So I've just caught the tail end of the RapeLay drama at Amazon.com. You may already be familiar with my purely academic penchant for hentai games, even alarmingly-themed ones -- believe it or not, although I've heard quite a bit about RapeLay (it's been an internet phenom since long before this Amazon thinger), I couldn't quite bring myself to play it.
Though it's perfectly possible that it was just laziness and a too-broad slate on my part, I think that the reprehensible nature of the themes might have been a little bit much for even me, so I never brought myself to download it. Brother-sister relationships? I'm okay with that. Girls with animal traits? Sure; I get it. Banging through the entire family? Done that, bunch of times. Asphyxiation, drug abuse, snuff? Played it. Rape -- real rape, not glossy "salvation rape"? Couldn't quite.
My argument in favor of hentai games is that it allows games to do what games do best -- create an experimental space for fantasy, for self-exploration. Act in imaginary circumstances in order to learn more either about the self, or about a certain culture, or about others. I hate the "it's just a game" defense in general, but hentai games are such specific experiences that the idea that they are just games makes them interesting bubbles to think about.
No sane person would ever suggest that real-world incest is a beautiful thing, to say the least. Nonetheless, Kana: Little Sister to this day remains one of the more sophisticated, complex and emotionally-affecting games I've ever played, and I think that has a lot to do with the fact that as an eroge title, it's allowed to "go there" in ways that mainstream, E-for-Everyone games certainly cannot.
H-games in general exist in a world of their own laws and conventions. Similar to the way Japanese anime asks you to suspend your disbelief and believe in certain repetitive social themes that don't exist in reality, Japanese erotic PC titles ask you to accept many similar non-realities -- for example, the idea that a series of wildly left-of-center sexual adventures are a necessary part of a boy's summer journey to manhood, support his confrontation of previous emotional limitations. Or the concept that intercourse with the story's female characters represents some kind of positively-inclined transformative experience for them, also a common theme.
But my gut reaction to hearing about the RapeLay situation suggests to me that there's got to be a line somewhere. I'm torn between playing the game to see if that helps me articulate what that line is -- or ignoring it altogether, on the opinion that it's destructive to give any sort of attention or legitimacy to games like this.
Is this a personal values question, or is there a right answer? What do you guys think? Should there be an Aberrant Gamer about RapeLay, or do we turn the other cheek? Please discuss in the comments; I've also added a sidebar poll so you can weigh in and see what other SVGLers think.
If you need a little more information, Something Awful did review and play RapeLay a couple years ago. I always considered my own writing on H-games to act as a counterpoint to Something Awful's reviews, since those reviews understandably focused on how bizarre and awful these games could be, and I wanted to look for the gems of merit. But in this case, we're obviously talking about a game whose awful-ness is, at least at face value, far less up for debate.
