[s17n]

Bro it's not a "weird art game about trauma" its a rape simulator. Should payment processors be involved here? Probably not. But the game is definitely a bad thing that should not exist and whoever made it is 100% a bad person.

[ijk]

Given that at this point the games that have been delisted include IGF award winners and art games that have been shown in museums, I think we're pretty far past pointing at any individual games as a reason to justify this.

[nitwit005]

Should we ban the bible? It certainly has rape and extreme violence. Clearly written by a bad person.

Make a list of the most popular films and games. You'll find a lot of violence and sexual assault. You'd have to ban _most_ media to get rid of it.

[LtWorf]

Very very oddly even on debian mailing list some people claim that religious texts get a pass, but other old texts do not.

[accoil]

They're probably talking about Mouthwashing which was announced to be delisted from itch (not steam though) today [^1]. Not played the game, only read synopsis, but it's a horror game instigated by a rape. As far as I know, the rapist is not meant to be a sympathetic character.

[^1]: https://bsky.app/profile/siarate.bsky.social/post/3luz4cz6wx...

[EA-3167]

I've played it, and without spoiling, there's no way to play it through and come to the conclusion that the rapist (and mass murderer) is an even halfway decent person. It's not titillating (not that the graphics or art style would allow for that in any case), and it's not played in any way except upsetting and mature.

Tbh it's a pretty impressive narrative experience, it really leverages the difference between watching a story and experiencing it.

[accoil]

Edit: seems like it was taken down months ago due to other itch policies (devs aren't hosting playable files on itch).

https://bsky.app/profile/itch.io/post/3lv2hlptfos2x

[Kapura]

brother i don't even know what specific thing you're talking about. hundreds, thousands? of games have been delisted on storefronts for the sin of including themes that the lobbiers found objectionable.

[EA-3167]

So do what 99.9999% of us already do: don't play these games. You deciding to make it a moral issue that you get to determine for everyone else is where you turn a personal opinion (really just an understandable sense of disgust) into a policy.

If we still decided what was allowed based on the sense of disgust it engenders in some people, we'd still be living like Medieval peasants. Adults should be free to make informed choices, that includes purchasing and consuming things that you and I find repellent.

[latentsea]

Question... do you or would you be willing to extend this line of reasoning to child porn? As in, some people want to watch it, and most people find it repulsive, but those that don't should be allowed to make the informed choice to watch it?

If not, where do you draw the line? And why there?

[Maken]

The problem here is how opaque and arbitrary the entire process is. Because someone could sue Visa/Mastercard over certain games' content in an arbitrary jurisdiction, they have imposed a ban worldwide in every game storefront in existence.

[const_cast]

I don't care if something is bad or not. That's not my concern, and that shouldn't be anyone's concern.

You don't like the game? Is there a gun to your head making you play it? No. The conversation should be over then.

[voxl]

I've got some bad news for you about the kind of media millions of men and women, some of whom being victims of sexual assault, consume.

But hey they're all bad people I guess, victims included.

[throitallaway]

I guess we're also going to have to ban movies like A Clockwork Orange then. Stanley Kubrick and all the other people involved in production? 100% bad people.

Careful on that slippery slope, you might fall and break something!

[mcphage]

> Bro it's not a "weird art game about trauma" its a rape simulator.

What game are you talking about?

[Dylan16807]

The targeting here is very broad. As a reminder, Collective Shout has tried to get GTA blocked. And Detroit: Become Human for having you play as an abused woman and child as they escape the abuse.

[miniBill]

No one is defending the game. Everyone is just saying that payment processors should not be judge, jury and executioner

[s17n]

A lot of people are in fact defending the game, just look at the replies to my post. I'm a staunch free speech proponent but defending this game is like defending the Nazis' right to march - we should defend the right to create it on principle, but also we should be clear that like the nazis, the creators of this game are despicable, the game has no value, and the world would be better off if the game didn't exist.

I think its obvious that making the game should be legal, and also obvious that platforms like Steam should ban it. Payment processors are a weird middle ground, I'll leave it to smarter people than me to figure out the ethics there.