Rapelay makes political hay

So from my perspective, the whole brouhaha about the Rapelay game is done and over with. In case you’ve been away from the Internet for awhile, a big stink was caused when Amazon allowed two copies of a hardcore Japanese video game to be up for sale on its site. The game, Rapelay, allows you to take control of a character who “wins” by raping the female characters in the game. Amazon and eBay banned sales of the game and that’s when the controversy should have ended.

However, for politicians, merely banning sales isn’t enough. No, they want to go one step further. New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn publicly called for a retail boycott of the game from all online retailers. British Labor MP Keith Vaz has called for Britain to ban sale of the game to UK players over the Internet. While I can appreciate their stance against sexually violent games and their aims to protect women and children, I find it a little bit ironic that their efforts won’t do a thing to keep the game out of the hands of people who want it. Also, the game now enjoys a notoriety and popularity that probably has made tens of thousands of people who had never heard of the game go out and download it.

The game is available on numerous torrent sites, and can be found pretty easily with a little bit of searching. It took me a grand total of 5 seconds to find a place where I could download it. The game is over 5 years old and pirated copies are all over the Internet. Many online retailers wouldn’t have bothered to sell Rapelay because it’s an obscure title, it’s old, and because it’s already available for free.

Pictures of the female protagonists in Rapelay. Pictures of the game has exploded on the Internet since the controversy over the game has erupted.

When Amazon withdrew the sale of the game from its site (note: the sale was from a third party and not from Amazon directly), that should have ended the controversy and the game should’ve went back to being an obscure title that no one had ever heard of. Instead, it’s now the 2 Live Crew of video games. Statements from politicians and calls for bans inevitably have the effect of increasing not deterring popularity of digital media. If their intent was to keep this game away from people who may be encouraged by the game’s content to commit sexual violence or from curious kids, I can’t think of a way that is more ineffective than giving the game all this free press.

It’s a situation where good intentions and misunderstandings of the nature of the Internet has clearly hit a crossroad. If the politicians would’ve thought this through, they might have taken a lesson from actual game publishing games. The fastest way a game loses steam is by being a bad game that people stop caring about. You see case after case of players abandoning a game because it’s boring, it’s bug-filled or because something better has come along. The gaming market, even the ones with sexually charged content, is both highly competitive and fickle. Sure, there will be some die hard fans that will grab a game no matter what, but these will be the exception rather than the rule. Death by obscurity and lack of interest would have been a far better deterrent than public bannings.

Banning content on the Internet won't stop people from seeking content they want to see.

I’m also leery of outright bans. I enjoy the laissez faire nature of the Internet. As an adult, I dislike a governmental agency telling me what I can and cannot look at or what I can or cannot download. It’s this freedom that makes the Internet as dynamic and interesting as it is, that personal choice and your own moral compass dictates what interests you.

I don’t buy the argument that a game like Rapelay will create the next generation of sexual predators or desensitize people from sexual violence. Exposure to one game isn’t going to change you that much. And if someone is inclined towards that material already, banning the material will only cause that person to seek other outlets for his interests. They may instead go and find pornographic videos, pictures or stories. Not to mention the fact that there are tens of thousands of somewhat similar games on the Internet. The Internet may be the most accessible medium for that kind of material, but it isn’t the only one. Banning content will not change someone’s behavior or inclinations.

I’ll end this mini “sermon” by just telling politicians who are well intentioned but misinformed that “you’re doing it wrong.”

Partly sourced from GamePolitics

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