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[Anarkex]

Let's also be clear: in HLM1, you kill gangsters. People who are also actively trying to kill you. This is generally the case in all games involving murder of some kind.

I'm sure this has been brought up before, and I'm by no means the expert on the plot of a game that's not out yet, but I'm led to believe the rape scene in the movie being filmed in the new game is supposed to show how the public has exaggerated Jacket into a legend and a bogeyman. They believed that rather than rescuing the woman in the first game, Jacket raped and kidnapped her. They're shooting a movie about how insane and unstable he was, but nobody's clear on the details. So from the perspective of the public, Jacket IS a murderer, and a rapist, and countless else, but they don't have the whole story -- the player does.

Isn't the point that rape is appalling, far more appalling than anything the first game's hero ever actually did? And in that context, are features that instill in the player this sort of cognitive dissonance ugly, or artful? I hate to bring it back to the same shit I was arguing in the Anita thread, but I still believe that we can justify these plot elements by their meaning in the context of the narrative, rather than condemning any use of them for better or worse.

[Nektonico]

@Nektonico - as the others said, you are still conflating killing and murder. they aren't the same thing at all. in most games you do kill, but in almost no game do you murder.

I might post a more elaborate response later, but i find it amusing. Its like you are all arguing the semantics of taking a human life. Drawing an imaginary line, seeking an excuse to make it ok. "The guy is holding a baseball bat, so its OK, imma just gonna shot him in the head, then reload the gun and use a medikit. This is fun!"

You missed the point: you are having fun playing a game where you kill people! And you flinch at sexual abuse? Thats so freaking hypocritical.

By the way, murder is a legal construct, and the distance between self defense and and murder is a finicky one. If a guy is coming at you with a knife, and you have a pistol, and you shoot at the guy before he is a certain distance away from you (and he dies), you have murdered him, and you will go to prison (to name a very specific example). Feel free to come up with your own definitions of homicide in the meantime.

Manhunt, Hitman, Postal, Carmageddon (i mean, running people over is a central part of the game mechanics) come to mind as ultraviolent games.

Also, plenty of games give you the option to play as an evil guy (gal), with a lot of the content accommodating for the eventuality you might want to kill every person in the game. Or allowing for morally ambiguous situations (Fallout 3 comes to mind).

I put something like Rapelay, or Postal, or Cabelas Dangerous Hunts in the same category personally, as distasteful (i did enjoy playing Postal back in the day though, its a very good game, as long as you take it as some over the top absurd thing, much like Hotline Miami is) (Cabelas Dangerous Hunts just pisses me off, killing helpless animals...).


The footage of that Syrian tank crew getting slaugthered in Syria recently, came to mind. The guys were unarmed and helpless, and they got very literally murdered by the rebels (no one is taking prisoners i guess). That counts as murder in my book, regardless of war or no war. I suppose you guys would call it "killing" if the same happened in a videogame, not murder, making it acceptable somehow.

[feminazi]

Let's also be clear: in HLM1, you kill gangsters. People who are also actively trying to kill you. This is generally the case in all games involving murder of some kind.

I'm sure this has been brought up before, and I'm by no means the expert on the plot of a game that's not out yet, but I'm led to believe the rape scene in the movie being filmed in the new game is supposed to show how the public has exaggerated Jacket into a legend and a bogeyman. They believed that rather than rescuing the woman in the first game, Jacket raped and kidnapped her. They're shooting a movie about how insane and unstable he was, but nobody's clear on the details. So from the perspective of the public, Jacket IS a murderer, and a rapist, and countless else, but they don't have the whole story -- the player does.

Isn't the point that rape is appalling, far more appalling than anything the first game's hero ever actually did? And in that context, are features that instill in the player this sort of cognitive dissonance ugly, or artful? I hate to bring it back to the same shit I was arguing in the Anita thread, but I still believe that we can justify these plot elements by their meaning in the context of the narrative, rather than condemning any use of them for better or worse.

its easy to justify that it fits the story context because x character's motivations, you can justify just about anything by quoting some canon element, but no one is arguing whether the plot is broken or not. here's the media context, the only female character exists to be damseled and raped to tutorialize and to shock. here's the social context, there are rape victims or people who know rape victims and don't want to play something that asks you to enact rape to progress the game. so where's the justification, in the context, why should rape victims and feminists and whoever favor some ridiculous paranoid censorship war that men are waging over their art over an actual problem? where's the gain, yet another game with a rape scene and shit depiction of women and some imaginary xp points for the battle of the censorship wars that doesn't exist, count me out. also if they don't want me to dismiss it "out of context", don't show me anything before it's out, it's their own fault

[feminazi]

@Nektonico - as the others said, you are still conflating killing and murder. they aren't the same thing at all. in most games you do kill, but in almost no game do you murder.

I might post a more elaborate response later, but i find it amusing. Its like you are all arguing the semantics of taking a human life. Drawing an imaginary line, seeking an excuse to make it ok. "The guy is holding a baseball bat, so its OK, imma just gonna shot him in the head, then reload the gun and use a medikit. This is fun!"

You missed the point: you are having fun playing a game where you kill people! And you flinch at sexual abuse? Thats so freaking hypocritical.

By the way, murder is a legal construct, and the distance between self defense and and murder is a finicky one. If a guy is coming at you with a knife, and you have a pistol, and you shoot at the guy before he is a certain distance away from you (and he dies), you have murdered him, and you will go to prison (to name a very specific example). Feel free to come up with your own definitions of homicide in the meantime.

Manhunt, Hitman, Postal, Carmageddon (i mean, running people over is a central part of the game mechanics) come to mind as ultraviolent games.

Also, plenty of games give you the option to play as an evil guy (gal), with a lot of the content accommodating for the eventuality you might want to kill every person in the game. Or allowing for morally ambiguous situations (Fallout 3 comes to mind).

I put something like Rapelay, or Postal, or Cabelas Dangerous Hunts in the same category personally, as distasteful (i did enjoy playing Postal back in the day though, its a very good game, as long as you take it as some over the top absurd thing, much like Hotline Miami is) (Cabelas Dangerous Hunts just pisses me off, killing helpless animals...).


The footage of that Syrian tank crew getting slaugthered in Syria recently, came to mind. The guys were unarmed and helpless, and they got very literally murdered by the rebels (no one is taking prisoners i guess). That counts as murder in my book, regardless of war or no war. I suppose you guys would call it "killing" if the same happened in a videogame, not murder, making it acceptable somehow.

there's no hypocrisy distinguishing pixelated blood vs rape scenes because they're not the same thing. though it is hypocritical morally to argue that they're both bad, then argue you want to excuse both. if you think both are bad, why are you arguing about how killing is bad (it is bad) then excusing rape? the question is 1) do you believe they are both bad or 2) you want people to care about murder but not rape because you are  a) an attention seeking MRA or b) ignorant about rape?

regardless

you're derailing the entire conversation over "which shit is worse" to diminish rape's harm when people have already explained why people are shocked by rape, and the solution isn't to turn rape into a Good Thing with the poor excuse that because games has already created a bloodbath.

lines are drawn in weird places all the time, the point is to not make shit worse than it already is, because what the world doesn't fucking need is more misogyny and rape.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

@nektonico - i never said i flinch at rape in games; i even earlier said that rape games are fine by me as long as they're for adults only. i have no problem with rape fantasies or rape in games, i just think it should be clearly labeled and made optional, so that kids and people who don't want to see it don't inadvertently stumble upon it. if you are going to attack what i'm saying at least get my position right; i've been consistent about this for the whole thread, that i'm fine with rape in hotline miami 2 as long as it's made optional and there's a warning to people about it ahead of time

basically you wrote like 3 pages to explain something that is really indefensible. if killing and murder are the same thing, then sex and rape are the same thing. people need to kill to survive (even vegetarians kill plants). people need to have sex to survive (as a species). but people don't need to murder or rape to survive. to equate murdering a helpless person with killing a mindless zombie who is attacking you or two soldiers killing each other in war as all equally bad is completely ridiculous

you also earlier appealed to authority when you said that murder is punished more harshly by most justice systems than rape. this is true. but it's also true that *killing in self defense* and *killing in war* are both not punished by the justice system. if you are going to appeal to the justice system about which things are worse, you need to consider that killing in self defense is not considered a crime in most justice systems, so by your logic it's not bad at all. unless you believe link and mario should go to jail for killing the moblins and koopa troopas that attack them, calling zelda or mario murder simulators makes zero sense

[Nektonico]

Man, those responses... 

Ill make it short. In my opinion:
A: Killing is, from a modern civilized human perspective, pretty much the worst thing you can do to another human being. (i cant believe i just had to write that)
B: Rape is of course terrible as well, a monstrous crime, but not on the same league as killing someone.
C: Im not going to go down the rabbit hole of the whole murder / killing / self defense discussion any further. Some of you guys/gals might want to talk to a local lawyer about that before acting up on those theories about legal / moral non accountability.
D: Im just saying killing people for fun in a virtual environment (whether they are holding apparent weapons or not), is, in my opinion, a pretty terrible thing, and no one seems to give a flying **** about its pervasiveness in the medium we are discussing (games). Im not making an apology of other horrendous stuff like rape / torture / animal abuse / slavery, and a long list of other colorful activities human beings have engaged in, in the past, and take part of, in the present. Activities that thankfully, we as a species, dont feel the need to reference in our modern means of entertainment (well, for the most part).

Dont worry, i wont elaborate any further.

[Anarkex]

its easy to justify that it fits the story context because x character's motivations, you can justify just about anything by quoting some canon element, but no one is arguing whether the plot is broken or not.

Neither am I. Everything is justified in the context of its own plot. I'm trying to justify it in the context of culture and the medium. I'm trying to decide if these sorts of topics can ever be worthwhile for a writer or an artist to do. There have been plenty of rapes in film and literature, and those rapes served a purpose for the writer. In a lot of cases, they were disturbing, which makes sense, since rape is disturbing. But if the author wants the reader to feel that way, he's going to go for it, social justice be damned. Is it an issue of being too frivolous with a subject that hits too personally for some people? Is that really not okay for art to do?

here's the media context, the only female character exists to be damseled and raped to tutorialize and to shock. here's the social context, there are rape victims or people who know rape victims and don't want to play something that asks you to enact rape to progress the game. so where's the justification, in the context, why should rape victims and feminists and whoever favor some ridiculous paranoid censorship war that men are waging over their art over an actual problem?

Each day I feel like I'm getting a bit more of a handle on all this, and I don't mean that to come off as patronizing. These threads really have given me a lot to think about that I wouldn't have otherwise, and I hope it's clear that something is getting through to me. At this point, I'm not taking issue with the outcry, or the "censorship" (if we can even call it that). if anything, I'm maybe just a little irritated with the way these things are handled on all sides, and I don't see it as progress for game design or game criticism. I expand on this after the next quote. Maybe the next step is taking Paul's advice and dropping this absurd posting format.

where's the gain, yet another game with a rape scene and shit depiction of women and some imaginary xp points

I know you're intentionally dissing on the video games to make a point about how people are bigger than some shitty lazy game design trends, but seriously, I think both of us and everyone else here wants to believe that video games can be an adequate medium for expression. This is probably a weird angle for me considering my history on this forum, but we all want to think of ourselves as artists, right? I feel like this raises some concerns for anyone who wants to create, or even just communicate, and I'm just a little surprised that everyone here seems to be approaching these issues as critics and not as a creators.

for the battle of the censorship wars that doesn't exist, count me out. also if they don't want me to dismiss it "out of context", don't show me anything before it's out, it's their own fault

I'm long past thinking this is about censorship. The public speaks their criticism, and the creators respond. How much worse can it be than playtesting? It can't be censorship if they're willingly doing it themselves. I'm even partly convinced the entire reason they had this in the trailer was to test the waters with a controversial scene, get some free advertising, and a few brownie points when they "fixed" it. Cynical, I know, but I have a feeling it's crossed your mind, too. But hell, I can't come down on that for being manipulative. It's pretty smart.

It's just that in two or three years when some game designer has enough faith in his vision that he does decide to stick to his guns when he comes under fire, I'd like to be able to respect that, too. I think these subjects can potentially lend a story a lot of depth, and any criticism of form or content aside, I value an artist's liberty to experiment. To stifle that freedom is regressive in theory, and futile in practice.

[feminazi]

i think if an artist really believes in it, they should live up to the pressure. i mean i know its distressing or whatever to hear criticism but if youre convinced as an artist that "i'm telling a story here that needs this etc and i get people are pissed but in the end, in the final product people will see the vision" then you probably follow it through, even if people don't trust them now. from what we got to see so far with the game previews, the rape thing is played as a shock, so that's all we are able to talk about. so my current thought is it was there for shock, so i think paul's guess is right about them having backed off because they thought it wasnt worth it to trigger fans that might be rape victims (though there could be commercial reasons if you want to be a little cynical) also since you mention the critic vs dev perspective, a little "developer reasoning" i'd have behind that would be, if it's something you can just cut and replace with something else, it probably wasn't neccessary. idk.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

Man, those responses...  

Ill make it short. In my opinion:
A: Killing is, from a modern civilized human perspective, pretty much the worst thing you can do to another human being. (i cant believe i just had to write that)
B: Rape is of course terrible as well, a monstrous crime, but not on the same league as killing someone.
C: Im not going to go down the rabbit hole of the whole murder / killing / self defense discussion any further. Some of you guys/gals might want to talk to a local lawyer about that before acting up on those theories about legal / moral non accountability.
D: Im just saying killing people for fun in a virtual environment (whether they are holding apparent weapons or not), is, in my opinion, a pretty terrible thing, and no one seems to give a flying **** about its pervasiveness in the medium we are discussing (games). Im not making an apology of other horrendous stuff like rape / torture / animal abuse / slavery, and a long list of other colorful activities human beings have engaged in, in the past, and take part of, in the present. Activities that thankfully, we as a species, dont feel the need to reference in our modern means of entertainment (well, for the most part).

Dont worry, i wont elaborate any further.

again this is just repeating the same points over and over which have been dealt with. for example, we already established earlier that people do care about violence in games, it was a huge deal. doesn't anyone remember jack thompson?

also, regarding the law, are you seriously suggesting that killing in self-defense is a crime? didn't you even read about the zimmerman / travon case, it was all over the news for the majority of several months. zimmerman was found innocent. whether he actually was innocent of murder or not is irrelevant, but if killing someone in self-defense was a crime he wouldn't even have had a case, he would be in jail now

[s0]

Manhunt, Hitman, Postal, Carmageddon (i mean, running people over is a central part of the game mechanics) come to mind as ultraviolent games.

all of these games have been controversial even among people who normally don't mind violence in games. so point proven i guess?

[Dragonmaw]

There are situations that can be considered "justified killings" by society (self-defense, soldier, etc). These situations are referenced by games almost exclusively; games which go outside of this, to the point where they are either ultra-violent snuff parodies (Postal, Manhunt) or the murder of innocents (Carmageddon, Modern Warfare 2), often beget intense controversy.

There is literally no situation in which you would ever, EVER see "justified raping."

You are drawing a false equivalence, Nektonico.

[Blambo]

Man, those responses... 

Ill make it short. In my opinion:
A: Killing is, from a modern civilized human perspective, pretty much the worst thing you can do to another human being. (i cant believe i just had to write that)
B: Rape is of course terrible as well, a monstrous crime, but not on the same league as killing someone.
C: Im not going to go down the rabbit hole of the whole murder / killing / self defense discussion any further. Some of you guys/gals might want to talk to a local lawyer about that before acting up on those theories about legal / moral non accountability.
D: Im just saying killing people for fun in a virtual environment (whether they are holding apparent weapons or not), is, in my opinion, a pretty terrible thing, and no one seems to give a flying **** about its pervasiveness in the medium we are discussing (games). Im not making an apology of other horrendous stuff like rape / torture / animal abuse / slavery, and a long list of other colorful activities human beings have engaged in, in the past, and take part of, in the present. Activities that thankfully, we as a species, dont feel the need to reference in our modern means of entertainment (well, for the most part).

Dont worry, i wont elaborate any further.

Well I guess there's a difference between how justifiable something is and how inherently immoral it is.

Killing a person in a vacuum without any context is not the same as killing somebody for a reason, and killing someone for a good reason is different from killing someone for a bad reason. While all of those acts still involve killing and carry the same amount of immorality when viewed without context, when put in context they can become more or less forgivable.

It's like stealing a loaf of bread to feed your starving family versus stealing a loaf of bread to spite the shopkeeper. They're both stealing, but one is more forgivable than the other.

You have a very noble view of the value of human life in society that I mostly agree with, however death and killing in this context, where the motivations and goals of characters in a video game are the things considered, the context surrounding killing is crucial, as it's the difference between portraying a serial killer and a war hero.

Obviously there's an inherent hypocrisy to war, and the increasingly paranoia-driven positively-viewed killing in Call of Jingoism makes me very uncomfortable, probably as much as a game that favors rape, and it's not just because of the inherent action, but also the motives behind it.

The reason why we see less controversy over violent games is because violence can be justified in so many more ways than rape can.

[gimymblert]

@artist intent in hotline miami
The context of "wink wink" in hotline miami is not really the kind or artistic merit I will defend ...

Looks like hotline miami 2 is the 90s' mortal kombat of indie ...

[Sved]

I disagree, Mortal Kombat was B-movie gratuitous cartoony gore (toasty!), Hotline Miami put you in gruesome situations as puzzles, make you walk back through it in total silence and asked you if you enjoyed it... very different tones and depth.

[pottering]

Pranksters that disguise themselves as someone they want to mock always reveal themselves later (usually with the ample evidence of the stupidity of their targets), so the rest of the world can get on the joke and enjoy mocking their targets together (example: The Yes Men).

But I doubt Dennaton will have the guts to go and openly mock all the people who unironically glorified the ultraviolence in their games (IF they had any intention whatsoever of criticizing violent games in the first place). Much less get rid of the money they amassed using the same method they wished to criticize (a la KLF).

Also, putting the target of your criticism as the main character is a sure fire way of failing miserably.

Pretty much every anti-hero movie, book, etc.. failed miserably in communicating that the anti-hero is supposed to be a odious piece of shit.
Taxi Driver, Rambo, Death Wish, Unforgiven, every Horror movie series, they all ended up glorifying their targets.
That's kinda old news in movie fan circles, for example, Tarantino gave up trying to pretend his movies do not glorify vengeance, he is just making movies with slaver owners, rapists and nazis as villains, he gives them some personality but NO redeeming features, so everyone can go "yeah die nazi shit" without feeling too bad.

If Hotline Miami meant to criticize anything besides the Russian mafia, well, sorry but it failed.
 
Oh wait, organized crime actually benefits from being seen as über-violent, so it failed in criticizing the Russian mafia too...

[s0]

This thread has been going in circles for quite a while now and tbh I don't think that's going to change at this point.

Locked.

[Impmaster]

Hey all.
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/09/05/hotline-miami-devs-reconsidering-sexual-assault-scene/

[RetsamugA]

The game is brutal, its a bout killing a lot of people in very violent ways (awesome), so a rape scene is not that "polemic" considering the rest XD. They dont support rape, they just showed a freaking rape scene!. People should understand creative freedom. I hope they dont listen to what moralist people say

[Impmaster]

Just so that you consider what you just said, we just had a 30 page thread discussing whether it was wrong to keep rape in the game (Or something like that, it's difficult to pay attention cause it was just going in circles).

I just made this thread as a continuation of the other one (which in retrospect was dumb, cause the other one was locked. (hmm.. (infinite parentheses))).

[framk]

I think works of art should never have to compromise on their message, whatever that may be. This being said, as a player I don't want to be in control of a character and have to rape someone.