Simply put, the ESRB is responsible for ensuring that every videogame on the market has a rating to help people determine what is and isn’t appropriate, and you’d better believe that if RapeLay ever lined up for an English-language release it’d be given the fastest Adult Only classification in the history of the industry. Speaking of our side of the pond, I guess it’s necessary to point out once again that we already have a mechanism for dealing with games like this: It’s called it the Entertainment Software Rating Board. And why would they ban what they don’t perceive as a problem? You might as well ask Americans to start banning insipid sitcoms. I suppose you could demand that they ban it, but that becomes a whole ‘nother ball of confusion.Īs Leigh Alexander noted in her excellent article for Slate, this kind of game isn’t just tolerated in Japan, it represents a significant part of the country’s videogame industry and is very much a product of the “social environment that birthed it.” In other words, while we in the West find RapeLay and its ilk outrageously offensive, that’s just not the case in Japan. The Western world lost its collective shit when RapeLay turned up for a day or two on Amazon, but as you’d know if you were actually paying attention, it’s never been available for retail sale outside of Japan. I’m not even sure how this proposed ban would work. But is a ban really the approach we want to take? After all, I don’t want to be “the guy who likes rape games.” Like most Western gamers, I think they’re abhorrent. Defending the existence of games like RapeLay without defending the games themselves is a bit of a balancing act. How the hell am I supposed to oppose that? But then I made the mistake of thinking about it for a minute and it occurred to me that I was being asked to speak out against a ban on a game that was entirely about raping women. Still, it seemed simple enough at first blush: Censorship is bad, therefore I’m opposed, it’s Miller time. I’m no expert on eroge games, Japanese culture, rape, censorship or anything else related to the game. I have no idea how I got dragged into this.

But dated or not, when a story is plastered across CNN’s front page it’s bound to attract attention, and so it was that I got an email a few days ago asking if I’d be interested in taking part in a discussion on the topic, opposing a ban on the game. This, as some folks like to say, is old news.

It’s all bullshit, of course the game is four years old, it was never on store shelves anywhere but Japan and this whole OMG RAPELAY controversy flared up and blew over more than a year ago anyway. The infamous RapeLay is back in the news, thanks to a breathless report by CNN warning that the game had “gone viral” after being pulled from store shelves around the world.

Rapelay video game