Employees of Amazon.com in Germany sort books into boxes in the western town of Bad Hersfeld. Amazon has yanked from its virtual shelves a Japanese computer game that lets players simulate raping girls.

Online retail giant Amazon has yanked from its virtual shelves a Japanese computer game that lets players simulate raping girls.

A "Rapelay" videogame being hawked on Amazon by a third-party merchant was deemed inappropriate and the product's page taken down after it was brought to the California Internet firm's attention Wednesday night.

"We determined that we did not want to be selling this particular item," Amazon spokeswoman Patty Smith said of the computer game.

The "Rapelay" game was created exclusively for the Japanese market but a couple of "like new" copies were being offered on Amazon by a US seller specializing in animated Japanese pornography.

The computer game maker, Illusion studio based in Japan, posts a notice on its website that its products are specifically for domestic users.

"As we say on the website, we don't sell the products overseas because of the rating problem, and I cannot possibly comment on the report from San Francisco," said a spokesman for the company in Yokohama, near Tokyo.

"We believe there is no problem with the software, which has cleared the domestic ratings of an ethics watchdog body," he said.

The game was released in 2006. Other titles from the studio include "Battle Raper" and "Artificial Girl."

© 2009 AFP