How about a game of tactical thermonuclear war?

[andrewducker]

Over here is a discussion I got into predicated on this:

Which is worse - rape or murder?

Got your answer?

You probably answered "murder". Now, would you let your children play rape games? Would you play them yourself? If you answered "no" to either, your next question is: Why are the murder games okay?

Comments

[takhisis.livejournal.com]

I agree with the previous reply that "killing" and "murder" are two entirely different things. I'd place an army simulator or something like Doom or Quake (where one is defending oneself against attack by nonhuman creatures) in a different category than a game where you were playing, say, an assassin with a sniper rifle. Postal, for example.

But as for why killing games sit better with us than the idea of a rape game (I'm sticking with the medium of video games for continuity's sake), is mostly because society has inured in us that sometimes it's necessary to kill. Nobody has to rape in self-defense. Nobody is going to be drafted and be ordered by the government to rape overseas. It falls in a very black-and-white moral category of "WRONG". We've been brought up to see killing as a more nebulous "bad" thing that we may or may not someday find ourselves forced to do, regardless of whether or not we are a "good person". This softens its blow as a theory, and in virtual mediums, in my opinion.

And then on the other side, there are actually rape games:
http://www.sixsixfive.com/229.html