Gamers are speaking out about the story of a 14-year-old girl, a survivor of sexual assault is on a mission to stop the Rapelay video game. The game allows the player to rape women and underage girls. Elena Lyons says, "This game is wrong. It needs to be stopped. No game like this should ever be put out there. Rape is not a joke. People seem to think that it is. They don't take it seriously, but rape isn't a joke. It is very hurtful."
Thirty-two-year old Dondi Wiggins is president of a local group called Lowcountry Anime and Gaming. He says video gamers get a bad wrap. Wiggins says, "If we ban this game, why not ban any game? There's sex and violence in movies all the time. It's been around for a long time, now all of a sudden there's an uproar against it." He says he feels sorry for what Elena went through, but banning a game will not help. Wiggins says, "I sympathize with her. I don't know what happened with her. I'm not putting her down, but I'm saying her protesting this as a 14 year-old is not right. He says the game is in bad taste and if he had children, he would not let them play this game, "I would not play it. I don't think anybody in my group would play it. The thing is we should have the right to decide for ourselves not somebody telling us hey you need to do this do that. That's what I don't like about it. It's a rated "M"game, a mature game. That's one of the big issues in gaming today, little kids are playing games that they shouldn't be." But he says adults should have the right to chose. Wiggins says, "I don't think video games should be banned. I think we as gamers should decide what we want to play as an adult. We have free speech."
Rapelay was produced in Japan and has been out since 2006. It is no longer on store shelves, but can be downloaded on-line.
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