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Rapelay: It’s No Guitar Hero

Written by Steph

A few months ago, I was visiting some old friends when one of them asked me if I had heard of the game “V-Tech Rampage“. I hadn’t, so he showed it to me. The game was a pixelated yet brutal hommage to the Virginia Tech shootings that took place in 2007. The Australian creator of the game, Ryan Lambourn, offered to remove the game from the Internet if he received $2,000 in donations; and for an extra $1,000, he would even apologize! What a dipshit. At this point, I was pretty sure that there couldn’t be any video game more offensive.

And I was proved wrong. Last night as I was falling asleep, I heard my local newscasters discussing Rapelay, a Japanese video game originally released in 2006. The objective? Stalk and rape a woman and her two adolescent daughters.

People have been arguing that games like Grand Theft Auto, which encourages players to steal cars and murder pedestrians, fly off shelves everywhere, so what’s wrong with Rapelay? Nothing, according to a spokesperson for Illusion, the company who released it. “We believe there is no problem with the software, which has cleared the domestic ratings of an ethics watchdog body.” What ethics might those be? Was this watchdog body made up of death row inmates?

Illusion claims that the game and others like it are not available for sale outside of Japan. But online retailers like Amazon and eBay recently pulled the game from their virtual shelves (the game was posted for sale by individuals; a common practice on third-party sites).

Illusion has released other games promoting sexual deviancy such as Battle Raper and Artificial Girl. Rapelay is decidely more grusome in that players can gang up on one individual woman. They can also force abortion upon the woman if she gets pregnant. In the case that the woman manages to keep the baby, the player is thrown onto train tracks and dies. This is how one loses the game.

I’m all for the 1st amendment, but really? This is a nightmare of a “game” for innumerable victims and anyone with a shred of common decency.

About the author

Steph

a born-and-bred Brooklyn brunette prone to excessive alliteration. Follow her on Twitter @omgstephlol. Read more here.

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