18 Forbidden Games (derived from Japanese: 18 Forbidden Games): 1800ーム), Gongkou Games (Japanese: エロゲ), H-Game (Japanese: 変態ゲーム, English: Hentai Game), etc., refers to adult video games that are prohibited from being purchased by minors.
Japan, a small island country, is not only the birthplace of the eighteen forbidden games, but also the country that currently produces the most games of this type in the world. In Japan, as long as it is guaranteed that it is only for people aged 18 or above, the creation, distribution, and sale of such games are legal.
The same legislation applies to anime, film, fandom and other fields
Despite the clear customary business law, the industry seems to have matured. However, in fact, there has been no broad consensus in Japan on whether R18 games are poisonous beasts of the people, let alone the divergent views of other countries and regions.
Proponents mostly argue that "adult gaming has the effect of reducing the crime rate of rape", while opponents believe that "adult gaming promotes degrading erotic messages", thus creating social climate problems and further contributing to related crimes.
Such discussions are similar to the "pros and cons of violent games."
So, did the Eighteen Forbidden Games make the world better or worse?
40 years ago, Japan's HUDSON released a strip game called "Wild Ball Fist". This is the earliest publicly released game involving erotic depiction, and can be said to be the founding father of R18 games.
Later, throughout the 1980s, although many Japanese companies tried to develop games of this type to seize the market, they were limited by the extreme immaturity of electronic graphics technology and operating systems at that time, and failed to make too big waves.
* The graphics in adult games of this period were only used as foils, and the main method of incitement was to trigger the feeling of stimulation by the relevant text narrative and sound
Japanese game company Glory (yes, the glory that made the Nobunaga Nobunaga series and the Romance of the Three Kingdoms series) early works: "団地妻の誘惑"
It is worth noting that as early as the emergence of this game and just in the exploratory stage, it has set off doubts and condemnation in Japanese society.
In 1986, congressman Akio Kusagawa mentioned an adult game called "177" in the Japanese Diet, which blatantly violated the crime of rape under Article 177 of the Japanese Penal Code. (This name is typical of loud and loud deaths...) ）
This incident eventually led to the forced retraction of earlier versions of the game, and the game's company, DB-Soft, announced three years later that it was withdrawing from the game industry to specialize in traditional programming development. At the time, it also raised questions in Japanese society that "this kind of game will make young people ignore the law."
Screenshot of the game "177"
The waves set off by the 177 incident have made the game industry begin to have a certain sense of self-censorship and avoid publishing works that may cause bad social impact. And another incident two years later was the wave that really shook the entire two-dimensional ecosystem — the infamous Miyazaki Incident.
Between 1988 and 1989, a 26-year-old Japanese youth named Miyazaki Abducted, kidnapped, molested, and killed four girls between the ages of 4 and 7. From the photos taken by the first reporters who rushed to his home, this person is an unquestionable "otaku" (OTAKU).
In the photo, the adult magazines, games, videos and other contents in his room have attracted the attention of the people, and the report also specifically mentions that there are many shops selling this adult content near his home. As a result, calls for greater censorship of such adult content began, and the devastating negative effects also affected all otaku and the entire Japanese anime and manga industry.
Murderous demon Miyazaki (spectacled man in the middle of the photo)
At the same time as the relevant censorship system in the industry was slowly established, another "yarn weaving incident" occurred in 1991.
In 1991, a Kyoto male junior high school student was arrested for stealing the game "Saori - The House of Beautiful Girls". However, because the game is all erotic plot, public opinion is gradually biased towards the accusation that "adult games lead to bad growth of teenagers".
In fact, at the beginning of the 90s, as 16-bit computer-related technology became more and more mature, R18 games developed rapidly, and at the same time, they did become radical for game content development.
During this period, the "yarn weaving incident" was only a representative of the news headlines, and the behavior of minors going to the store to steal adult games because they could not buy them abounded.
Screenshot of "Yarn Weaving - The Noble House of beautiful girls"
The 177 Incident, the Miyazaki Incident, the Yarn Weaving Incident, three incidents in just 5 years made the standardization of R18 games one of the most pressing issues at that time.
On April 1, 1992, the Japan Computer Software Association for the first time formulated rules for the definition, production and sale of "18 prohibited" content. On August 25 of the same year, various adult game companies met together and agreed to establish a computer software ethics agency, and formulated two grading levels of "18 bans" and "all ages".
After that, a more detailed grading system was gradually improved and strictly enforced. As a result, many previous games were retracted and permanently removed, or re-released after the content was corrected.
Japanese game rating system
From the above cases, these so-called R18 games seem to have a great adverse impact on society as a whole. It not only promotes illegal and criminal acts, but also causes great harm to young people. So why not just ban their sale?
According to a 2005 survey by the Computer Software Ethics Agency, the total sales of adult games in Japan in that year were about 4.887 million units. The greater economic benefits come from their related peripherals, TV animations, fanfictions, comics, etc., which is an incalculable value.
What's more, so far the academic community has not been able to give a definitive answer as to what effects adult gaming will cause. Even for the previous famous cases, there are different degrees of "overturning" incidents.
The world's otaku shrine: Akihabara, Japan
The most famous incident was at the end of 2005, when kimura, the journalist in charge of reporting the Miyazaki incident, confessed that he had taken unfair materials when filming in Miyazaki's room, and in order to create hot news, he deliberately placed the suspect's adult books at the top of the normal book pile and filmed them.
Moreover, after a three-year psychological evaluation, the Japanese court also confirmed that Miyazaki had mental problems such as mental insufficiency and personality disorders since childhood. Miyazaki was, of course, ultimately sentenced to death, but attributed to his inhuman behavior, it should be mental illness rather than adult content.
The legendary "stored thousands of sets of H-Games" in Miyazaki's room
Another thing is about the game 177.
Later, some players went to "archaeology" and found that the game "177" is actually a horizontal version of the "chase R18" game. How to play it? It is the heroine who runs in front, and the player operates his male character in the back.
The most important thing is that if you catch up, there will be an adult plot, and then! The screen switches to The Japanese Penal Code 177, and there is also a plot of the male protagonist going to prison, warning the player to obey the law in reality. If you don't catch up, there will be a picture of the heroine successfully getting married.
And Shozo Kusakawa's speech at that time was: "Actually elementary and junior high school students will enter 'I am 18 years old' and play the game, how far do you want to satisfy their desires?" ”
That is, the game company set up a question-and-answer session about R18 without hard rules, and the question they asked in Congress was "minors can also play this content", not "this content will harm the whole society".
In addition, a 2013 study in Japan showed that adult games do have the effect of reducing the rape crime rate in Japan, based on the data of rape crimes in eight major industrial countries and the comparison of past and present rape crime data in Japan.
Dead or Alive: Beach Volleyball is probably the most well-known 17-banned game in the world today
As far as the currently known cases and data are concerned, we can make it clear that minors' exposure to eighteen prohibitions or violent and bloody games will indeed have a very bad impact on their growth process.
But for adults, any civilization in ancient and modern China and abroad needs to provide a gap in this field to meet or vent emotional needs.
From this point of view, the emergence of various types of R18 cultural industries is an inevitable result, and we may only solve the problems they bring from the point of "grading".
Hua Zhi, Research on Emotional Experience of Game Design, Master's Thesis of Dalian Polytechnic University, May 2014
Jing Xu, Identity, Power, and Capital: A Study of Emotions in Online Games among Teenagers, Ph.D. Thesis, Zhejiang University, April 2015
The media which added "Arbitrary image" to the resource of the case report, the mass communication which acquiesces to it, 2005-11-21