Gamers who are into video games with adult content will know immediately what I am talking about. For the uninitiated, there is a genre of games which deal exclusively with adult content, and yes, there is a large market out there. While the origins of these games cannot really be attributed to a single location, a lot of them come from Japan.
One of the games which has garnered international attention is RapeLay. It is pretty obvious what the game is all about – players get to stalk girls – young or old – and rape them at will. Players get to earn points for each act of violence that they do. More so, they get additional points for forcing them to get abortions. In the US, this game caught the ire of human rights activists, forcing retail stores such as Amazon to pull the game out of their shelves.
Now, Japan is following suit. AFP has the story:
The Japanese industry group the Ethics Organisation of Computer Software said it had long mulled measures to control such content which it said “deviates extremely from social norms.”
The organisation will now ban all “sexual torture software” and set clear guidelines on what content should be blocked from circulating in the market, the group said in an announcement dated Thursday.
The group says it already screens almost all adult-content computer games made in Japan, and that some 90 percent of products carry its rating stickers.
The ban is a form of industry self-regulation and carries no legal weight, but it is expected to discourage most Japanese retailers from selling such games, said the spokesman.
While this not a legal move, it should serve to discourage the distribution of such material.
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Posted June 10th, 2009 by Maki | Comment (0)
