It's an appropriate climate for another related issue. You may know I've long been a fan of Mousechief's Dangerous High School Girls in Trouble, because of its innovative approach to conflict and the way it used the complex -- and yeah, often dangerous -- social environment and behavioral structures of teenage girls as simultaneously a game mechanic and a narrative. That narrative aims to be more mature and sophisticated than what's customarily seen in other casual games -- which is what DHSGiT is -- and my opinion is that it succeeds.
The game's been removed from portal Big Fish Games after some users complained of "inappropriate content," from what I can understand. DHSGiT contains a scripted event close to the game's climax where the player character shoots a boy who was about to rape her friend. There are no graphic depictions -- DHSGiT is effectively a casual card and board game with menus and narrative boxes, and so the questionable scene is nothing more than this:
The debate over whether Big Fish did the right thing -- similar to our RapeLay discussion, albeit on a scale much less stark -- is on at the site's forums. Kieron Gillen at Rock Paper Shotgun plucked some choice posts for a more cohesive summary, if you don't want to read the numerous pages of the thread.
Other complaints about the game apparently claim it "promotes bullying" (in fact it's about stopping bullies), and offended parties might have been struck by the game's title. I'd be lying if the slightly-salacious name wasn't why the title caught my attention in the first place, after all.
The official problem with the scene in the game, as I'm told, is the "implied violent rape of a woman in graphic detail." Keith Nemitz, the game's creator (also nominated for a WGA award for his work) , stresses that the throughline of the scene is that it's an interruption of a violent rape, and not the aftermath thereof -- and that therefore changing the word "dropped" above to "dropping" might alleviate the entire snafu.
I played a much earlier build of DHSGiT at the time I reviewed it for Wired last year, which means I never completed the full commercial release that contains this event, so I can't comment. I can safely say, though, that DHSGiT is a grown-up game, not in the slightest a shy title, and while it uses a delightful brand of black humor, I can't imagine it taking sincere situations lightly. And to pretend that violence toward young women doesn't happen in high schools and has no place in narrative -- especially those intended to be empowering -- is another sad example of audiences assuming games must always be shallow technicolor fantasies.
We're used to dealing with death in games. We are not at all used to dealing with sex. Rape, which lies in an uncomfortable gray area between sex and violence, is understandably even harder for us to get our heads around.
Part of my appreciation for the hentai game Kana: Little Sister comes from the equal hands it deals both sex and death themes simultaneously, and sex and death are common bedfellows in many eroge titles. As many people have mentioned in the RapeLay discussion, it seems that whether or not certain images and themes in games are valuable or distasteful depends on context.
Games often use graphic violence as a shortcut because it's easier -- and higher-stimulus -- than illustrating more complex conflicts. I think that the exploitation of boobalicious figures in video games is intended to be similar shorthand for the kind of complex sexuality that games have never quite managed to explore. The creators of games don't feel permitted to do any kind of complex exploration of these themes -- unless it's in porn games, from which nobody has any mainstream expectation (see why I like them so much?). That's why what we tend to get in commercial videogames is either all-out scandalous -- things like stripper minigames or extreme kills -- or unrealistically sexless, neutered.
I admired DHSGiT because of its willingness to explore an extra layer of depth in the emotionally-charged, often deeply dark interactions of young people (which is why I love Persona's subtext, too). As I said, I haven't played the scene in question, but knowing Keith's work, I feel fairly confident the context we're asking for was likely there. Anyone experience it for themselves that can vouch?
I asked Keith about how he felt about the game's removal. "I respect Big Fish's right to control what they distribute," he told me. "It is ironic when people bully a company into banning a game they claim promotes bullying (among other accusations). In fact, part of the game is about standing up to bullies. Maybe if they had played in their teen years, it might have taught them to play nicer."
Keith adds: "Mousechief supports DHSGiT as fine entertainment for TEEN audiences and older. It is not for children. We rate it TEEN on our website and informed Big Fish of the rating. We even changed the name and box cover (splash screen) at their request."
Much of our comments debate about RapeLay over the past few days has revolved around one question raised by many: If graphic, violent dismemberment is permitted and even celebrated in video games, then why is rape considered completely off-limits? Here, DHSGiT's audiences have primarily taken greater issue with even the implication of rape than they have with the shooting that followed -- illustrating that our question doesn't have an easy answer.
Also illustrated here is the danger of judging a game based on what you assume it contains and not what it does contain. Can you tell which way I'm leaning on whether or not to play RapeLay?
[UPDATE: I've heard from several DHSGiT players throughout today in email and conversations who didn't take issue with the content so much as with the fact that the "rape scene" represented what Kate in the below comments calls a "tonal shift" away from the rest of the game's throughline that seemed offensive or puzzling because it was so abrupt and misplaced relative to the rest of the game.]
