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[eyeliner]

Are we talking about a rape depiction like American movies or a depiction like an European movie?

There's a fricking huge line separating the two.

[feminazi]

I have a "rape culture" question that got buried in the thread split:

When people use "rape" as a term of exaggerated violence, is it totally dissociated from the actual meaning of the word or is it made totally aware of it?

The original reason I started this thread was to gauge how people felt about rape culture specifically, and whether or not intent of the expression of rape in media and in life registers in everyone's mind.

every battlefield 3 server says baserape im begining to think its official dice terminology.

anyway say it with your friends or whatever in private cos i don't care about that but i dont get why so many shitty words became shorthand for gaming lingo. ex: the killer instinct e3 demo, people actually said "it's just fighting game talk!" really?? pretty sure it came before street fighter

so in terms of rape culture, gamers think of rape as just exagerated violence by linking it to "base rape" and "our team got raped" (synonymous with "wrecked"), then some of them start using rape as slang for beaten and they become a total embarassment to society irl, just like when they started saying owned irl.

[Fallsburg]

The reason why rape is worse than murder (for the sake of portrayal of the respective crime in media) is that the injured party in a murder can't be affected by the media while the victim of a rape can.

[The Monster King]

tbh tmk's "everyone dies" comment kinda rubs me the wrong way too

yeah but we all pretty much deal the same way with "what if a maniac slits my throat" unless you know superb-joe caliber levels of self-defense, in which case you become some kinda counter-murderer or something

even then being shot once or twice in the chest will kill you anyway

my point is everyone sort of has the same fear, the same association with "what if i get murdered", this is something that more or less happens to "everyone" the same

fearing rape does not, for the most part, happen to men

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

i'm not so sure about that. i don't think that everyone fears murder; i certainly don't. and i'm not sure that most men fear murder more than rape, particularly because of how high the prison population is. i don't know how true it is, but there are estimates that more men are raped each year in the US than women. even if it's not true, the number is very high for both men and women, in the hundreds of thousands a year for each. there's also the matter of boys being raped by adult men, it's a pretty common thing

[Alevice]

Well, that might also be a cultural issue. In a country that was not long ago plagued with narco gore shit and how horrible the murders (and the last agonizing minutes of the victim's life) were to witness, I really cant say I am not afraid of murder.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

i guess, but the murder rate in mexico is five times that in the US, and is among the highest in the world (probably due to the drug war there), so that's a reasonable fear

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate



darker is higher murder rate

[eyeliner]

I think you are mixing up the fear of being murdered to the fear of dying, whether by the hands of another person or not.

[Alevice]

I think you are mixing up the fear of being murdered to the fear of dying, whether by the hands of another person or not.

I dont fear dying in a car carsh, I fear being kidnapped, beaten up and then just being hung up upside down while my throat is being slowly sliced and die slowly a really painful death. And I wish I had just made that up[ and not seen it like quite a few times happening already.

[Faust06]

"the rest" was only a claim you can't distinguish between fans and non-fans, which i showed was untrue by distinguishing cara as a fan and not a non-fan

You wrote "if enough fans...", as if to say that if fans, specifically, asked for a change, it should be granted, but in reality it's anyone and everyone. This was true for Matt Inman, who removed a rape joke from his website. Cara wrote an article, and self-professes being a fan (not a difficult disclaimer to add, though it's likely true in her case), which I don't imagine is true of most fans making complaints, if you would consider anonymous comments left on websites and hate mail. The latest google hit shows the story is now on Forbes - definitely reaching outside the scope of mere fanbase, and you don't really think complaints will come from all neck of the woods?

The point is that the fan base alone is not dictating change. I don't think you can distinguish between most fans and non-fans at such high volume of people, but that distinction is irrelevant. I, as a non-fan, can influence the dev's decision by emailing him right now. I've never played HM.

i think there should also be a distinction between 'worse to experience' and 'a worse crime'. i think it's safe to say that rape is worse to experience than murder because it affects the rest of your life, whereas with murder there is no rest of your life, the pain, if there is any, is gone instantly. so rape certainly causes more pain than murder in the victim (friends and family are another matter of course)

You also can't be traumatized if you're dead. The trauma belongs to those who witness murder, are accomplice (solidiers) or have known the individual, which also affects the rest of your life. I don't think it's relevant that a quick death is better in regards to content policy, especially if you're NOT trying to say that rape is worst among trauma.

--

I think I know the main reason that HM2 'ought' to be changed.

What if a game - not a sequel, hence not having a fanbase to begin with - promised to be shocking and disturbing, included gun violence and one rape scene, and to drive the point home, informs everyone of the rape scene? There is no fan base to offend.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

i think you can still distinguish between the two fairly easily; if someone actually cares about the game they frame their request for changes very different than those who haven't played the game, and show much more knowledge of how the game works. fans also tend to be more polite and make more reasonable requests. so i still think it's best to listen to your fans, and that you can tell who your fans are.

[gimymblert]

We must also understand the social implication of rape and murder, or even plain handicapping injury.

- Rapee tend to cover their situation otherwise they might be dead socially has rape isn't recognize as a deep trauma at large by peer. Especially for men, it mean internalizing suffering in fear of rejection. Being rape is a social handicap that invalidate the worth a person, whether he recover from the trauma or not. And also rapist get the support adding insult to the injury.

- Death is a loss that can almost be a social badge of "burden honor", it elicit instant support, pity and gravity. It is treat with a great deal of respect in most representation, and it is something everybody can relate to because it is inevitable whatever the cause (natural or not).

- Handicap have the whole spectrum (depending on the type and cause of the handicap) between the two but overall have less stigma than rape.

The concept of rape is worse than death is precisely an extension of the social construct of a rapee in a rape culture. If rape was treat like death, maybe it would not be seen as such.

[Faust06]

i think you can still distinguish between the two fairly easily; if someone actually cares about the game they frame their request for changes very different than those who haven't played the game, and show much more knowledge of how the game works. fans also tend to be more polite and make more reasonable requests. so i still think it's best to listen to your fans, and that you can tell who your fans are.

There's no evidence that fans are more polite, or reasonable (see ME3 fiasco). Some can be signaled out being knowledgeable about mechanics of the game, sure, but that has no bearing on the complaint, so it can be omitted (Some, but not all fans, will begin with the standard "first of all, I'm a fan", which I don't think is sufficient). Most importantly, this would presume the author would carefully analyze every message he receives, which may be unrealistic depending on volume. Maybe he'll eventually divulge how many emails he got.

[Alevice]

I really cant attest having one being worse than the other, because for starters, it attributes quantifiable values that make no sense. Can we at least settle it on just as bad?

[gimymblert]

ME3 fiasco is another can of worm entirely!
The were furious:

- first because they where PROMISE an ending that take into account all their choice, what the get is colored explosion based on a choice irrelevant of all their choice in the game. But there was a hidden meaning (indoctrination theory) that they were started to accept.

- Second, because the new extended ending didn't solve the problem (broken promise) and undo an ending that make sense, that feel pandering in a cheap way and ultimately that was non sensical with everything established so far.

I'm no mass effect fan, but this one is a case of dev mismanagement.

[Faust06]

^

Not-so-dynamic ending = shitstorm reaction
unwanted rape scene = polite and reasonable

?

w/e

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

There's no evidence that fans are more polite, or reasonable (see ME3 fiasco). Some can be signaled out being knowledgeable about mechanics of the game, sure, but that has no bearing on the complaint, so it can be omitted (Some, but not all fans, will begin with the standard "first of all, I'm a fan", which I don't think is sufficient). Most importantly, this would presume the author would carefully analyze every message he receives, which may be unrealistic depending on volume. Maybe he'll eventually divulge how many emails he got.

sure there is, my own experience with my fans. i never played any ME game and am not familiar with that fiasco, but if your earlier claim was that you can't tell apart fans and non-fans, how do you know that the demand for the ME3 ending change was due to fans and not non-fans? that seems to go against the idea that you can't tell the difference, because you're simultaneously saying that if a large number of people want you to change a game that there's no way to tell the difference, and that in ME3 it was mostly the fans who were virulent rather than the non-fans

[s0]

why would u care about a game's ending if ur not a fan of the game

[Alevice]

Are we aiming for a second thread split?

[Faust06]

why would u care about a game's ending if ur not a fan of the game

This. The issue of rape transcends fandom.

sure there is, my own experience with my fans.

Eh, I'll go out on a limb and say that relatively low popularity (let alone on the indie game scene) will not garner much negative attention from those other than your fans. I don't in any way shape or form mean that as an insult. Actually in the indie scene you may be popular, but it's hard to break through into mainstream gaming press in significant fashion.

I'm going to quote one thing I said above because I'm interested in an opinion on it -

I think I know the main reason that HM2 'ought' to be changed.

What if a game - not a sequel, hence not having a fanbase to begin with - promised to be shocking and disturbing, included gun violence and one rape scene, and to drive the point home, informs everyone of the rape scene? There is no fan base to offend.