies from Japan in the Aughts? This is just the RapeLay kerfuffle all over again.

 

It might have been interesting to see if the game had any new gimmicks or if it is just rage bait before the usual suspects in the gaming media got to it, though. 

[Leito86]

I'll be impressed if a line isn't drawn at some point.  The rabbit hole goes down pretty damn deep.

[27X]

A line will be drawn, and this isn't crossing it in terms of challenging views or moving any goals in representation or 'getting to the heart' of a potential situation that people are uncomfortable with, and it sure as hell isn't 'normalizing anything'.

 

Also notion that a 'sociopath developer' is simply catering to the 'untapped home demographic' is laugh out loud semantics at best. Sociopaths certainly anatomically lack any form of empathy, but sympathy is learned and the notion that a sociopath needs a 'targeted venue' is utter bullshit.

 

Being a sociopath can certainly make you an asshole but the two conditions are not linked and never have been, and never will be any more than any other social paradigm or an other medical condition. I know plenty more assholes than I know actual sociopaths and only one of those sociopaths has been a grade A Fuckstick.

 

Also the marketing material was entirely targeted and focused on the lascivious aspects of the title, and gameplay was secondary as fuck by their own campaign. Of course IGN and Polygon/Reset Era are going to jump all over it, but the dev expected and hoped for this to begin with.

 

Nothing of value was reported on, and nothing of value was lost, if this is all the actual thematic content the dev was going to bring to the table.

[Ernest Lemmingway]

This game is already drawing anti-censorship folks to its "defense," even me. It's fiction. We don't have to like it but we do have to tolerate it. That, or completely undermine the First Amendment right to freedom of speech. Which we're already doing in another area.

[blackfilm]

This has nothing to do with the First Amendment. The First Amendment is concerned with censorship by the government, not private persons/entities. And, regardless, Valve should not be obligated to carry anything in their store. That's Valve's call. If Valve were compelled to carry every game on their storefront, that would be a form of compelled speech. That is, Valve's freedom as a business entity would be restricted because they would be forced to sell things they have no interest in selling. Just as the developer should be free to make and distribute their game, Valve should be free to decide what to distribute on their platform. If the developer wants to distribute this game, they can do so via their own website or another storefront that doesn't mind carrying it.

[Ernest Lemmingway]

13 minutes ago, tofudoom said:

This has nothing to do with the First Amendment. The First Amendment is concerned with censorship by the government, not private persons/entities.

I don't give a fuck if Steam refuses to host it; I don't like the idea of the game myself. I just care about the ignorant fools trying to get legal legislation in place to block games like this just because people find the content "offensive." If you remember what @FauxFurry talked about in their post above when it was happening, that's the same thing that's going on here.

 

But if we did get legislation in place that allows for the censorship/banning of things we find offensive, then I'd abuse the hell out of the legal precedent by lobbying for things I find offensive to be banned. Things like soap operas, romantic-comedies, the Bible, etc. I wouldn't even be the only one doing it.

[blackfilm]

That's precisely what the First Amendment is for. If a state or the federal government attempted to pass legislation prohibiting the sale of, say, Satanic music, it would be a violation of the First Amendment. So, such legislation is unconstitutional. The only way around that would be to repeal the First Amendment.

 

Of course, I get what you're saying. We should be careful about policing speech. But that's really a separate issue from what's going on here.

 

On a more related note, it's unfortunate that gaming blogs apparently have so little to write about that they'll give this level of coverage to such an amateur-looking game.

[Ernest Lemmingway]

2 minutes ago, tofudoom said:

On a more related note, it's unfortunate that gaming blogs apparently have so little to write about that they'll give this level of coverage to such an amateur-looking game.

It's called "virtue baiting."  Basically just a form of trolling used by urnalists of all stripes.

[R-Lo]

Is this really that much of a shock???

Steam is mainstream site so of course it's going to attract white knights of all sorts, 

Considering thing like Manhunt got banned I'm really not surprised at this.

Guy got too big for his boots and should have stuck to sites more off the public radar 

[Guest]

I tried to find the developer's site to see what all the fuss was about but couldn't find it. Not sure they even have one.

[myuhinny]

Looks like any other DAZ studios renpy game type game. I might of checked it out till I saw who you would be playing and I was like eww eww eww. If I want to see that type of character I'll play one of those female protagonist type games but since I don't like any female protagonist game that has them it I'll never see them.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwdoD9XaA74

[AttritionofContrition]

14 hours ago, nightwolf said:

I tried to find the developer's site to see what all the fuss was about but couldn't find it. Not sure they even have one.

https://www.rapeday.com/
It's a pretty barebones site, he has a Q&A section that attempts to validate his games existence as if it would convince anyone. It should be no surprise that steam didn't allow it, just looking at the store description had me in stitches, not because I find rape funny but the fact that this guy had the balls and ignorance to put that up and think "Yeah this looks good, shouldn't take long for the review process". People used to make jokes years ago on 4chan about porn games coming to steam, photoshopped pictures and all. We would laugh it off as a joke and now I'm looking at a game on steam that is titled "Rape Day", I can hardly believe it. Considering that people can get poundmetoo'd for just looking in the direction of a woman why in the world would anyone think a game like this could be sold on steam of all places? With how overly sensitive the west has become dlsite is the only viable store to sell at and even then they take such a huge cut that he would probably be better off just giving the game away.

 

13 hours ago, myuhinny said:

Looks like any other DAZ studios renpy game type game. I might of checked it out till I saw who you would be playing and I was like eww eww eww. If I want to see that type of character I'll play one of those female protagonist type games but since I don't like any female protagonist game that has them it I'll never see them.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwdoD9XaA74

We need more fat bald bastard games, I'm tired of playing as chicks and effeminate men.

[FauxFurry]

It is likely that no one knew that this game existed until Kotaku and their ilk uncovered it and paraded it around for outrage and clicks.

 

[Ernest Lemmingway]

15 minutes ago, FauxFurry said:

It is likely that no one knew that this game existed until Kotaku and their ilk uncovered it and paraded it around for outrage and clicks.

Yet another reason I loathe Kotaku, IGN, and other urnalist strongholds.

[Benn505]

Personally, I prefer pervert community stay 'incognito mode', I don't want attract unnecessary attention. But some porn developers just want to promote their website, don't care about anyone else but their own cause. Porn streaming site like Pornhub & Xvideos never try to shove off their content to mainstream media. Everybody should have known already that porn enthusiast+pervert community with mainstream community will never shaking hands, even though both side do consume porn. The Holy War was happening because both side try to invade/spread their ideology/religion to each other zone, controversy at first, leads to war in the end. The same to this matters, you can't just invade & hope the "Normies" to accept us the people who open to pervertism idea, the same case as they try to judge our own fantasy & fetish.

If anything to be blame, is Steam who open Pandora Box of pervertism by allowing porn games releasing on their platform. Porn isn't just straight normal porn, there's 1001 types of porn. Allow everything or forbid everything, else, there's always frictions to be happening at some point. Now is Rape ... another day, Incest ... another next, furry, gore, scat, etc. List of fetish waiting for next appearance.

[Just Checking]

I'm sure I won't contribute anything meaningful with this post but, ignoring the crazy amount of attention this got, I can't say I'd fault Steam for pulling this one.  Kids with access to their parent's credit cards use their platform, and while they can't stop children lying about their age and consuming stuff their simply not mentally prepared for yet, they can at least make sure they aren't doing it over Steam.  Or at least make the devs work a little harder to get it out there.

 

My only guess as to why this blew up so much is because rape fantasy is by and large considered pretty sick, which is fair, in my opinion.  So to see something that caters to that demographic appear on something as mainstream as Steam, and so brazenly the dev didn't even spend an entire minute coming up with a more subtle title would certainly set off alarm bells.  It might not seem like it's too fringe to us, frequenting this website that hosts a multitude of mods across a multitude of games that use those exact fetishes,   We are, however, the ones that went looking, and I'd bet the overwhelming majority of people don't even really believe communities like this exist.  To them, this is gaming news, and to many it will create some kind of outrage.  Like has been said, on the one side are people that believe Steam should absolutely take the game down for whatever reason, and the other that believe Steam shouldn't have the right to regulate another person's creative outlet that way.  Even in this thread we've seen examples of that.  And like has been mentioned, a lot of this craziness can be pinned on the game "journalist" sites that basically hung neon signs and airhorns off their articles regarding this game.  Without them all rushing to get as much out of this tidbit as they could before it all blew over, you can guarantee it would have been a game that exactly four people bought, one reported, and then it either would have got taken down quietly and without comment or be left to waste away in obscurity without any of us ever having paid it any mind.

 

The ethical questions the game raises are interesting, a discussion that's been had an uncountable number of times and will be had an uncountable number more, but I think in this particular case it's a simple matter of the company deciding where they will put their foot down for the platform that they own and make their livelihoods off of.  In a way, this guy made his terribly put together little game with positively zero care given to being even slightly clever or subtle about any of it, threw as much shit into it as he could that would draw disgust and outrage, and then left it on Valve's doorstep to probe their still relatively new policy on adult content.  I'm looking at it as a deliberate envelope push to see just what he could get away with, and the answer somehow turned out to be "not this".

[mazqaz]

I played the game, and holy hell is it terrible. Even if you go through it slowly its only 15 min long not mention the renders are absolutley horrible both the female and male bodies are disgusting to look at. Fucking hell all this shit over a game (if you can call it that its more of a shitty slideshow of images) that gained popularity over the rape genre

which is already present in many adult games in steam but somehow people thought it was a good idea it make this their rallying call.