itch.io

Generative AI is going to change a lot of industries... it automates things that were previously un-automatable, and it enables a lot more flexible automation on top of that.  I'm not some big doomsday "ai will destroy society and leave people with no purpose" type person, but it will definitely result in more changes than any technology we have seen in the past decade at least.

No major disagreements here, though I will just have to take your word for it on the Mouthwashing game bc I know nothing about it.  Scratching an itch doesn't usually make it go away, it just makes it itch more.  We can confront that truth, or live in denial.

I definitely disagree, and I think that games like this do play a factor in how people view SA, and I think that it is fair for people to share their opinions on platforms hosting questionable content.  But I see that you don't agree, and, while I wish you'd change your mind, I know I can't make you.  Thanks anyways though.

I think people don't like being confronted with the real-world implications of their entertainment.  People will use arguments like "it's a far-right plot" or "there are no studies that conclusively demonstrate a causal relationship between x game and y real-world result", or etc to avoid having to honestly and logically assess those implications.

I heartily disagree on the copycat crime not existing point.  And either way, the point about normalization still stands.

Don't be blinded because you don't see an uptick in crime rates after x game is released.  Just like with the Japan statistics, a million other factors can hide the impact of a game on nationwide crime rates.  It does not mean there is no relationship between this game and SA normalization and criminality in individual cases.

Just a quick reply (so much for the last word lol).  They were not all I could find, they were the result of some relatively short research into the topic.  "Causality remains unproven" is not equal to "mechanism does not exist".  Like with the stats on Japan, it makes perfect sense that the impact of this game would be concealed up by thousands of other factors.  I make the case that it still exists, and therefore, developing/playing/hosting this game is bad.

Well, you are welcome.  I can't say I agree with some of your arguments, or your conclusion, but thank you for your civility as well.

Exactly the point I was trying to make.  You find my studies dubious, and I find yours dubious.  We've gotten nowhere, just like I said would happen.

The paywalls are irrelevant in this case.  The abstracts get the point across.  I found studies that found a connection between sexual material in video games and real-life behavior.  Which is what I claim exists with this game.

The Bible is a horrible comparison to this game because the point of sexual accounts you mentioned in the Bible is not masturbatory, or to be entertaining.  You are supposed to be horrified by what Lot did in those cases.  Not entertained or aroused by it, like with you are with the sex in this game.  Because of this, it's a bad analogy.  The portrayals of sex in the Bible you mentioned are not remotely comparable to this game, therefore, you have not demonstrated any absurdity in my position.

The studies found a connection between sexualized content in video games, and the real-life thoughts and attitudes of the subjects about sexual behavior.  I claimed that there is a connection between the content of this sexualized video game, and the real-life thoughts and attitudes of its players.  And thoughts lead to action in many cases.  You can't really do something without thinking about doing it.

I already addressed the point about "ego shooters" (assuming this means FPS), so I won't make it again.

As I mentioned, this will likely be my last response, then you can have the final word if you wish.

"

But I am not using the scientific method here because we are not conducting a scientific experiment, so no, this is not a hypothesis.

You do not need to do "an experiment", to have a hypothesis. You claim something works a certain way. So you propose there is a mechanism at work. That is a hypothesis. No matter how you would call it.

Are you proposing also, that your hypothetical mechanism is unique to the example at hand? If not, your mechanism should be at work at other situations. It is not evident to me, that this is so. So I recect your hypothetical mechanism. Psychology actually is a science. If that mechanism exists, maybe you can point me to an article explaining the mechanism. And real psychologists would have used scientific methods to study that mechanism, btw.

"

I think you missed the point.  It is not a hypothesis because it is not something that needs further investigation.  It is not really something you can reject based on the gathering of evidence because it follows directly and entirely from the definitions of the words I used.  Did you see the point I made about the pet spider?  By getting the pet spider, they are accepting the presence of a spider.  Meaning that they do not find the presence of the spider unacceptable by the very definitions of the words.  If you entertain yourself with depictions of sexual assault, you are accepting the presence of sexual assault (accepting here means saying "it's acceptable", or appropriate, or not bad enough to utterly reject).  The same logic applies.  And it doesn't matter if it is a depiction of fictional events or not in this case because without the real events in the background, the fictional scene would have no meaning.  The spirit of the act is present in a depiction of sexual assault in a way that it would not be, say, in the presence of a picture of a spider.

"

I do not think this is how people are playing this game, and that you might be being a little intentionally obtuse.

That is the thing. You only imagine how or why people play the game. And you base your reasoning based on that assumption

... 

with kinky fictional taboo things for the deed with their partner.

"

The players of this game are obviously masturbating to it and using it to engage in sexual fantasy.  That's the point of the game.  I guess that is an "assumption", but it is an obviously true one.  Like assuming that if there are dark, stormy clouds above, it will rain.  When people look at porn, they are usually masturbating to it, but they are nearly always at least getting sexual thrills from it.  That's what I meant by obtuse, or yes, playing dumb.  If you truly don't think that this is why people are playing the game, it's hard to move the conversation on from there.

On catharsis theory, my entire point was the the idea of "blowing off steam" by playing a game like this to reduce likelihood of real-life sexual assault is, at best, based in Freudian pseudoscience.   It was in response to a claim about using a game like this to vent these desires.  I claim  nothing more than its basis in pseudoscience, not hard science.  You, meanwhile, in your next paragraph, seem to affirm this pseudoscience when you talk about venting stress.

"But it has an effect of exacerbating those tastes particularly in those who already show tendencies toward violence. Unfounded. Cite proof for that mechanism. Or I can equally unfoundedly claim that it suppresses such tendencies. Playing games can decrease your stress. If you are stressed out, you might resort to violence if provoked. If your stress level is lower, that danger is lower. So playing games can lower violent behaviour. (The other half is, that playing games can also increase your stress. Overall I assume that the net effect is lowering stress, since it is a recreational activity. In other words, we would not do it, if it were not fun.)"

This is a pretty basic principle in criminology.  People who possess multiple factors that lead towards criminality are more likely to engage in criminality.  

But that quote is actually besides the point of my argument at large.  It is not only about a game making you more likely to commit sexual assault, but it is also about a game influencing thoughts of players to make them more accepting of sexual assault in general, even if not committed by them.  You haven't shown any flaws in my case for SA video games doing this, and I have illustrated repeatedly how entertaining yourself with SA makes you more accepting of it, and how being accepting of something makes you more likely to be alright with it happening.  All you've done is say, "this other thing might be true" using logic that I thereafter demonstrated problems with, and handwave that may claim has been debunked in the past without truly engaging with the points I am making.

Additionally, you basically just described that cathartic "blowing off steam" effect I mentioned earlier in your talk about stress, which as I mentioned, is pseudoscientific.

"

 No, they become addicted by using those things.  Have you every heard of an alcoholic who had never had alcohol?  The connection I am making is that playing a pornographic game (porn is addictive) that contains sexual assault can lead people to follow that path that most addictions take (needing more to satisfy), and that that pattern

That is not true. You need a thing that is addictive to begin with. Porn is not. Alcohol is. Trivially you can get addicted obsessed with anything. I want to try another absurdity argument. If porn is addictive, it stands to reason that sex is. So are married couples not actually in love with each other, but addicted to each other?

"

Many would disagree with you on porn being addictive.  But let's not say addicted, let's go with obsessed.  The point still stands.  You don't become obsessed with something you have never had or seen before.  The obsession has to start with some kind of contact.  How can you be obsessed with something you don't know exists?

As for your point on married couples, you are right: comparing porn addiction to marriage is absurd.  Love and addiction are not even close to synonymous, and cannot be interchanged with each other like they are.  I don't think your argument from absurdity demonstrates a logical error in my point.  I also would not say that sex is addictive in the same way that drugs or porn is.

"So not only is your premise is wrong about games being addictve as such, but also your following mechanism of wanting more and more and mostly fallacious is the step you make into the real world. If someone would fall to obsession ("addiction") with playing porn games, they would want more games. Better games. Games that cater to their tastes better. Or play the game a lot. They would not suddenly being addicted to the things depicted in the game. Why should they? Where does this step in logic come from? It does not work that way! If you think so, find actual scientists that wrote about it. It would be hell of a feast for psychologists, if it were true. They would be famous for proving such a thing and all sorts of content restrictions could be made with scientific reasoning! Laws would be named after them."

They should not, maybe we should ask, "Why would they?"  They would because the things in the game would lack all meaning if it were not for the real-life version of those acts.  The point of the game is to approximate or simulate the real world thing.  Doing the real world thing is a more extreme version of doing the thing in a video game (this is the "step in logic").  It follows the exact mechanism I described, and that you mentioned above.  The addiction I am concerned about is not necessarily to the game, but to the thing the game is depicting.

And if I show you some psychologists, what then?  I think you will just reject their claims.  The whole field is fraught with so many variables that we could each just hand-wave away all evidence shown to each other, just like with statistics.

As for the emotional argument, you can complain about it all you want.  But you have not answered it.  I don't think there really is a good answer to it.  It is effective because there is truth underneath the emotions of shame you would feel.  To be entertained by playing a game where you SA a woman is to be entertained by playing a game where you sexually assault someone like a sister, mother, girlfriend, etc.  And that is shameful indeed.  Even if it doesn't affect your life in any other way (which, I believe, it would).

In summary, I think that Itchio was justified in delisting this game because they don't want to be associated with a SA game, and because their platform would be facilitating access to something that would make SA more acceptable in the minds of players, whether committed by them or by someone else.  And, I think that everyone should refrain from playing such games because they can contribute to desires that will have negative effects in their life

I think I will probably reply to each of your points once more, and then leave the last word to you if you want it.

"You likened porn to prostitution with a money angle. I made a money angle about another thing that involves sex as an attempt to show the absurdity and not to show off my view on marriage or any such things.

Porn is porn, no matter if money is involved. A married couple doing an amateur video is neither paid for the deed nor is the deed something they would only do because of the camera. The video of it, it is still porn. Even if they show it to no one.

Prostitution is prostitution, even if no money was involved or if the non paid participant is not the payer. You could compensate the prostitute by non money gifts or favors or someone else could pay for you.

All quite semantical, so it depends on which definition you use, which kind of semantical stretchings you can use to connect those two. Becomes a prostitute a porn actress the moment her client pays to film the deed and publish it for money? Maybe. But porn actors do not suddenly become prostitutes, just because they get paid. And neither does the film producer become the client by paying.

"

But that attempt to demonstrate the absurdity is built on a false equivalence.   My point in defining marriage was to show that marriage is not at all similar to prostitution, in spite of the fact that both sex and money are involved in both.  Because of that, you haven't demonstrated any absurdity in my likening of prostitution to pornography by likening marriage to prostitution.

We might say that prostitution is merely the exchange of money for sex.  Porn, in most cases, is the exchange of payment for sex, with the added presence of a camera.  Marriage, meanwhile, is all the things I described in my previous post, and more.  Sure, you might say that every film of two people having sex doesn't involve the exchange of money.  Fine, but most modern pornography that is produced by the porn industry and is consumed by people does, and this is what I have been referring to when I draw the comparison between prostitution and porn.

And if you are paid in other ways that aren't money, you are still getting paid for sex.  Money, after all, is a medium of exchange that we use to obtain other things that we want.  So even if you can find certain porn films that didn't involve someone getting paid to have sex on camera, huge swaths of the porn industry are just that.  That is why porn is infinitely closer to prostitution than it is to marriage, AND why I think it should fall under prostitution law as opposed to being protected as speech.

And finally, I do think that by being in a porn film (porn referring to the porn industry, companies that pay people to appear in their films, not a married couple's sex tape), a woman (or man) becomes a prostitute.  She is getting paid to have sex with someone.  I hold to my definition in this case.

"

You seem to misunderstand free speech. Free speech does not mean a platform has to allow "your speech". It means that the government cannot place legal restraints on it. In case of porn it means, the government cannot directly forbid porn itself.

To protect porn as speech could mean that a platform owner could get into legal trouble for removing it (in theory at least).  It seems like madness to prevent a platform from removing porn because of free speech.

Your premise is wrong. Please read this https://www.accessiblelaw.untdallas.edu/post/the-limits-of-free-speech-in-social...

In short social media companies are not state actors and their platforms are not public forums, and therefore they are not subject to the free speech protections

"

This is actually the point I was trying to make.  I was replying to someone who seemed to think itchio's removal of the game was an act of censorship, which would indicate that they might think it was a violation of free speech.  I was explaining to that person why I don't think it was a violation in that quotation using a hypothetical.  Which, by the way, is my main point in this whole debate: that Itchio is allowed to remove something like that.  The rest of the debate (about growing desire, etc.) has been why I think it is good that they did it.

"

No reasonable person truly believes this absolutely.

I might stress that we are talking about fiction. We are not talking about someone expressing their free speech protected opinion that crime x should be not a crime. We are talking about taboos and crimes in a fictional work.

And yes, I absolutely believe that it is not your business or mine to restrict what fiction adults can read/play/watch for recreational purposes. Or to restrict what fiction can exist. It is fiction. That means not real.

"

This circles the wagon back to the point I made elsewhere on this message board: that the fiction you indulge in affects the way you act in real life.  And that willingly engaging in fiction that promotes a certain thing is an implicit endorsement of that thing.  It will affect different people to varying degrees for some people, sure.  But although it is fiction, it has real-world consequences.

Additionally, certain kinds of fiction are objectionable.  Such as fiction that depicts child abuse, or that enables you to pretend to commit a school shooting, or that enables you to pretend to sexually assault someone.  I don't think it unreasonable for people to express outrage over such fiction, and to petition platforms not to list it.  It is reasonable for people to object to living in a community where their neighbors entertain themselves by pretending to engage in violent sex with fictional people who are designed to be similar to their mothers, daughters, wives, and other loved ones.

"Quite a jump to involve csam and proclaiming that non fictional material of real crimes and a game about fictional events with artificial graphics are "exactly equivalent". You are formally wrong. For that, mostly this one https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_equivalence , but this whole issue is about fallacies used by the manipulators to rile up an angry mob to ban games they dislike. They dislike it. Ok. But they do not argue soundly to try to ban it - because they legally can't. It is fiction and even protected by free speech. So they bully platforms and rile up angry mobs."

I will choose to believe you didn't put quotes around "exactly equivalent" in bad faith.  If you read the full sentence, you would see that I literally said: "My point is not that this game and CSAM are exactly equivalent..."  The point was in your "So what." response to content that many would consider disgusting, you indicate that we have to allow basically all forms of fictional entertainment.  In fact, you explicitly said that we must allow all of it (it being "fictional things").  So, by your logic, you would have to say "so what" to people playing (excuse my language) "Baby R@pe Simulator 4" and other extremely objectionable content like that.  I don't think we have to do that.

"To summarize, yeah, that game is not really good taste, because of certain topics. But it is fiction and any discussion about banning it for adults should end right there. The fact that bullying was needed to ban it, should make you think. It says poor things about how society can easily be manipulated. A far greater danger than any imaginary threats of fictional content. There are real world people in power that use those tactics of bullying and making unsound arguments to get their way. But hey, activists are distracted banning games, so they need not fight those real world bads."

Well, I'm glad you find the game not in good taste.  

What you call bullying, I might call people expressing their opinions about something they find objectionable in an effort to persuade a platform to delist the thing the find objectionable.  Which is really just a culture banning objectionable things from polite society.

I disagree that the discussion should automatically end with the medium being fiction for all the reasons I have mentioned throughout this thread.

Finally, pointing at all the "real world bads" and telling people to focus on that instead seems like a distraction to prevent anything from being done about something bad that we can immediately do something about.  It's like if you want to smooth out your back yard, but someone says "why are you bothering to fill in that smaller hole, when you have this much bigger hole over here?"  But my yard can never be truly smooth until the small hole is filled in, and it is much easier to start by filling in the smaller one.

I am glad you see where I am coming from, and I hope the conversation has been helpful to you.

I think I understand and can see your perspective and those of the people who might disagree with me in this debate.  I just don't agree with their conclusions about this particular piece of media.

I see that LOTR reference :D

"That is not evidence. That is your hypothesis how this works. Exchange SA for murder and apply your hypothesis to all those crime tv shows. Crime is popular entertainment since like forever. So society should have accepted it long ago as socially acceptable. Is this so? No. Hypothesis rejected."

It is not empirical evidence.  But I am not using the scientific method here because we are not conducting a scientific experiment, so no, this is not a hypothesis.  It is a fundamental point that if you find something truly unacceptable, you will not do it.  If someone is disgusted by spiders and finds their presence truly unacceptable, they will never get a pet tarantula, nor will they ever knowingly and willingly touch a spider.  If they did so, then they would be accepting the presence of the spider in the very act of getting the pet.  The same applies with SA.  In the very act of entertaining yourself with a SA game, you are finding its contents (SA) acceptable.  This is one main reason why I think itchio's removal of this game was acceptable: to encourage people not to accept SA.

"How it might do so? You play the game and control the events. You are playing. A pretend sitation in a safe environment. You do a bad thing. You might snigger and lough at the absurdity. Or you might feel bad for hurting some imaginary pixels. Either way, you might take away from it, how you would react in a real sitation and then have fun in the unreal situation and fool around. Not unlike some people go over imaginary discussions while in the shower"

Respectfully, I do not think this is how people are playing this game, and that you might be being a little intentionally obtuse.  No one is snickering and laughing there way through this game because it is so absurd and amusing.  And no on is playing it to try to learn about how they would react in this real life situation.  They are playing it to masturbate, to fantasize.  How many players of this game do you think are selecting the option to refrain from having forcible sex with the character in the game?

"Care to link me to some data about that? And what kind of desires are we talking about. I am not asserting that clinically insane mass rapists can cure their urges with that. I am merely protesting your assertion that playing such a game creates those urges or creates a demand for more, and the data I saw and my own experiences with games suggest that if any, there is the opposite effect of what you described. I for sure do not feel the urge to murder people. And I find guns abhorent. But willingly engage with them in a (virtual) play situation."

Perhaps I worded my claim a too strongly in my last message.  But the whole idea of "blowing off steam" to suppress perversions (his term!) is rooted in Freudian psychology, which has been criticized for years for being pseudoscientific.    And, even in Freudian psychology, there are nuances to this idea that phrase "blowing off steam" does not adequately cover.  I encourage you to look into the widespread criticisms and nuances of [Freudian psychology catharsis theory] if you are interested in this (in the [] would be a good search term).  I won't be dropping a ton of links, but the abstract of this paper might provide a decent starting point: https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1985-26058-001

Additionally, I clarified that playing a game like this would not make all players desire to commit sexual assault.  But it has an effect of exacerbating those tastes particularly in those who already show tendencies toward violence.

"Your premise is an already addicted person and you did not demonstrate, you asserted. Also, addicted to what? SA? Playing games?

The connection you try to make, is, that being addicted to a game with fictional content (or playing that game) will leap over to being addicted, or even try out that thing in real life. "

But how do people get addicted to things?  Do they just magically wake up addicted to drugs or cigarettes or porn or anything?  No, they become addicted by using those things.  Have you every heard of an alcoholic who had never had alcohol?  The connection I am making is that playing a pornographic game (porn is addictive) that contains sexual assault can lead people to follow that path that most addictions take (needing more to satisfy), and that that pattern, especially for those with other risk factors, can lead them to finding sexual assault acceptable, either by doing it themselves, or by not reacting when they know it has been done by others.

"Murder is also very possible. Or stealing cars like in GTA. Wait, so if SA is happening to furry bunnies, it would be ok? It is a game! People know that they play a game. It is a bit condescending to only allow them to see the difference, if it is about Orcs, but not allow them to see the difference, if it is about regular humans."

You didn't really demonstrate any problem with the point of realism being a factor.  Something being more realistic makes it easier to immerse yourself in that fantasy.  Being immersed in a fantasy about killing creatures that aren't real is one thing, being immersed in a fantasy about committing SA or a school shooting, like my point was talking about, is far worse.

And no, sexually assaulting furry bunnies is gross and certainly not ok.

"

It is. But saying x10 much is easier as 1.34 / 41.8, and it catches more countries. Actual numbers are here https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/rape-statistics-by-country

You can feed a lot of cultural and statistical bias into those numbers to even them out. But if video games about the crimes are relevant here, I would expect the numbers to be a lot closer together, or rather expect the Japanese number to be bigger and not to be x31 smaller. So I either accept that the video games are not relevant here, or I accept that it has the opposite effect of what you claim.

I do not know the situaion in other countries in regards to the availablility of such video games. Are they very popular in Britain maybe, because they have more than double the amount than the US?

"

Anything you feed in is arbitrary though.  It's just what you decided to feed in.  You can't possibly accurately feed all the factors in.  Like I said, what about underreporting?  What about the fact that the west is much more open about sex?  What about the millions of other factors that determine the results that appear on that website?  Did you read the disclaimer on the site you linked to under the heading "The Challenge of Tracking Down Truthful Rape Statistics"?  That makes the point I am trying to make pretty well.  Given all those factors, it makes sense that the impact of video games would be present but not visible, like a drop of rain in the ocean during a hurricane.

"No. It does not become normal in real life! It becomes a seen thing in such games. It's novelty bonus fades. It contributes less to the entertainment. "

This goes back to what I said before.  What you do for entertainment is a part of your "real life", and it affects your perceptions and way of seeing the world.  It's not fake, you really did participate in that entertainment.  You are not a different person when you are entertaining yourself than you are elsewhere.

"I am awaiting a link to something that would support that connection you try to establish. It did not work for fps games decades ago. And for SA specifically, the data contradicts the assertion. The place where those games are known to be readily available for adults has one of the lowest SA rates on the planet."

I will provide a few resources here, but as I said before, I will not go back and forth playing the statistics game.  I do this so you see that there is support for out there for my link between using sexual assault for entertainment and accepting it in real life.  Remember that science and statistics cannot tell you if the results of playing this game are good or bad, it can only observe trends based on a limited set of variables.  We need to use our logic, common sense, and moral/ethical judgement to decide what to do with the trends that we pull out of them.  And, we can notice cause and effect using logic without some kind of scientific experiment.

Nevertheless, here are some studies to show that there is scientific evidence supporting a link between sexualized video games and real-life sexual behavior, which leads naturally into my more specific claim about sexual assault:

1. Effects of sexualized video games on online sexual harassment (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ab.21811)
2. Playing a Videogame with a Sexualized Female Character Increases Adolescents' Rape Myth Acceptance and Tolerance Toward Sexual Harassment (https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/g4h.2014.0055)
3. Violence Against Women in Video Games: A Prequel or Sequel to Rape Myth Acceptance?(https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0886260512441078) 

So there, you have some links to go through.  And I have already addressed your claim about Japan.  You cannot possibly accurately account for all the variables in national SA stats, therefore, your claim that the Japanese rape games have no impact (or no impact causing rates of SA to go up) on the SA stats relative to other countries has no compelling evidence to support it.

Again, all these negative impacts of a SA game on the players are only part of the point.  The other part is again, that itchio is allowed to, and indeed is right in, removing this game from their site.

One final thought.  This is a bit of an emotional argument, but I think it can tell us something.  I will assume you are a man.  Imagine yourself in this scenario:  Imagine you are someone who plays this game.  Now, imagine going to a woman close to you, like your mother, or girlfriend, or sister, etc. and trying to explain how you entertain yourself by playing a game where you sexually assault a woman.  A woman who, by what I've heard, is your stepmother.  Doesn't sound like a pleasant conversation.  She would likely feel disrespected, creeped out, disgusted, and, if she cares about you, would likely be quite worried about you.  And how would you feel doing it?  Would that not be awkward and shameful?  I think those natural emotions that every normal person would have should tell us something about how we should perceive a game like this, and whether we should play it.

"Uhm. Sex in exchange for money. So ... marriage is also illegal? There must be money involved, otherwise there would not be payments after a divorce. Money is involved in there and refusing to have sex is grounds for a divorce."

Firstly, in porn, people are being paid to have sex.  In the case of porn, there just happens to be a camera present to capture a video.  Why would the presence of a recording device suddenly make the word prostitution not apply?

Secondly. if this is your view of marriage, then it is a sad view indeed, and an insulting one to the many happily married couples throughout the world who have a relationship built on more than mere sexual transaction.  Marriage is far more than a simple sex-for-money exchange.  It is about companionship and support, and creating a loving environment for all members of the family.  Or at least it is meant to be, though I will admit in many cases sex and money become points that can destroy a marriage.  But all of those things are lacking from both porn and prostitution.  Again, if this is your view of marriage, I pray that one day you would see the light, because a good marriage is to porn what a star is to a piece of gum stuck to the bottom of your shoe.

As for cartoon porn, I would not dispute that it is "further away" from the real act of sex than live action porn.  Sure, it is a drawing of sex.  That doesn't make much difference to me.  I would find a drawing of sexual assault in poor taste.  I would find a real photo of it in even poorer taste.  I would find either one in such poor taste, in fact, that I would remove it from my website if anyone posted it there.  And that is my main point: that it was fair for itchio to remove the game.  

I asked the question about legality in response to the rant from OP which seemed to insinuate that the removal of this game from itchio was an act of censorship.  I do not think it was, because I do not believe porn to be a form of protected speech.  Or if it is under legal definitions, I don't think it should be.  What idea is it expressing?  To protect porn as speech could mean that a platform owner could get into legal trouble for removing it (in theory at least).  It seems like madness to prevent a platform from removing porn because of free speech.

"The content might be disgusting to many. So what. Taste is individual and what one adult views as entertaining is not the business of another adult. What fictional things are "allowed" and which are not should not be subject to the moods of angry people. If we want to have free speech and things like that, we must allow all of it. Not only the things we deem appropriate."

No reasonable person truly believes this absolutely.  When things "one adult views as entertaining" cross certain lines, they drop this line of thinking.  CSAM, for instance.  I'm sure you wouldn't say "So what" to that.  My point is not that this game and CSAM are exactly equivalent, and it is definitely not to suggest that by supporting this game you support CSAM.  The point is that we can't allow everyone unfettered access to anything they find entertaining under this false guise of "free speech".

I must say that although we clearly agree on little, I appreciate that you have responded civilly, unlike OP.  

I am glad we agree that entertainment has influence.  The question now is what influence does it have.  The main evidence that I have presented so far is logical: that if a person uses SA as entertainment, they must accept that it is entertaining, which means that they must, on some level, view it as acceptable.  People are not entertained things that they view as totally unacceptable.  And people tend to do things that they believe to be acceptable.  You would agree with that, right?

"What you brought was essentially wishful thinking. You assert that playing x is bad because whatever your chain of logic was. There is another chain of logic that playing x would suppress any urges to try out x in real life, which would make games about x a good thing, would it not. You did not disprove that."

First of all, I find that chain of logic to be faulty.  How would playing a game suppress such urges?  Speaking of things that have been disproven, the idea of "blowing off steam" to suppress desires has been accepted as false and damaging.

Secondly, I demonstrated that feeding addictive behaviors leads that desire to increase, causing people to need more in order to satisfy.  And I did it using a pattern that everyone can recognize in addiction, including drug addiction, porn addiction, etc.  Can you point out a fault in that chain of logic?  I pointed out the problem in the chain you suggested.

"But it does not and might even work the complete opposite way: someone seeing/playing/reading a thing in fiction realizes that they could never ever do that thing in real life."

This is where the realism of the game comes in and becomes important.  In a game like Warhammer, where everything is so obviously fictional and impossible, this principle might apply.  But there is nothing "impossible" about sexually assaulting someone.  It can be done.  This is an important distinction.

For your example about Japan:  I admit that I know little about SA games from Japan because I don't play such things.  But this is why I don't think statistics can really tell us the full story.  Why did you decide to round to x10?  Seems pretty arbitrary to me.  There are a whole host of other factors like I mentioned before (apart from "cultural bias") that could hide the impact of their SA games.  Underreporting, harsher penalties for sexual criminals, possible differences in legal definitions and counting systems just to name a few.  Your example makes so many assumptions that I find it functionally useless.

"Now, I am not convinced that it does work this way, but data and my own decades long experience in video games hint at it, and I want a lot better evidence than your assertions to contemplate restricting adult entertainment that consists of made up things and pixels. I have no right to restrict another person's choice of entertainment. Even if I am appaled or disgusted by it. Even if it depicts fictional things that are illegal in real life."

Not much to say here.  I just don't agree.  I think its fine for this platform to choose to restrict access to SA material.  No rights are violated.

"There is a break in logic here. You start at the point where you already have someone contemplating actual crime. You beg the question. You also equate being entertained to fantasizing about the thing. And that is why I accused you of accusing me of fantasiszing about mass murder! You assert a psychological mechanism and you assert a motivation. There is no reason to believe these things would only work for adult games."

There is no begging the question because the person we are talking about is playing the game about raping their stepmother for entertainment.  And I never claimed they work exclusively in adult games.  But I do claim that is one place where they work.  Also, remember that I said that all FPS games to mass murderer is not a comparison I would use.

I'm sorry you are sick of the "blame-the-games" rhetoric, but as I said, the games you play have an effect on your life whether you are sick of it or not.  The mechanism I mentioned, which is that what you do for entertainment affects how you view the world, and that how your view the world affects how you act, is just obviously true.

"... but it is not other people. You just assert that those people fantasize about doing things for real. You do not know what their motivation is. I assure you, a game without any gameplay will get boring quickly and the novelty factor of seeing realistic graphics wears off quickly. You need things like story and gameplay. What fades less quickly is the annoyance if you see signs of censorship in the game you are playing. Someone trying to impose their agenda on your entertainment. Kinda like the beeps in some audio tracks. "

You talk about the "novelty factor" wearing off.  This means it becomes normal.  In a game like this, where SA is the topic, that means the novelty factor around SA wears off, and it becomes normal.  This is bad.

Finally, with regards to your frequent requests for data: Show me some data that proves that playing games featuring SA has no correlation with viewing sexual assault as acceptable.  We could go back and forth sending each other links to studies supporting our opinions for a very long time, and never get anywhere.

Certainly, SA is not the exclusive fault of video games.  But, if a game contributes to the novelty factor of SA wearing off, it is a game that I would not host on any site I own.

porn is prostitution, sex in exchange for money, which is illegal (at least in the US).   If porn is speech, what is it saying?  What thoughts, facts, and/or opinions is it sharing?

Do you actually think it was illegal for them to remove this game?

I don't really care if it was a visual novel or a simulator.  The point still stands

I have hurt no women.  How many have you hurt, Antigone_Black?  And what do you mean by "are you even human?"

"Well if it doesn't work for violence how does it work for sexual violence?"

It does work for violence.  If you spend hours a day pretending to engage in violence, that will affect the way you think and see the world.  And it will normalize violence in your mind, which may cause you to be more prone to violent reactions.

"they're both violence. it really is that. 
It is dishonest and slimy to say otherwise. "

We can distinguish between different types of violence.  Your suggestion that we can't is asinine.

"that's the same thing said about violence in video games that has since been disproven."

Disproven?  I haven't seen it disproven.  And I have researched this.

"you're not interested in any evidence."

As I said in the full reply, you can find a statistic to support any claim you want.  By all means, go google some studies that support your point.  Then I will go do the same thing for my point, and we will go round and round the circle forever, and never get anywhere.

"where? there are games that glorify and gamify violence that YOU enjoy if we take a look at what you buy and consume."

No, I don't play games that glorify purposeless, realistic violence for its own sake.  Just like I don't play games that glorify SA.

Finally, my summary was anything but emotional.  I clearly drew the connection between using SA material for entertainment, and how that leads to SA being considered normal and acceptable.  I then stated that because of that, people should not play the game, and that itchio was justified in removing it.  These are not bold claims, they are claims backed up by common sense and reason.

I have been charitable in answering you, but you have not been so with me.  you have baselessly compared me to a child molester and implied that I am a sexual abuser.  Why so much aggression?  You are acting shamefully.  

No, I wrote that summary myself.

It's pretty scummy to baselessly suggest that I might be a child molester, or to compare me to one.  But I would expect nothing less from someone who made an account on this site just to complain about some SA virtual porn being removed.

First of all, this idea from gamers that what you do for entertainment has no effect on the rest of your life is just not true.  I've heard this before, about how people bash gamers for playing violent video games, and how it is essentially bs.  But it is simply incontrovertible that something you spend multiple hours doing every day affects the way you think and see the world.  How could it not?  A person who fantasizes about raping their stepmother, or is entertained by the idea of doing so, is absolutely feeding a desire that will grow and create destruction in their life.

I do not accuse you of "fantasizing of being a real life mass murderer" when you play FPS games.  I certainly hope you don't do that.  As I mentioned in another reply, FPS shooters to mass-murderer is not really an apples-to-apples comparison.  A better comparison would be a game where players perpetrate a school shooting or something like that.  I would say a game that is based around purposeless, realistic violence, where the point is to just revel in the act of inflicting harm on other people is bad.  A platform like this, would be justified in removing such a game.  It is for similar reasons that I feel they were justified in removing this one.

I'm really not interested in playing the statistics game.  The lack of some "statistic" linking a game where you sexually assault your stepmom to real-life sexual assaults really doesn't prove anything.  You can find a statistic to support almost any claim in the world if you look hard enough, even nonsensical ones.  There are many other factors that contribute to SA that could easily conceal the effect of one video game.  But that does not mean the effect is not there.

By playing a game where you do something like this, you subconsciously normalize such things in your mind, and in a way, glorify them.  And I cannot condone normalizing or glorifying sexual assault.

In your last paragraph, you said that people engage in fiction for entertainment.  The fiction we are talking about here is sexually assaulting your stepmom.  If anyone finds that entertaining, I would say that is pretty messed up and that they should stop entertaining themselves in that way.

Summary

What you do for entertainment has an effect on the way you look at the world.  That includes video games.  A video game where you commit SA is included in that.  The effect such a game has is bad, as it leads to the normalization and glorification of SA.  If SA is normalized and glorified in someone's mind, they are more likely (not guaranteed, just more likely), to view it as not a big deal and be dismissive of it.  Therefore, it is a bad idea to play a game like that.  And knowing that, a platform like this can and should refuse to list it for sale.

What do you mean, "sexual predators will not play these games"?  Why wouldn't they?

Tobacco addiction still fits my illustration.  There are many pack-a-day type people.  But they don't start like that.  They start small and need more and more until they are pack-a-day types.  Some may stop before they reach a pack a day.  But they are still far closer to that than someone who never starts.  And they still suffer many other negative effects from their use of tobacco that those who never started don't have.  Additionally, tobacco is not fulfilling a perverted, evil desire the way sexual assault is.  With sexual assault, the end result is far worse.

I'm not blaming rape or sexual assault on the video game.  But first person shooters -> school shootings is not an apples-to-apples comparison.  Most of them are in the context of war, which is different from school shootings.  I would condemn a "School Shooting Simulator" game on similar grounds that I would condemn this game on.  If a game contains purposeless, realistic violence, and the sole point of the game is to revel in that violence, I would say that raises red flags.

The idea that what you do for entertainment doesn't affect the rest of your life outside of that entertainment is just laughable.  Pay attention to your own life, and you will see that it is true.  Playing a game like this can contribute to the perverted desires that negatively affect everyone who has them, and can drive some to do terrible things.  Meanwhile, what's the upside?  It is fair for a platform to decide to remove porn (which is not speech) that negatively affects everyone and benefits no one.  As someone who has use this platform for years, I support that decision 100%.

I think that the best option would be to refrain from committing sexual assault AND to refrain from fantasizing about it?

And if I were running a platform, I would be absolutely justified in removing content that promotes such things.

Disagree.  By playing a rape/sexual assault fantasy game (or, in other words, fantasizing committing about rape/sexual assault), you cause the desire within yourself for rape/violent sex/sexual abuse to grow.  Just like with an addiction.  No one wakes up an addict.  It happens like this:

1. Someone has an unhealthy desire.
2. They indulge it.
3. The desire grows stronger.
4. The way they indulged it before no longer satisfies.
5. So they indulge it in a more extreme, focused way.
6. Repeat.

It may be that not everyone who plays SA fantasy games like this will follow through and really do it.  But do you seriously believe that someone who fantasizes about sexual assault (and is aroused by it) is less likely to actually do it than someone who doesn't???

Porn is not speech.  It is not authoritarian to decide you don't want to let people sell porn on your platform.  And feeding a perverse appetite doesn't protect anyone, in fact it will likely cause that appetite to grow.  Do you believe that someone who plays a rape fantasy game is less likely to commit sexual assault than a person who doesn't?  Maybe we should encourage people to fantasize about something other than rape and incest with the things we create and publish...

Awesome :)

I enjoyed it, reminds me of the app pixel dungeon with a more in depth magic system!  Sound effects would help bring it to life.  You could check out the retro sound pack by Sidearm Studios, those sounds would fit the game's style well.   Fun game though!

Thank you very much for the feedback!  With regards to bounce angles and mirror shapes, that is an issue that I wanted to fix, but I began to run out of time to work and couldn't get something working in time (I had a few other projects going on throughout the month), so I had to use what I currently have in the game.  I agree that the bounce angles are unpredictable and that makes it tough to aim, and at some point I would like to go back and fix that.  Thank you for the suggestions, I will surely consider them whenever I go back to working on the game.  Thanks for playing!!!

Oh and yes those were meant to be cauldrons :)

Any time! :)

Ah ok.  Some new animations are now posted, so be sure to check them out

Would it work if I added the animations to this bundle?  Or are you only interested in getting those sprites?  I'll add the animations to this bundle, and I can consider releasing them individually as well.  If I did that though, it would be a better deal to get all the sprites here.

Do you mean individually?

yeah that’s cool with me.  I’d love to see what you make out of it when it’s done!

yeah it’s cool if you use them in the same manner you mentioned in the other post

awesome thank you very much

yeah I don't mind if you do that.  I’d love to see the game when it’s done.  Also more assets are coming whenever I get a chance to upload them.

I concur