Rape Games Now Banned in Japan

Article

The Ethics Organization of Computer Software, Japan's PC game rating agency, has called for a halt to the retail sale of videogames that simulate rape.

The ban appears to be the culmination of events that began in February, when two copies of the Japanese game RapeLay accidentally appeared on Amazon.com. Despite its nearly immediate removal and the fact that it was designed exclusively for the Japanese market, outrage quickly followed from sources including British Parliament, the New York City Council and the international women's rights group Equality Now.

Equality Now actually launched a campaign calling for the Japanese government to ban the sale of games that feature "rape, stalking or other forms of sexual violence or which otherwise denigrate women." The group said the games violate Japan's obligations under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women to "eliminate works that normalize and promote sexual violence against women and girls."

Amazingly, according to the Canned Dogs blog (which translated the original Tokyo Broadcasting System report), this particular genre is estimated to make up 10-20 percent of the Japanese PC game industry and the EOCS had not previously considered it a problem. But with the pressure growing, the organization has now decided to comply with the demand and seek a ban not just on the retail sale of such games but also their development by any of its more than 200 members.

The new measures take effect on June 2, although it may not be enough to satisfy critics: Like the ESRB in North America, the EOCS is a voluntary organization and the ban is not legally binding.

 

wrong article, as that one was based off of misinformation.

newer article

:snoopy

 

But we can still get them, right?

 

What about the new Metroid trailer, with the guy's grinning rapeface?

 

While I am not usually one for censorship, I have to say I am incredibly disturbed that there was ever a market for those games...

 

This is good news for M$. Now the japanese will be forced to buy a 360 so they can diddle Milo.

 

They say Molyneux's already built in a user-penis-art blocker.

 

This entire situation is filled with lulz.


Japan, smh.

 

sorry now its banned again and good riddane too

 

Um...dude...why would you want to?

And let's not even get into the disturbing tentacle rape $#!+ that goes on in your average hentai video. I mean, seriously, what the frak is wrong with the people that make that crap?

 

My understanding of the tentacle stuff is because in Japan it is illegal to show a penis, even in porn. You can show all the female bits all you want but men are off limits. So apparently the next best thing is a tentacle.

 

This is correct.

The "tentacles" were a response to the censorship rules.

 

Yeah, I know it's taboo (heh) to have full frontal male junk in Japan. I wonder if it's due to extreme mysoginism or an un-healthy national embarrasment at (possibly) less-than-average sized junk. So the reasonable, logical alternative is monstrous tentacles?


...


Yup, there's definitey some messed up inferiority complex crap at work there.

 

Speaking of male junk being taboo, has anyone noticed a subtle theme in American movies this year? Almost all of them feature male junk.

This pretty much never happened, and now Hollywood is flaunting penis in nearly every comedy movie.

 

Rape sims?

I guess there's game for just about anything these days...

 

This is a sad day indeed for gamers all over the world.

 

ok... i can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not...

:snoopy

 

Maybe half sarcastic. Maybe.

 

It's a sad day in that, regardless of content, censorship won out. The fact that censorship won here means that it could win in other, less severe content with this case being used as some form of "precedence."

 

personally i this is one of VERY few things i think actually deserves to be banned from being portrayed in a game... i'm sorry but this is one thing that simply has no excuse being interactive in any fashion.

i can see how it could be used that way, and i hope it won't be, but as i said this is something i have no issue with it being banned. not like it was really allowed here anyways, now was it?

:snoopy

 

I remember in school some classmates whispering about poking a woman with a *polite cough* and do it right you get a baby out of her.

This was the '90s so these things have been around. Doesn't mean it was an actual Capcom-class game,, could be hand made.

And I'm suprised to hear of this from the Asian market. I have a 52 in one game and a 650 in one game from an Asian country. Bought legitimately by family and all. Several proper games and heaps of amateur games and multiple copies, like Super Mario with increased movement, that allows you to jump beyond the flagpole!

Lots of fun and legit purchased, but not acquirable in the Aust or US markets in general.

 

Those games are just as dodgy as burned CDs from flea markets in Singapore, Ex.

 

I don't get it. Murder is illegal an immoral. Yet there are thousands of games where the player can engage in murdering activities in every shape and form. I have never seen a gamer complain about it.

Now, rape is illegal and immoral. All of a sudden everyone is up in arms against a game that simulates rape?

Don't get me wrong, I don't condone rape in any way, just as I don't condone murder. I just don't understand the double standard. I guess it's pretty clear that violent games don't actually breed real violence, if anything they serve as an escape device that keeps violence in the virtual world. Rape and murder are all violent acts, not that different from each other (and in my opinion, murder is much worse).

 

As much as I find this deplorable, I don't see where I get the right to control what other people do on their gaming consoles.

The double-standard exists because rape is erroneously seen as a lot worse than murder.

 

why is rape worse than murder? because generally speaking the person who's murdered doesn't, you know, have to deal with the consequences of being murdered? rape doesn't normally end up with someone dead, so the person is generally somewhat scarred for the rest of their life not to mention potentially getting pregnant from it and having to deal with either having a child before they want one or getting an abortion. there are more long lasting consequences for the person that the act is done to, not to mention also the family and friends have to deal with that as well. murder the only people dealing with the aftermath are the family and friends. to me that's why one is worse than the other, admittedly by only the slimmest of margins.

on another note, i'm not particularly fond of the games that glorify murder either. manhunt or it's sequel? you will never see me playing that. or anything that is particularly similar.

and vivec, YOU may not have that right but governments do kind of have a right to keep things that are that totally deplorable out of people's hands. something that is so utterly WRONG should not exist, much less actually be played by anyone. i don't care what morality you subscribe to this is wrong.

:snoopy