I feel like this story has the chance to be an honest depiction of a serial killer, sex crime is a common aspect of that. A character being raped in a fictional setting, whilst unsettling it won’t cause any real-world harm. Ultimately I’d rather the story was disturbing than sanitised and family friendly.
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I don’t personally think your response was disrespectful or offensive, so there’s no worries there. I appreciate that you responded. Same to @PaleHorse6.
I personally never saw any posts by Sam saying that this content was going to be in the game, regardless of whether they exist. As I said, the other topics either aren’t too problematic due to the frequency such a topic plays in even non-adult CoGs and popular media (murder) or are properly warned and play a large enough role that anyone wary of such content knows to avoid the story altogether (child abuse, torture). Non-consensual sex perpetuated by the MC, even if it’s shown by other characters as bad, is still non-consensual sex perpetuated by the MC. As it stands currently, there’s no warning about this particular scene in the main post. Even if we view the MC as immoral and bad, we’re still dealing with the MC perpetuating non-consensual sex. I think that should be addressed, as it is pretty much a direct violation of CoG content standards.
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The murders and the tortures have the ultimate goal of killing the MC’s mother, while the rape is in mi opinion pure morbid content just because is edgy. There is no “greater reason” to justify the rape, apart from the own MC pleasure. And that is exactly why it’s a big problem.
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I think it is reasonable to discuss these ideas of what content is acceptable to us and what crosses boundaries for us and so forth, but I don’t know if this thread is the place to discuss it. This subject matter is part of what this work is about, and this conversation is about more general ideas relating to multiple WIPs (and published games, perhaps.) May I recommend making a new thread or searching to see if there are threads about edgy subject matter already?
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Apologies, I only brought this up here because I mentioned it in the meta thread regarding the overall situation surrounding this game and was asked to direct that conversation here.
The character is based on Edward Kemper who killed a number of young women in preparation for killing his mother. I believe he also had sex with the corpses of those women. I believe the sexual coercion was meant to allude to the MCs sadism and desire to dominate others.
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Totally. What about this thread?
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Except in this case the MC is doing this with a RO, isn’t it? Is not a victim you are adding to your torture and preparation, is a “companion” you are forcing out of your own dark fetishes.
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@trevers17 and @Meira_Litch, perfectly fair points. Thanks to you both for clearing up some of my confusion, although I’d argue that maybe the coercion part, in spite of not being necessary, was important to showcase how much of a messed up individual the MC is. Showing how their actions go beyond just vengeance for their mother, it’s just how abominable they are.
I’m happy to refrain from further discussing these issues on this thread, as @Gower said.
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Took me a bit of time to catch up on the whole shit show and am still a bit fuzzy on the details. Kind of knew those scenes would’ve been the downfall of this game (some people were wierdly excited for them). Its a shame though, I liked his works, even this one.
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I agree with your points, @trevers17, that the “sexual coercion” in the update was probably the final ‘tipping point’ for users questioning the game and the scenes therein. But to address other points in the thread, in my opinion, the content of children being abused and killed and the MC dressing women up as their mother to torture and murder them should have always placed this game in the adult category. Whatever people may think about ‘censorship’ or what is ‘offensive,’ I think it should be clear to any reasonable person that this would not have been material suitable for children/minors to blindly stumble across. I think someone said that already, and I’m not sure why there was backlash against that category move, especially since there are already hundreds of comments in this thread claiming it aims to be “the darkest, edgiest COG game ever made,” that it makes other dark games look like “children’s stories,” and that it contains “mature content” that might prevent it from being published. There’s even a poll asking readers to vote on whether it’s COG’s darkest story ever. So, yeah, there’s no question that it should be classified as adult.
Some people are asking, why wasn’t it always in the adult category? As others have reiterated over and over, the mods and staff do not have time to read every WIP on this site. There are hundreds–maybe even thousands–of stories on here, and along with the business of running a company (publishing games, editing them, helping authors, finding artists, running quality assurance, responding to customer questions and bug reports, dealing with storefronts, planning marketing campaigns, keeping up with the ever-changing policies and guidelines that affect game companies, updating ChoiceScript, interacting with us, et cetera) the mods and staff also all have families, friends, relationships, hobbies, meals to eat, homes to clean, errands to run, gifts to buy, etc. etc.!
Why read WIPs when they have all of these higher priorities, and most WIPs won’t make it to publication? Let’s be real, as lovely as this community can be, reading every WIP that comes up (no matter how noticeable or popular) would be a timesink with very little returns. I don’t even have time to read all of the WIPs on here, so why would they? Like @Gower and @RETowers mentioned, they don’t have the time to go into WIPs unless something about them is flagged. And for anyone complaining that the game was only flagged when rape come up, that isn’t true. Samuel himself stated that the move to the adult category was the result of violent/abusive content flagged before sexual coercion was ever mentioned in the update. So I would just like to say that non-consensual sex was clearly not the only, first, or worst concern that anyone had about the game.
In an earlier time I would have been more willing to tackle the problematic nature of rape perpetuated by a player-character in a choice-driven game, but someone did point that out and received death and rape threats in return. The bottom line is, COG is a private company that makes its own rules and guidelines about what content and stories they are willing to publish. Not the users, not the readers, not the authors. I don’t know if there’s any point in arguing about ‘censorship’ and what material should be ‘allowed’ to be written, at least not in the context of Hosted Games. This isn’t a free platform on the internet where anything goes and being published is a right. It’s the duty of potential authors to look up the policies and intentions of the publisher they are hoping to work with and conform their work accordingly. Not the other way around.
Finally, I would just like to clarify, as RETowers did, that the mods and COG never removed the game. They did not and have not taken the game down. It was not their decision, and they did not remove the work. The author, Samuel, did of his own volition. Whatever issues anyone had with any part of the game, the demo is not viewable now because Samuel himself took it down. Just wanted to clarify that point!
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Going by the line of events that went down, this strikes me as a case of an author putting their ‘vision’ above everything else, deeming concerns and criticism to be attacks and censorship. A lot of authors/creatives go through such a phase, but the question now is rather: will sam tell his stans to cut out the attacks on others? Or is he fine with it?
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I apologize if my post seemed accusatory, that wasn’t my intention. I fully agreed that it should’ve been in the adult category from the befinning, and I was only expressing my surprise that someone didn’t flag the thread/posts in the thread sooner. I definitely don’t blame the mods for that, or anyone for that matter.
I also wasn’t saying that the mods removed the game, I was saying I would’ve liked them too. At the time of writing the post, I didn’t realize the story was already inaccessible, so this is a non-issue now. Thank you for all the clarification!
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Wow. If that isn’t you attacking Sam I’d hate to see if you decided to actually do so. Not that I consider it unwarranted (I don’t know enough to say if there’s veracity to these points or not), but it’s definitely…pointed criticism, to say the least.
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This part in particular is what I am interested in too.
Fans of Sam are sending truly horrible messages on Tumblr. Seriously, messages that are disturbing to say the least.
I don’t know how other people sees it, but if that people were my fans, I would intervine straight away to call off such disgusting behaviour.
Also, if the mods feel like this comment is out of place, feel free to delete it.
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You’ve seen me have a go at Sergi (for which I apologise, though the critique on his writing as of now and his behavior towards criticism stand).
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@moderators - Since the demo itself is unviable nor readable in its current state, does keeping this thread open any longer serve a purpose? Perhaps it is time to close it.
@everyone else - This is a gentle reminder to please keep posts centered on the topic and debate the points being made, and not centered on the people making them.
Is there any new feedback given to this story in the last 24 hours, or is this thread now being used for something else?
By the way - Any threats made should be reported to the appropriate authorities. In the United States, the first place to go is your local police/Sheriff. They will then refer the situation to where it needs to go from there. FBI, local prosecutor’s office or wherever.
No person should have the health or safety threatened online.
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Very sorry @trevers17, I was writing that all in a rush and didn’t intend to direct any of it at you except agreeing with what you said—I was responding to a bunch of comments made in this thread and the other one, but worded it poorly so that it seemed like everything that came after agreeing with you was directed at points you weren’t making, lol! That’s my bad. 
And the clarification is more of a reiteration for anyone out there (the trolls sending death threats) who are accusing other users of “deleting the game” or getting it deleted by mods!
And yes @Eiwynn, agreed that if the demo to this game has been deleted and the author departed from the forums, this thread may no longer have a purpose.
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I will reopen this thread if and when the demo becomes available again. Please notify me if it does.