RapeLay Pulled From Amazon.com

According to the Belfast Telegraph, Illusion‘s 3D rape-simulation title RapeLay was taken down from online retailer Amazon when British MP Keith Vaz got wind that such a title was being offered for purchase. He vowed to bring the issue to the British Parliament in order to prevent the game from being sold and in response Amazon removed the game from its website. The original page can still be viewed via Google cache here.

In the game you play as Kimura Masaya who stalks and eventually rapes the Kiryuu family starting with the mother Yuuko and subsequently her two daughters Aoi and Manaka. Over the course of story Masaya captures the women breaks them one by one starting with Yuuko and ending with Aoi and makes them his sex slaves. One major feature of the game is the ability to impregnate the women, their bellies growing larger with each instance of rape. If you don’t get them to abort and instead let them have the child, the girl in question will kill you by pushing you into a train.

Though I cannot say whether I support the content of the game or not (you can take that comment as you wish), I will say that this whole matter is yet another instance of ridiculously Conservative actions taken by government officials ignorant that most people do in fact recognize the boundary between fantasy and reality. Although there are individuals who may be inspired to commit real-world acts of illegal activities after playing the game, the vast majority of individuals will not and only those predisposed to such acts will follow through anyway.

Professor Peter Hepper, head of the School of Psychology at Queen’s University Belfast has this to say:

Could games like this encourage people to commit illegal acts in the real world?

There have been high profile instances of individuals copying from TV and games. However I think these are the exception rather than the rule.

If one looked at the overall proportion of people who copy such things then it is likely to be very small. However to a potential victim even if one person does – that is one too many.

I don’t think that it would make someone not so inclined to commit an illegal act more inclined or likely to commit a specific act.

However if people are already inclined to view the world this way it may reinforce their views and make it more likely they would undertake an illegal act. I suspect the will to do this would need to be there in the first place.

With various exaggerated legal actions against varying aspects of otaku-culture such as the case of possession of loli manga, it makes me wonder if there is still a place for Freedom of Speech left.