Nobody’s arguing that rape or mutilation are good things. The point is that fiction, even dark and uncomfortable fiction, exists to explore extremes, not to promote them. Just like watching a war film doesn’t make you a war criminal, playing a game with taboo content doesn’t mean you’re about to commit a crime. Shockingly, people are capable of separating fantasy from reality. Who knew?
What’s really worrying is that payment processors are acting like the new moral police, cutting off support to anything that doesn’t fit their blurry definition of acceptable. So who gets to decide what counts as oppressive or too offensive? Is it just whatever makes a PR guy nervous that day?
If a company doesn’t want to be associated with certain content, fine. But at least be consistent, be clear, and stop pretending it’s about protecting people. It’s not. It’s about brand image and control, and that’s a much bigger problem than any piece of messed-up fiction.