Valve says its Steam platform won't sell "Rape Day" game after outcry over "sick" content
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Valve Corp. said it won't distribute a game called "Rape Day" -- described by its developers as "a game where you can rape and murder during a zombie apocalypse" -- after almost 8,000 consumers signed a petition protesting the game's violence towards women.
In a blog post, Valve's Steam video-game platform said it decided to block the game because of "unknown costs and risks," adding that "we respect developers' desire to express themselves." Some consumers said the statement didn't go far enough, pointing out the statement didn't condemn the game's violence and depiction of sexual assault of women.
"Valve: "We respect developers' desire to express themselves" Me: you respect the developers desire to make a game where you can rape women for fun??????????? how about no, that's not something to respect at all actually," game designer Nina Freeman wrote on Twitter.
Valve did not immediately return a request for comment.
"Rape Day" is no longer available for preview on Steam, but it was slated to go on sale in April. The video-game platform has previously faced criticism over the content of the games sold on the service, including "Active Shooter," which was condemned last year as insensitive by the parents of students who were shot to death during the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
Steam removed "Active Shooter," but it also acknowledged that games with controversial content would continue to be sold on its service. "The games we allow onto the Store will not be a reflection of Valve's values, beyond a simple belief that you all have the right to create & consume the content you choose," it wrote in June.
In the Change.org petition against "Rape Day," signers said they were protesting the game because of its "sick" and "disgusting" content.
"There is enough violence against women in real life and in current media," one signer wrote. "The idea of a game specifically about raping is nauseating. There is freedom of expression and then there is encouraging sexual assault and turning it into an actual game."
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Should young men have access to a video game in which the object is to rape women, on the basis of "freedom" ?
I'm saddened at the notion that any young man would want to have access to a game like that.
or any person for that matter...
Certainly not agreeing with the content. But, I think this answers the question.
The market offering was shot down. It is not available, and young men don't have access to it. Slated for sale still in April, I assume, but we'll see how that goes.
Of coarse they should and do. While I question the character of anyone who would want to play a Rape Video Game I believe in Freedom and I know how dangerous allowing Censorship can be. It's a slippery slope, once you ban the rape game then it will be the shooting people game then it will be speeding in a car game or anything else the mothers of prevention find objectionable. Then it will be Movies, then Books, then Speech.
Maybe they should sell this disgusting product with a disclaimer that if purchased their name is going in a database that will be considered for gun purchases, health insurance, car insurance, life insurance, college applications, etc. This is America - you are free to be a scumbag, and the rest of us should be free to identify the scumbags.
"unknown" Risks ?
Really ?
Why would you even set out to design a game like this? If you're a gamer, why would you want a game like this?
This kind of crap really irritates me. It is bad enough that these *&$(*&$ games are addictive to young minds and they waste far too much time on this rather than engage in life in general, but this desensitizes the player to acts of violence and cruelty.
Happily most people can see past that, but a minority do not. I am convinced that much of the violence in the world is a consequence of people being desensitized to these actions (by other human beings). These horrific gun attacks on schools is, IMO, partly a result of prior attacks. People hear about these attacks and they eventually become less horrific and more normal (albeit still bad). Worse though, it emboldens a minority to actually think that this is a good way to get back at classmates (or the school itself).
Bottom line, we cannot prevent all horrible examples that desensitize violence, but we can at least push back on games which engage the gamer in a virtual world where s/he acts violently towards others.
Valve says its Steam platform won't sell "Rape Day" game after outcry over "sick" content
The fact that such a program was developed in the first place, speaks volumes to the state of our society.
The thought of enacting ‘rape’ using only a game controller is bizarre. I don’t even want to know how that works.
Extrapolating Moore’s Law, in a few decades the gaming industry will merge with the robotics industry. Someone will get obscenely rich for creating a humanoid robot that is a game, complete with self lubricating orifices. The monster can then safely rape in the privacy of his home.