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[Hangedman]

There's a reason the other thread was locked: entitled young white men

Physical violence is humdrum in video games, doesn't have nearly as much personal impact on a great many people - physical violence is familiar in media, and yet abstract in a relatively peaceful society, and so we more easily recover from it. Also, injured people get help and care. Sexually assaulted people get blamed and essentially tortured.

I'd rather a creator who can step back and think about how to refine something with their audience in mind, over one who hamfistedly crams in potentially harmful ideas aiming for 'shock value'.
If you aren't getting your meaning across, you need to work on your delivery.

[Impmaster]

Well, Cactus did say that he was going to expand upon the rape scene far more in the actual game.

[s0]

you could have just asked to unlock the other thread

anyway i merged your thread with this one and unlocked it

EDIT: also agree with hangedman's post

[Hangedman]

You may want to lock it again

Well, Cactus did say that he was going to expand upon the rape scene far more in the actual game.

Yeah, but first impressions, demos. This was a thoughtless thing to put across without context. Better now that they're thinking about how to convey it, but the damage is done

[pottering]

(I did not read all the previous 30+ pages, sorry for any tedious repetition.)

One way of framing this:

How many people were hunted down and shot by some psycho in animal masks and SURVIVED to later become enraged at a game that glorifies psychos in animal masks. Not many I assume.
 
Now, in contrast, statistics say that more than half of all the woman in the world suffered some kind of sexual abuse(some say 2/3+).
So, if you tell some rape joke in some room with 10 women, is reasonable to assume at least one(probably more, statistically) has some PAINFUL PERSONAL MEMORIES of being sexually assaulted (even if said assault was rebuked, it is not something people just forget).
So, of course they will be angry, and of course they won't tell why (beyond the obvious. I mean, what kind of idiot gives deeply personal info to strangers they are gearing up to fight?).

So, people don't give a shit about games with lots of killing, because real murder is actually very rare in most people's life (thankfully).
Car "accidents" are waaay more common, many people got into or know someone who got into a car "accident", that's why Carmaggedon got more shit than other violent games.

Even if you actually are a sociopath, at least use your brain, and see the number of potential "enemies" you are facing, taking lightly something BILLIONS(as MRAs always say, men also get raped) of people have very bad PERSONAL MEMORIES of.

Sorry for the rant, but I really think some people just don't grasp what they are dealing with.
Everything people are doing now is SEARCHABLE. FOREVER.
Your name, in Google, defending rape jokes. FOREVER.
Get a fucking grip, your granddaughter is going to google your name and what she is going to find? At least think about it for a minute.
And maybe you can go anon to some forum and talk shit, but YOUR GAME? Your COMMERCIAL GAME?
You gonna put that shit in your commercial game, with your legal name, company name, bank account, etc. linked to it?

Sheesh, if you can't get your empathy going, then at least get your strategic perspective in place and learn to pick your battles.

[s0]

yeah i agree

also the other angle to consider here is the very much societal (and not just individual) problem of rape victims being shamed, not being taken seriously, being told they were "asking for it", sexual assault or harrassment being outright tolerated in some some situations etc. that alone makes rape the more sensitive issue.

oops now im repeating myself too but what gives

[cactus]

EAnd maybe you can go anon to some forum and talk shit, but YOUR GAME? Your COMMERCIAL GAME?
You gonna put that shit in your commercial game, with your legal name, company name, bank account, etc. linked to it?

Stanley Kubrick did. David Lynch did. Alejandro Jodorowsky did. Mel Gibson did. Quentin Tarantino did. Hitchcock did. Sergio Leone did. Trey Parker did. Seth McFarlane did. Ridley Scott did. Akira Kurosawa did. Clint Eastwood did. Oliver Stone did. Frank Miller did. Alan Moore did. Zack Snyder did. Elem Klimov did. Try looking at the keyword "rape" on imdb.

Did you know that there's rape in CSI, Criminal Minds, The X-Files, even Little House on the Prairie?

There's countless of people who create things involving rape. Not a whole lot of games. Rape is a real world problem. Even the depiction of it in fiction is, which I think everyone here has understood.

You are free to think that the games I make are trash, or that rape is something that should not be in games, or that specifically in our game it's handled poorly. I won't argue with your personal opinions, how could I possibly decide how you feel about something?

I personally avoid things I know contain "rape scenes", I have a hard time watching films with unprovoked violence, and I don't think rape is something that can be justified as an act done to another being. So I can perfectly understand how people are feeling about it. If I didn't find the subject upsetting, the sequence in Hotline Miami could have easily been a lot worse. However, there are times when I feel that it's justifiable to depict rape in entertainment/art, if it's within a reasonable context.

The main problem for me in this situation is that I have doubts people will try (nor succeed) to understand what the scene really means, and I have no desire to explain things I want people to figure out on their own. I'm not sure everyone would approve of it even if they understood it. This makes it harder to justify the inclusion of the scene in the game.

To me, Paul's suggestion of having an option to "turn it off" before playing the game seems reasonable. I don't mind if someone feels bad or is disgusted because of our game's content, but I don't want people to have a traumatic experience playing the game.

[Impmaster]

Have you been reading the thread this whole time? :O

[joseph ¯\_(ツ)_/¯]

cactus you're a cooler guy than I previously expected

that rps interview was killer I'm glad you aren't hiding behind some bs ITS ART I GET TO DO WHATEVER I WANT penny arcade style defense and I'm also glad you aren't giving up on the subject matter yet -- the impression i got is that you're gonna try to do it classy, and if you can't hit the emotion you want with your audience, back off of it.

That's a really rad way to handle criticism and you earned a lot of my (and i hope many others') respect.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

happy to hear you liked the suggestion

as an aside, two of my favorite novels that i read as a teenager have a rape scene in them: the first book of the chronicles of thomas covenant and the fountainhead. and also the comic 'the watchmen'. so i'm not at all trying to say (like eva is, and like people keep seem to be interpreting what i'm saying as) that it never should be used, i just think it shouldn't be a surprise to an audience that didn't have warning ahead of time because it can make many people very uncomfortable and cause panic attacks, which can be serious health threats, it's not just a matter of 'getting offended'

(but same thing spiders, due to arachnophobia; after reading that guy's article on not being able to play games with spiders in them that i linked to earlier, and reading the comment by someone on this forum who described his friend having a panic attack after playing limbo, i really am going to be careful about using spiders in my games from now on, and probably include a warning about it if i use them)

[pottering]

You are free to think that the games I make are trash, or that rape is something that should not be in games, or that specifically in our game it's handled poorly.

I don't think they are thrash, period. I criticize what I like harder than other stuff. I have wallops of criticism to throw at everything I like, from Alan Moore comics to my Kindle Paperwhite.

Any subject can be in games, but an artist has take the medium he is using in consideration when creating.

I think in movies,comics and especially games is almost impossible to cast the "villain" as a main protagonist without glorifying what you set out to criticize in the first place.

You mentioned Lynch and Jodorowsky, they are able to do movies with pretty "evil"(ambiguous,whatever)characters, but they pretty much throw away the notion of a main protagonist, and make movies that end up, well, pretty hard to understand.
Now that I think about it, maybe that's what you tried with the biker sub-plot, but Jacket still come across as "the hero".

In the end, from the Simpsons to Taxi Driver, lots of people failed in using the main protagonist to drive a satire to criticize something, not bad company to be in, I suppose.

[feminazi]

thanks for replying

[Brother Android]

(but same thing spiders, due to arachnophobia; after reading that guy's article on not being able to play games with spiders in them that i linked to earlier, and reading the comment by someone on this forum who described his friend having a panic attack after playing limbo, i really am going to be careful about using spiders in my games from now on, and probably include a warning about it if i use them)

Couldn't this logic extend to a lot of things, though? Some people react that way to rodents, needles, and clusters of small holes. I have my own set of irrational fears, so I'm not trying to be heartless, but maybe there comes a point when you need to rely on people out there knowing what sets them off and maybe asking their friends if there's stuff like that in the game? I mean, I guess spiders are a very common and extreme fear, but I don't know where you stop when you start warning about stuff like that.

"Warning: this game contains realistic depictions of spiders, rats, darkness, enclosed spaces, and reanimated human remains."

Eh, I guess it could work. To anyone who isn't set off by those things it would just seem vaguely humorous.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

i already replied to that question (read the thread man). basically my answer is it depends on the percent of people it affects and the workload involved. arachonophobia is very common -- something like 20%+ of people have some form of it, although it's debilitating in fewer than that. that makes it about as common as people who have been raped. stuff like fear of rats is relatively rare

basically i think you should go by what your fans ask for; if you are getting a lot of fans asking you to change something for them, i've no problem changing it for them as long as it's optional and on by defalt and doesn't affect the game significantly

[crowe]

I feel that abrogating your intended storyline for the arbitrary desires of fans is basically intellectual cowardice.

[Blambo]

If it weren't for epileptic seizure warnings I suppose lots of developers removing rapid blinking lights from their games are also committing intellectual cowardice

[Blademasterbobo]

I feel that abrogating your intended storyline for the arbitrary desires of fans is basically intellectual cowardice.

it's nice to see you talk about something that didn't happen with an air of moral superiority

maybe you should actually read what he said

[joseph ¯\_(ツ)_/¯]

Abrogating poorly communicated, unsuccessful ideas just because the audience won't like them makes you a coward. Real artists never edit!

[Dragonmaw]

Wanting to not be triggered is hardly "arbitrary."

Also crowe why are you using abrogate a lot

[pottering]

I feel that abrogating your intended storyline for the arbitrary desires of fans is basically intellectual cowardice.

This is subjective, you can frame this kind of thing anyway you want to.
Cool dev that hears the fans or intellectual coward that wields to pressure?
Self-criticism or self-censorship?
Pick your poison.