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Is Telltale afraid to depict sex in their games?

Kagoshima_Luke

Kagoshima_Luke

Gold Member
Most of their games depict extreme violence and are rated M, yet sex is only very lightly touched on. This was most obvious to me in their Game of Thrones series, which I just finished. In the show, consensual sex (and sometimes rape) is either depicted directly or indirectly in just about every episode. It's part of the base, ruthless and horrifying way life in Westeros as represented in both the show and novels.

Why is Telltale so willing to go headfirst into the realm of ultra-violence, yet so timid when dealing with sex?
 
On the contrary...

70d.gif
 
Well, other than Game of Thrones, which of their games did that feel lacking in?

Personally, I have absolutely no interest in approaching a sex scene in the types of games they've been releasing until now.
 
Because sex is taboo in video games because they are for kids. It doesn't make sense or is even true but there you go.
 
Because sex isn't important.

Take The Wolf Among Us, it portrays everything without the need to show sex.

It truly isn't needed and might even bog down the storytelling.
 
Violence is easier to pull of than sex is my guess. Also a lot of folks don't care how violent a game is but would be up in arms over sex acts.
 
Most animators still can't even get kissing to *not* look super creepy, let alone fucking. Considering how weird TT's animations already are, I can't imagine what their sex animations would look like.
 
sueil said:
Because sex is taboo in video games because they are for kids. It doesn't make sense or is even true but there you go.
Click to expand...

That's ridiculous. GTA? Mass Effect? God of War? Whether it's tasteful and accurate or not, sex isn't something that's not present in mass market games.
 
To be fair, nearly all games are afraid of sex. Well unless they're the Witcher series I suppose.


EDIT: Forgot about Mass Effect (does dry humping really count?) and GTA.
 
I don't know that they really want to. They certainly don't have to.



And they really shouldn't with those animations.
 
FluxWaveZ said:
Well, other than Game of Thrones, which of their games did that feel lacking in?

Personally, I have absolutely no interest in approaching a sex scene in the types of games they've been releasing until now.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I haven't played GoT yet but none of their other games needed a sex scene so I'm glad they didn't have one.
 
Kagoshima_Luke said:
Most of their games depict extreme violence and are rated M, yet sex is only very lightly touched on. This was most obvious to me in their Game of Thrones series, which I just finished. In the show, consensual sex (and sometimes rape) is either depicted directly or indirectly in just about every episode. It's part of the base, ruthless and horrifying way life in Westeros as represented in both the show and novels.

Why is Telltale so willing to go headfirst into the realm of ultra-violence, yet so timid when dealing with sex?
Click to expand...

Almost no-one wants the higher rating, and America specifically is way more uptight about sex than violence.

Even more so with games as they're still seen as more of a thing for kids.
 
Is this another thread where we are all supposed to say "why is everyone hung up about sex but is OK with violence" again? I feel like every guy at a party already says that to me these days.
 
Would rather they didnt fall out the Bioware hole where every game needs to be a sloppy romance novel where every character is a potential love interest which probably the only road they would go down.

Its nice to have a game with choices not designed around "everyone needs to be boneable"
 
Kagoshima_Luke said:
Most of their games depict extreme violence and are rated M, yet sex is only very lightly touched on. This was most obvious to me in their Game of Thrones series, which I just finished. In the show, consensual sex (and sometimes rape) is either depicted directly or indirectly in just about every episode. It's part of the base, ruthless and horrifying way life in Westeros as represented in both the show and novels.

Why is Telltale so willing to go headfirst into the realm of ultra-violence, yet so timid when dealing with sex?
Click to expand...

Eh, Game of Thrones didn't really use sex much to depict the world in the way you described. Mostly it was just to show off skin as another hook.

And that's probably the reason why Telltale shied away from it there, aside from sex in games seems to freak people out to the degree where they just didn't want to deal with thathe possible reaction.
FluxWaveZ said:
That's ridiculous. GTA? Mass Effect? God of War? Whether it's tasteful and accurate or not, sex isn't something that's not present in mass market games.
Click to expand...

Two of those had public controversies in the media about sex. It's getting better now, but Telltale as a company may not relish the thought of being the next stink with Mom's of America or whoever these people are.

And I agree that Telltale trying to animate such scenes would be the stuff of nightmares.
 
YianGaruga said:
Violence isn't important either
Click to expand...

For the stories in Telltale games the OP is apparently addressing, it absolutely is. The Walking Dead is about dealing with a zombie invasion and survival. Tales from the Borderlands is a heist story. The Wolf Among Us is a noire mystery set in a fairytale world. Violence is inherently more important to these kinds of stories than sex ever is.
 
QuantumBro said:
I'd love to see Teletale's engine animate a sex scene, would be so unintentionally hilarious.
Click to expand...
My thoughts exactly.

By all means, Telltale can go ahead and give it a shot, but I don't think they're going to get many compliments when people see those scenes.
 
Abriael said:
Yep, one of the most basic elements of human interaction, key part of the survival of the species truly is irrelevant.

Please...
Click to expand...

Do you think every game needs sex in order to be good? I mean, they were not talking about sex in real life, dude. Did you think they were talking about sex in real life?
 
Kagoshima_Luke said:
Why is Telltale so willing to go headfirst into the realm of ultra-violence, yet so timid when dealing with sex?
Click to expand...

The same goes for movies and television in general. Someone getting horribly tortured or murdered on screen can be fine while when it comes to nudity and sex they're more sensitive and try to not show too much.

Same goes for swearing, though that's not really the case for games.
 
They can't even make people walk or talk realistically. Videogame sex scenes are almost always awful and Telltale, with their dog shit engine, are wise to stay away.
 
I actually really like that their games sometimes depict romance without sex. Sex like in Bioware games can seem like a crutch to be like "They're in love now!" whereas in Tales from the Borderlands or Wolf Among Us they deal with attraction and romance in a more nuanced way.
 
Kagoshima_Luke said:
Most of their games depict extreme violence and are rated M, yet sex is only very lightly touched on. This was most obvious to me in their Game of Thrones series, which I just finished. In the show, consensual sex (and sometimes rape) is either depicted directly or indirectly in just about every episode. It's part of the base, ruthless and horrifying way life in Westeros as represented in both the show and novels.

Why is Telltale so willing to go headfirst into the realm of ultra-violence, yet so timid when dealing with sex?
Click to expand...

Since the 90s, we've matured in how we deal with violence in games. I don't think we are quite there with sex yet. Mixing violence and sex will only probably result in AO rating however.
 
FluxWaveZ said:
For the stories in Telltale games the OP is apparently addressing, it absolutely is. The Walking Dead is about dealing with a zombie invasion and survival. Tales from the Borderlands is a heist story. The Wolf Among Us is a noire mystery set in a fairytale world. Violence is inherently more important to these kinds of stories than sex ever is.
Click to expand...
But then you could make a convincing argument that sex is important in Game Of Thrones yet that gets toned down significantly.
 
Gaming in general is afraid of talking about sex. How many games can you think of in the past few years that had actual sex scenes in them? There are a few like Wolfenstein but its very very rare compared to film and novels.
 
Obliterator said:
Gaming in general is afraid of talking about sex. How many games can you think of in the past few years that had actual sex scenes in them? There are a few like Wolfenstein but its very very rare compared to film and novels.
Click to expand...

Well duh, because it's gross. Don't need that stuff in muh videogamez

j/k
 
Um... sex absolutely is important in Game of Thrones. How is anyone here who has watched the series or read the books even going to argue against that? It's one of the major, major tools wielded by many of the players in the story who are vying for the iron throne or simply to survive the winter.

While pretty good, the GoT game by Telltale was probably the one that was least genuine to the source material.

It's pretty clear to me that this is a result of game developers still afraid of portraying sex in video games because of some weird outdated idea that it's taboo despite the violence in these games ratcheting up to such a level that they have LONG been out of the realm of "kid's toys".


I still remember that one interview shortly after GoT was announced by Telltale where someone asked them about the sex content and they were like "huh?".
 
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