A feminist group are trying to ban a game about picking up women

The pick-up artist and dating coach Richard La Ruina has developed a notorious reputation in recent years.

The 37-year-old has written books titled The Natural: How to Effortlessly Attract the Women You Want,which along with controversial TV appearances has cast him as a villain in some circles.

Now he has developed a video game called Super Seducer: How to Talk to Girls, which allows straight men to live out their fantasies of dating their dream woman.

These type of video games aren't exactly new (see Leisure Suit Larry, for example) but Super Seducer has drawn criticism as its seduction techniques are more like instances of harassment rather than acts of affection.

The game encourages players to grab women's breasts and includes the line, "If you're not good at cooking you better be real good at sucking d**k."

Picture: Steam/ RLR Training Inc

Super Seducer was confirmed in September 2017 and was scheduled to be released on Playstation 4 on Tuesday, but the backlash against the title led to Sony stopping the release of the game.

KickStarter had previously banned the game from starting a crowdfunding campaign through their site as it was said to contain offensive content.

However, Super Seducer has been made available on the PC gaming streaming platform Steam and there are calls for the game to be pulled from the service.

This movement is being spearheaded by the UK-based feminist organisation Level Up, which has launched a petition to have Super Seducer removed from Steam for good.

In an email to indy100, Carys Afoko, the executive director of Level Up stated:

This toxic game is training up the next generation of Harvey Weinsteins.

Too many of us know what it’s like to be faced with a man who won’t take no for an answer, convinced its a matter of time until we succumb to his ‘charms’. 

Steam is one of the biggest games retailers in the world. It should not be selling lessons in harassment to its customers. 

The company has withdrawn games before for encouraging violence, it’s time they took a similar stand on harassing women.

Other companies have refused to host or sell the game because they realised how toxic it is, like KickStarter and Playstation. Now we need to put pressure on Steam to follow suit.

To tackle harassment and violence we need to stop it being normalised. For far too long it's been normal for men to grab and grope women. That needs to change.

Discussions on Steam have already seen users criticise the game for encouraging harassment with one person writing:

Every woman should buy this game!

No seriously, you should. Get it, play it, and if you ever, EVER met a guy who does ANY of these things, run like hell.

It's a very useful guide in that respect.

Valve are yet to release a statement in regards to the petition or the inclusion of Super Seducer on their service.

indy100 have contacted Valve about the subject and will update this article should we receive a reply.

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