A SICKENING video game in which players rape and kill women has sparked calls for it to be investigated by the police and banned outright, as the First Minister registered her disgust.

Hannah Bardell, the SNP digital culture, media and sport spokesman has reported the game, which has finally been banned by gaming platform Steam, to Scotland Yard.

She has submitted a crime report to the Met about the "horrific and violent" game which contains a story of "violence, sexual assault, necrophilia and incest" telling the force she believed it would "insight violence and hatred."

Read more: Nicola Sturgeon condemns 'Rape Day' video game

And she has called on the UK Government's culture secretary Jeremy Wright to bring in a general ban on the game while Desk Plant, the anonymous one-man developer, has said he would find other ways to distribute it including his website, if Steam ban it.

Ms Sturgeon said: “The Rape Day video game is absolutely sickening and appalling. Violence against women, whether it is sexual or of any other form, is not a game and should never be treated in such a way. It is serious and must be treated that way. I hope the game is not promoted.

“In my view, the matter should not be down to the individual decisions of companies. It is time for the regulations governing the area to be reviewed. Perhaps the whole Parliament can unite on the issue and call on the UK Government to do that without delay.”

Ms Bardell first raised the issue with Mr Wright after meeting him on Tuesday to discuss equality in sport and the representation of women's sport in the media.

Read more: How rape advocate Roosh V trolled Scotland

The Livingston MP who who was alerted to the game after leaving the culture secretary's office told Mr Wright: "I am utterly shocked and sickened that such content is legal and being promoted.

"Can I ask that as Secretary of State...to ensure content like this cannot be made available and can be made illegal."

She has raised concerns that Steam appeared to have blocked the game as a "commercial decision" rather than because of its content.

The Herald:

Steam said in a statement about its decision not to distribute the game: "Much of our policy around what we distribute is, and must be, reactionary—we simply have to wait and see what comes to us.... We then have to make a judgement call about any risk it puts to Valve, our developer partners, or our customers. After significant fact-finding and discussion, we think Rape Day poses unknown costs and risks and therefore won’t be on Steam.

"We respect developers’ desire to express themselves, and the purpose of Steam is to help developers find an audience, but this developer has chosen content matter and a way of representing it that makes it very difficult for us to help them do that."

The developer of 'Rape Day' claims the game is aimed at the "four per cent of the general population [who] are sociopaths" and would enjoy playing a "menacing serial killer rapist during a zombie apocalypse".

In the description on gaming platform Steam, Desk Plant, describes content a game containing "violence, sexual assault, non-consensual sex, obscene language, necrophilia and incest".

The game description says: "Control the choices of a menacing serial killer rapist during a zombie apocalypse. Verbally harass, kill and rape women as you choose to progress the story.

The Herald:

"It's a dangerous world with no laws. The zombies enjoy eating the flesh off warm humans and brutally raping them but you are the most dangerous rapist in town.

"Rape Day is a choice driven visual novel... So skip the foreplay and enjoy your Rape Day: you deserve it."

The creator of Rape Day, says the game is ready for an April launch date, having been put back from March, but the review process by Valve, owners of the Steam store, is "taking longer than expected".

Ms Bardel added: "I have raised it because there are wider concerns about what happens next as this just beggars belief. This is a test for the law if it is going to be hosted elsewhere. There may be cross-jurisdictional issues.

"It is not okay for rape to be used in games and to be normalised and we should be speaking out against that. This is a stain on the games sector."

But the game author says games like his should be made legal.

In a statement in support of his work, the developer said: "If we ever come to the scientific conclusion that committing crimes in video games, significantly increases the chances of committing crimes in real life, then at that point we as a society will have to decide if we want to ban committing some or all crimes in fiction.

"But you can’t reasonably consider banning rape in fiction without banning murder and torture. Murder has been normalized in fiction, while rape has yet to be normalized.

The Herald:

"At some point in the future, game historians will look back on visual novels such as 'rape day' as game historians look back on games such as 'Grand Theft Auto' now or even the first time nudity was shown on television. "Moral outrage does not stop the entertainment industry, it slows it down but in time society progresses and realizes that the purely fictional things they thought would cause moral decay and widespread lawlessness in fact do not."

He adds: "Most people can separate fiction from reality pretty well, and those that can’t shouldn’t be playing video games. The point of games is to do things, or experience things that you can’t or shouldn’t in reality. If games and movies were just like real life, they would be pretty boring."

He accepted that moral outrage may be enough to cause Steam to ban the game and himself.

"If both my game is banned and I am banned, then I will ensure that a content platform for all kinds of legal, quality porn games exist."

The Herald:

And he says if it is banned he will make it available from his website.

Sandy Brindley, chief executive of Rape Crisis Scotland, said: “When we talk about rape culture this is what we mean. This awful game doesn’t view women as human, it thinks of them as objects, toys even, with their worth likely to be reduced to a score if the player is successful in violating them.

"It’s impossible to separate this horrific game from the reality in Scotland that 2,136 rapes were reported last year, and many, many more unreported. It’s impossible to separate this game from the fact that women and girls face relentless sexual harassment and abuse whether they are walking down the street or at home. It’s all part of the same picture."