Goodbye Kickstarter

Ulairi wrote:
lostlobster wrote:
Podunk wrote:
momgamer wrote:

I do wish they'd have seen it before it went this far, though.

Definitely. If this had been a question of Kickstarter quietly removing a project that they felt violated their TOS, there would be no reason to have this discussion.

I know nothing about Kickstarter other than how to give money.

Does Kickstarter review every proposed project before allowing them to go live on their site?

No. They really don't, a lot of is is on users to police the content.

I wonder if this will get them to change that policy.

lostlobster wrote:
Ulairi wrote:
lostlobster wrote:
Podunk wrote:
momgamer wrote:

I do wish they'd have seen it before it went this far, though.

Definitely. If this had been a question of Kickstarter quietly removing a project that they felt violated their TOS, there would be no reason to have this discussion.

I know nothing about Kickstarter other than how to give money.

Does Kickstarter review every proposed project before allowing them to go live on their site?

No. They really don't, a lot of is is on users to police the content.

I wonder if this will get them to change that policy.

I am of two minds on this because if they don't stuff like this is going to get on there and cause problems for them but I also think that people should be better than this.

Malor wrote:
That, and tentacle rape may not be real, but groping sure as heck is.

Um. I don't even know how to respond to that. Do you seriously think that tentacle rape cartoons lead to real-life groping?

From what I know of erotica, people who use lots of it are much LESS likely to commit sex crimes. I don't think any study has been done on groping, but the data we do have would suggest that a guy getting off on tentacle porn is less likely to be fondling the unwilling.

This isn't the thrust of Chick's article. Chick is saying that because women can't be raped by tentacles in real life, the game in question is being unfairly contrasted against murder games - where the content is disgusting but would be punished in real life if it ocurred.

Essentially his logic says that Max Payne isn't violent because bullet time isn't real. Rape doesn't have to be penis in a body orifice to be rape.

Malor wrote:
That, and tentacle rape may not be real, but groping sure as heck is.

Um. I don't even know how to respond to that. Do you seriously think that tentacle rape cartoons lead to real-life groping?

From what I know of erotica, people who use lots of it are much LESS likely to commit sex crimes. I don't think any study has been done on groping, but the data we do have would suggest that a guy getting off on tentacle porn is less likely to be fondling the unwilling.

I'm not saying it leads anywhere. I'm saying it's a real problem. That was the point of Mr. Chick's entire argument, and it's a horribly false one. No wonder you didn't know how to respond - you were pulling something out of your left ear rather than what was said.

And you're making a false equivalency here too. This game isn't real erotica. There's no Frotteur or groper going to be handling his urges himself with it so your whole little fantasy that somehow this game would save some schoolgirl from really getting touched is going to have to stay that, a fantasy. This is a cutesy little denigration trivializing a real problem.

And while I don't think it "leads" to it, society's blind eye and nudge-nudge-wink-wink sure as heck does not help.

Podunk wrote:
Bloo Driver wrote:

That Quarter To Three article seems to have just seen the association between games and behavior and jumped right to, "oh ho! Look, he is saying that video games influence behavior! Time to bring out the pre-fabricated line about how that's wrongheaded!" I agree with Sheffield - the defining factor here is that American games about murder and crime portray things that are punished in this society. You will, of course, find people who will cheer on the guy who runs someone else over for cutting them off, but that person will go to jail. Japanese culture (and several others) do not officially sanction pedophilia and rape, but it is certainly accepted and idolized.

Apples and handgrenades, really.

Did you read the article? Because it sounds like you didn't.

Tom's point is that tentacle rape is pure fantasy. It's a creepy, gross fetish, but it does not exist in the real world. It has less to do with real sexual assault than any number of video games have to do with real violence, because people killing other people happens in the real world. A woman being raped by a squid does not. Sheffield is making "a link between something that doesn’t actually exist and something that does actually exist, between a harmless weird fantasy and the terrible criminal violation of women."

I read the article. I went and read it again. I read it now a third time, and it still doesn't address Sheffield's main point.

Re-reading the thread trying to figure out where I went so wrong has brought up something for me, at least.

It seems that you guys are looking at the problem from the standpoint of the perpetrator - in this case, the tentacle beast. So if the entity doing the touching doesn't really exist, then this isn't a real thing and no one should have a cow about it. And it's just a game, right?

I'm looking at it from the standpoint of the target, who is being touched against her will. To me, whether its a tentacle or a hand or someone's clothed genitals, or whatever comes out of the designer's fertile imagination is not relevant to the problem. The fact that they are touching people against their will is the issue to me.

From my perspective, the fact that it's being treated as a game makes it worse. We already have enough things in our world that down-grade the existence and effects of this stuff. Making it into something people do for fun makes me sick.

Momgamer. What people like to do in their spare time, in the privacy of their own homes, is irrelevant. It's what they do to non-consenting real people that matters.

You're getting upset over something that is 100% imagination. No real people are involved here. And given what we know about pornography, it's quite likely that the existence of this stuff actively prevents the kinds of behaviors you're bothered by.

Malor wrote:

Momgamer. What people like to do in their spare time, in the privacy of their own homes, is irrelevant. It's what they do to non-consenting real people that matters.

You're getting upset over something that is 100% imagination. No real people are involved here. And given what we know about pornography, it's quite likely that the existence of this stuff actively prevents the kinds of behaviors you're bothered by.

I can never stay well enough away from things that set me off, I really can't. So fair warning if this is a tiny bit incendiary. I know you're not defending rape, or trying to pass it off as nothing. Do keep that in mind, because it's hard to make an argument against cultural bias without lumping someone in with it. Doubly so when it's something you feel very strongly about.

The main problem I have is very simple. Cold-blooded murder is universally reviled. Rape is not.

From my eyes, breaking that cultural bias, really, really needs to happen. So, in this particular case, games that glorify the warrior mentality (Which is massively distinct from glorifying cold-blooded murder.) are notably better than games about rape.

Because it's not about if things can influence behavior. It's about how they fit into the bigger cultural picture. The Warrior archetype is distinct from the "well, murder is fine then!" counter-argument. Human history is shot through with cases where killing another human being improves the quality of the world. Like it or not, the warrior mentality is going to be needed until people quit trying to take things from others by force.

There's not one where rape has. It's an unfortunate leftover from our animal heritage, and it needs to die a horrible, horrible death.

But that's not happening. Instead, we have the wink-wink nudge that it's okay. This? This is not helping that, at all. There have been a few amusing takes on it being completely consensual, and if this was a shot at that? I'd be alright with it. But it's not.

You're right, it is completely up to people what they do in the privacy of their own home. I can also have a strong opinion of it being a net bad thing. But here's the thing: Culture effects all of us. I do have a right to have a say in that. I wouldn't dream of trying to legally block it from existing. But I can say "Not here, please."

Malor, are you seriously saying that you believe the societal constructs that minimize and trivialize the impact of these sorts of behaviors by making them considered funny or no big deal, somehow prevent them from happening?

I HAVE to be missing a step here.

momgamer wrote:

Malor, are you seriously saying that you believe the societal constructs that minimize and trivialize the impact of these sorts of behaviors by making them considered funny or no big deal, somehow prevent them from happening?

I HAVE to be missing a step here.

I think he's saying indulging fantasies or urges through virtual means prevents them in real life. I don't think he's necessarily referring to trivializing them.

That said, I'm not convinced that's true at all and would really like to see some evidence of that.

SixteenBlue wrote:
momgamer wrote:

Malor, are you seriously saying that you believe the societal constructs that minimize and trivialize the impact of these sorts of behaviors by making them considered funny or no big deal, somehow prevent them from happening?

I HAVE to be missing a step here.

I think he's saying indulging fantasies or urges through virtual means prevents them in real life. I don't think he's necessarily referring to trivializing them.

That said, I'm not convinced that's true at all and would really like to see some evidence of that.

Paging OG_Slinger... I do recall seeing some APA research to this effect (I believe it was researching pornography), but damned if I can actually find it. The rub is how well those two effects balance.

If that's what he said, then he's still off the beaten path.

He said it himself in his first post, I don't know of any studies done where Frotteurism or groping are in any way influenced by the perpetrator's consumption of media that indulges in that. So his assertion that it will prevent anything the way some very controversial studies have claimed that pr0n prevents other sorts of sexual assaults is questionable. For one thing, this sort of paraphilia is a very different problem than they were studying. It's considered akin to voyeurism and pedophillia. There is no study I'm aware of that says a child molester looking at child pr0n affects the odds they are going to offend, or that voyeurs are less likely to indulge in their activities if they are watching videos. If anyone has cites that say otherwise it would be a good addition to this discussion.

But it doesn't address my main concern - the effect on the rest of society by turning this behavior into a game. If there is any effect on an individual perpetrator of that sort at all, I believe it's totally washed away by the larger effect of the problem I've been talking about.

The trivialization of the problem makes it easier for the perpetrator to do it on many levels. If the general societal attitude is it's not a big deal, it's easier to do it because there's fewer structures in place to prevent it, like stronger lighting in public areas and more monitoring in crowded situations. That makes odds of getting caught lower. Plus, the odds of any effective consequence being applied are lower so there's no deterrent there either. Victims are far less likely to say anything because they know others will simply write them off if they listen at all.

I agree with other posters here that Kickstarter had every right to pull the campaign - and I also agree they should have pulled it sooner, too. Preferably before they reached $30k in donations.

On a personal level, I find the game rather abhorrent. I know that it's not real, I know the females in the game are cartoons (even the ones that resemble a girlfriend/wife/yourself), and I also don’t think it will lead to the actual tentacle rape of actual women.

I also think that saying, “Well, tentacle rape isn’t a real thing...so what’s the problem.” kind of misses the point, as WipEout says:

WipEout wrote:

Tom's argument is... a stretch. Tentacle sex is a "harmless, weird fantasy" that is derived from the "terrible criminal violation of women." Rape is rape, and fantasy about it is still fantasizing rape. That's not to say that i'm fine with fantasies of murder and violence, and I think that the games industry in general needs to mature on a number of fronts, but the fact that one socially unacceptable behavioral fantasy is less taboo than others doesn't mean they all should get a free pass.

A game like this, while cartoony and supposedly “cute”, does fetishize sexual assault.

We still live in a world where assault victims still feel too ashamed, scared, and guilty to report it, and where even if she does, she might still come out as being the guilty party, subject to other people’s crappy judgements of, “Well, sure it’s awful she was raped, but what did she expect being out so late on her own?”

To me, a world where this wrong-headed sort of thinking still holds sway at all, cutesy games about tentacle rape is just another thing that keeps the very firm lines that should be in place regarding unwanted sexual attention of any kind, blurry.

Malor wrote:

Momgamer. What people like to do in their spare time, in the privacy of their own homes, is irrelevant. It's what they do to non-consenting real people that matters.

You're getting upset over something that is 100% imagination. No real people are involved here. And given what we know about pornography, it's quite likely that the existence of this stuff actively prevents the kinds of behaviors you're bothered by.

I have to disagree here, Malor. Yes, what people do in the privacy of their own homes is generally not up for public discussion. And yes, this game was probably never intended to offend anyone, or be taken as a ‘how-to’ on the tentacle rape of innocent school girls.

However, I think that the trivialized and light-hearted treatment of “imaginary” rape/assault/unwanted attention blurs those lines I mentioned. It makes me question how well we can compartmentalize something that is already problematic. We get that it’s not OK to shoot people in the head in real life, just because we can do it for points in a video game. I think we've more or less mastered that particular fact. But, we’re still struggling with sexual assault as a society. We still treat it as a bit of a grey area, and games like this help that grey area stay a grey area. And if people still see sexual assault as a he said/she said issue, as something where punishment for a rapist is not guaranteed because people still view sexual assault on a case by case basis, then the problem of sexual assault doesn’t go away, and it doesn’t get any easier for a victim to report it and be taken seriously.

It's interesting how, for some folks, Kickstarter's democratization of funding seems to imply the democratization of how Kickstarter itself is run. I personally don't have a problem with their rejecting or allowing a project based on whatever reasoning they want. It's their business, and there are other ways for rejected projects to get funding. As Tentacle Bento demonstrated: If it's a unique idea with its own community support, it can still succeed in a Kickstarter-ish way. Regardless of my feelings about the project itself, I think that's a positive thing.

To the people saying we endorse murder simulators, but not rape simulators, I ask: do we really? I mean, is anyone going to hold Postal up as a cultural touchstone that the world is better off for having? If they kicked a theoretical Postal 4 off kickstarter I'd probably applaud that as well.

Most modern shooters, etc. are not murder simulators, they're combat simulators. And heck, I'm a bit of a pacifist, but I still recognise the difference.

I've accepted that Postal exists, and that some people get harmless fun out of it, despite my reservations. I can probably even accept that to a certain degree for the tentacle rape fetishists, despite the fact that I find it even more abhorent, but there's absolutely no way that Kickstarter is in the wrong for removing it from their website.

Of course, the fact that Kickstarter (and the community) had no problems with Kittens in a Blender - The Card Game, as well as the many other kickstarters which feature killing and murder just shows the slight hypocrisy in things like this.

mudbunny wrote:

Of course, the fact that Kickstarter (and the community) had no problems with Kittens in a Blender - The Card Game, as well as the many other kickstarters which feature killing and murder just shows the slight hypocrisy in things like this.

wow. that makes my "Super Happy Pooch Flayer" satire idea from page 1 a bit of a backfire.

mudbunny wrote:

Of course, the fact that Kickstarter (and the community) had no problems with Kittens in a Blender - The Card Game, as well as the many other kickstarters which feature killing and murder just shows the slight hypocrisy in things like this.

Have to start somewhere, conversely.

I think we're having two separate conversations here.

One group is saying, "this is way more horrible than you think."

The other is saying, "we shouldn't censor things that are horrible."

Ulairi, I'm going to pick on you. Not because you're a Catholic, but because of all the other stuff you said. Specifically:

It's creepy. People who want to play a rape card game are weird. I don't understand the appeal of japanese rape fantasy pornographic cartoons and I am more inclined to support Kickstarter for having a floor and not letting stuff above this floor.

This isn't your full quote so feel free to say so if you feel I'm mischaracterizing you here. Except to point out the Catholic/conservative persecution. That's another argument entirely and if we're really having an honest discussion then my opinion of Catholics or conservatives should be totally irrelevant.

What you're saying here is that it grosses you out and you don't understand people who would like it. I am right there with you. I often point out the endless "Shojo" pedophilia mods to highlight the dark side of Bethesda game modification. It grosses me out and I want no part of it. But at the same time, I understand that some people do like that stuff, and to be frank, neither you nor I have to understand why. If they feel that way, they're going to feel that way with or without our blessing. I don't see what good can come of denying them one more harmless way to vent those urges purely for the comfort of knowing that maybe somewhere, someone isn't being as gross as they could be.

As long as it's not being forced upon me or anyone else - as long as there are no victims - I don't see how it's any of our business.

Besides, in addition to being Catholic and conservative, I believe you tend to lean somewhat libertarian, correct? If you find it so abhorrent that one person could dictate the economic decisions of another, why is it any better to dictate their personal tastes?

Not sure what the controversy is here. As others have stated, a private business like Kickstarter can do what it wants, censor what it wants. The game makers have every right to make their game, they just don't have any right to use Kickstarter to do so. It's so cut and dry it's not even a P&C issue.

Chairman_Mao wrote:

Not sure what the controversy is here. As others have stated, a private business like Kickstarter can do what it wants, censor what it wants. The game makers have every right to make their game, they just don't have any right to use Kickstarter to do so. It's so cut and dry it's not even a P&C issue.

We have moved on from whether they had the right and now are discussing whether they should have done so, and what effect, if any, the subject matter it self may have.

I think it was a prudent decision. The company has to worry about its image to a larger audience. Let's face it, the gross factor for this type of thing would probably be enough for other customers to not want to fund projects through the service, particularly if a mainstream media outlet decided to do a shock and appall story about it.

Kier wrote:
Chairman_Mao wrote:

Not sure what the controversy is here. As others have stated, a private business like Kickstarter can do what it wants, censor what it wants. The game makers have every right to make their game, they just don't have any right to use Kickstarter to do so. It's so cut and dry it's not even a P&C issue.

We have moved on from whether they had the right and now are discussing whether they should have done so, and what effect, if any, the subject matter it self may have.

I get that, I just don't get why we should care whether they remove a controversial product from their services. Kickstarter has little to no influence over online culture, it's not a monopoly that gets to decide what receives funding and what doesn't (the game is still being funded), so the question of 'should' seems irrelevant to me. The effect of the subject matter is interesting, however, and probably worth having a thread of its own.

I have no problem with Kickstarter removing it. Private company and all. What I am commenting on is the mild hypocrisy of the public in general that sees no problem with killing, murder, and putting kittens in blenders, but is OUTRAGED at the tentacle card game.

Redwing wrote:

To the people saying we endorse murder simulators, but not rape simulators, I ask: do we really? I mean, is anyone going to hold Postal up as a cultural touchstone that the world is better off for having? If they kicked a theoretical Postal 4 off kickstarter I'd probably applaud that as well.

Most modern shooters, etc. are not murder simulators, they're combat simulators. And heck, I'm a bit of a pacifist, but I still recognise the difference.

I've accepted that Postal exists, and that some people get harmless fun out of it, despite my reservations. I can probably even accept that to a certain degree for the tentacle rape fetishists, despite the fact that I find it even more abhorent, but there's absolutely no way that Kickstarter is in the wrong for removing it from their website.

What about GTA games? Exceedingly popular, far more than Postal. The GTA series is kind of a touchstone.

The crazy thing about this to me is the insistence that Tentacle Bento is some kind of rape simulator. It's a trick taking game and I haven't seen any talk about the game doing anything with the cards after you collect them. Is there a copy of the rules available somewhere? If it's a rape simulator, what are the rape mechanics and how do they work? At worst you might call it a child abduction simulator. Based on bridge.

MrDeVil909 wrote:

The game isn't just icky and gross. It's dangerous.

Yeah, just like comic books.
IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/ppgXg.jpg)

MrDeVil909 wrote:

What really concerns me with this situation though is the knee jerk reaction of the gamers who flooded to Tentacle Bento and pulled funding from other Kickstarter projects. It just seems that there is a strong core of gamers that really are not mentally fit to be on this Earth.

On that...is there any proof of this beyond whiny commenters on a couple forums? If people followed through on everything they threatened to boycott on every fb post or forum post, everything would be bankrupt. The silly boycott / counterboycott threats when Lowe's pulled funding from that Muslim American show come to mind.

Quintin_Stone wrote:
MrDeVil909 wrote:

The game isn't just icky and gross. It's dangerous.

Yeah, just like comic books.
IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/ppgXg.jpg)

Oh please.

Ulairi wrote:

I know that I'm a creepy, evil, conservative catholic and we are kind of hated around here but I am glad that Kickstarter booted this project.

I'm a liberal Pagan, so essentially the opposite to you, and I agree.

Malor wrote:

It's like laws against virtual child pornography, with drawn subjects. No real people are being hurt, you just don't think people should be able to get turned on by icky things that you don't like.

No real women were raped. These are cartoon characters. The thinking process behind moves to stop this sort of thing on a legal basis are almost exactly like the War on Women stuff -- these are sinful people, and they should be punished, even though they're not hurting anyone.

Kickstarter allowing this or not is up to Kickstarter, but waxing all moralistic about cartoon characters is something I find more than slightly ridiculous.

Tentacle porn is icky, but I have no problems with it. Likewise midget or granny porn. I have very serious objections to depictions of sexual violence no matter how cutesy or stylized. Even though it's cartoon characters being violated depictions like that contribute to the wider rape culture prevalent in the West and most of the rest of the world.

The game isn't just icky and gross. It's dangerous.

What really concerns me with this situation though is the knee jerk reaction of the gamers who flooded to Tentacle Bento and pulled funding from other Kickstarter projects. It just seems that there is a strong core of gamers that really are not mentally fit to be on this Earth.

*edit*

I did misread/skim the game description initially. Okay, to be fair, there are no depictions of sexual violence, but my point remains regarding trivializing sexual violence.

MrDeVil909 wrote:
Quintin_Stone wrote:
MrDeVil909 wrote:

The game isn't just icky and gross. It's dangerous.

Yeah, just like comic books.
IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/ppgXg.jpg)

Oh please.

Care to elaborate? I think it's too apt a comparison to dismiss so easily.