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Sex in Videogames

iapetus said:
Absolutely right. The no-sex-in-videogames thing has absolutely nothing to do with America's particular form of Christian morality, and you'd be a fool and a communist to suggest it does.

Let's call a spade a spade. The issue stems from PURITANICAL morality, not just regular old Chrisitain morality.
 
iapetus said:
Absolutely right. The no-sex-in-videogames thing has absolutely nothing to do with America's particular form of Christian morality, and you'd be a fool and a communist to suggest it does.

And your comment and the comments that I quoted were reasonable, interesting discussions on the topic of how Christian morality has shaped American culture? Or were they offensive little sarcastic GAF-groupthink flamebait barbs aimed at pointing how stupid and misguided religious people are?
 
I'm not a big fan of how romantic relationships have been handled in most games. Sex and relationships are a two way thing, and unfortunately AI isn't nearly evolved enough to make it feel realistic and satisfying.

You can become attached to a character throughout a game, but you can't really interact with that character. So it's really a one way interaction, the player's actions usually have very little impact on NPCs.

BioWare has come the closest to making the interactions you have with NPC's more interesting, so I really hope they continue to focus on this area as AI improves.
 
Chiaroscuro said:
Also remind that by the common guy games are viewed as child toys, so something that is controversy and not suitable for kids should not be present in games. They easy the guns since kids are grow pretty much with them in their lives as much nudity is common in Europe, even to kids.

BINGO!

Video Games are viewed as a children's toy, regardless of rating, which creates a lot more uncomfort over allowing sex in games than in movies. This is not entirely without basis, even, since there are plenty of 12 year old boys out there who DO want a game just because it has an M rating on it, and you honestly cannot argue that games like Grand Theft Auto aren't marketted towards kids.



The problem is that many people3 ONLY see that side of it, with it still being kind of not okay for adults, in certain "grown-up" circles to admit to playing video games. That gives a one sided view that all video games are for kids, and hence any material not suitable for a 12 year old shouldn't be in video games at all. This isn't an American thing; it's a global thing, it's just that American and International societal standards differ. A lot ofr games get banned in other countries, though, because they are too violent for children, despite the fact that it isn't really the children who would be playing them.
 
TheFightingFish said:
And your comment and the comments that I quoted were reasonable, interesting discussions on the topic of how Christian morality has shaped American culture? Or were they offensive little sarcastic GAF-groupthink flamebait barbs aimed at pointing how stupid and misguided religious people are?

HEY!

Don't lump the rest of us religious people in with you Christians!
 
TheFightingFish said:
And your comment and the comments that I quoted were reasonable, interesting discussions on the topic of how Christian morality has shaped American culture? Or were they offensive little sarcastic GAF-groupthink flamebait barbs aimed at pointing how stupid and misguided religious people are?

I see you haven't followed my posting history in religion threads, or you wouldn't be making such laughable accusations. If you're done trying to derail the thread, I think we can call it a day there.
 
I thought violence was put in games to stop kids from doing it in real life? and sex was not put in games to stop kids from doing it in real life?

The bigger problem is that whenever there's any visible sex in video games, it looks incredibly awkward - so I'm happy most decide not to put it in.

Which games have visible sex?
 
a Master Ninja said:
Murder is a beautiful, natural thing. The human form is disgusting afront to God and should be shunned.

This.

God's place is between peoples' genitalia, not between the trigger and the finger.
 
I think killing in games is more acceptable because it isn't a desirable action by most people, but sex is, so kids watching sex is probably more enticing then them chainsawing someone.
 
Kids are having / seeing sex at the ages of 13-15 now.. minimum! Which is crazy in this generation.. so I don't see why anything has to be censored at all.. (For teenagers that is).

I guess the Western Societies just think sex is bad :(
 
goldenpp72 said:
I think killing in games is more acceptable because it isn't a desirable action by most people, but sex is, so kids watching sex is probably more enticing then them chainsawing someone.
In part, this. Most parents worry about their kids having sex at some point, far fewer are concerned with murderous rampages. They would rather their kids have sex than take off someone's head, but it's far more likely that they'll have sex.
 
epik said:
Kids are having / seeing sex at the ages of 13-15 now.. minimum! Which is crazy in this generation.. so I don't see why anything has to be censored at all.. (For teenagers that is).

I guess the Western Societies just think sex is bad :(

If you want to get to the meat of it, parents want to be the ones to teach their kids about sex, rather than have them learn about (possible wrong) on the streets. This is why sex is a taboo subject to discuss; you might be teaching some one else's kid about it before they do.



The problem is that many parents are negligent in when and how they do teach their kids about sex. The teen pregnancy rate in America isn't a product of a whole lot more fucking going on, it is a product of a whole lot less birth control being used. I had a couple of coworkers, one of whom is even older than I am, insist to me a couple of weeks ago that the birth control pill is very unreliable. Coming from a religious school background (through college, even) I didn't have to ask where he had heard that. When you teach kids that birth control doesn't work, you are causing problems. Your intention may be to encourage them not to have sex at all, but instead you end up with them having sex, and just ignoring the birth control.

Lying to our children in order to control them DOES NOT work, and only creates further problems.




And before anyone gets pissed that I brought up religious school, I went to a religious school myself. I was also lucky enough to have parents who sat me down and told me the truth, after school let out, because they believed that giving me all the facts and letting me make my own decisions would lead to better decisions from me in the long run, and it did.
 
The big issue with regards to the ratings is, anything rated mature is fine, anything rated adults only is basically sent to die as most retailers will not carry a game with that rating. It's stupid.
 
DarkJC said:
The big issue with regards to the ratings is, anything rated mature is fine, anything rated adults only is basically sent to die as most retailers will not carry a game with that rating. It's stupid.

It's more than that. None of the big three will allow an AO-rated game to be published for their console. That came out when the Manhunt 2 issues started arising. So even before it gets to the stores, it's restricted to being a PC title only.
 
Prime Blue said:
ohsj95.gif

Took me a second there. At first i thought there was supposed to be something with the translation :lol
 
Kulock said:
It's more than that. None of the big three will allow an AO-rated game to be published for their console. That came out when the Manhunt 2 issues started arising. So even before it gets to the stores, it's restricted to being a PC title only.

Retailers won't carry Ao games, and publishers won't publish them either.

Ao is to games as NC-17 is to movies; it is an unofficial ban. No one is going to release or promote a title with that rating.
 
although fond of sex, and against censorship.. i'm in no need of sex in games.

Though i like beautifull women in games!! Naomi, Heavenly sword, etc.
i'm also for independend boob physics ofcourse
 
I don't think sexuality (as opposed to plain sex) could be successfully implemented in video-games at present. Firstly devs and gamers need to take a long hard look about how women are portrayed in our medium, scratch that, its not just women but all humans.

Secondly the traditional structure of games which usually involves objectives and physical interaction is a large barrier in terms of developing meaningful and emotionally profound character relationships. I think the focus of devs and the expectations of gamers need to shift, we need to move away from higher visual fidelity because lately I'm noticing a rift hyper-real graphics and crude, lifeless characters. The more real something looks the more jarring it is when everything and everyone acts wooden and two dimensional.

I think the best hope for sexuality, and a whole range of other intimate human traits, to be explored in games is to put much more emphasis on AI, narrative and text recognition. I'll cite the indie game/prototype Facade as the touchstone, albeit a very spartan one thus far.
 
Evander said:
Ao is to games as NC-17 is to movies; it is an unofficial ban. No one is going to release or promote a title with that rating.

Except movie distributors are now getting away with NC-17-equivalent content with an "Unrated" label on their DVD releases, which I'm amazed they've been getting away with as long as they have.
 
epik said:
Kids are having / seeing sex at the ages of 13-15 now.. minimum! Which is crazy in this generation.. so I don't see why anything has to be censored at all.. (For teenagers that is).

I guess the Western Societies just think sex is bad :(
Ratings and actual responsible parenting should be the ultimate arbiter for the children involved. And, really, I'd find it highly surprising if sex were not more common among the 13-15 age set in the past...even the relatively recent past. Not like kids are actually having sex earlier than before...age limits on sex aren't exactly something that is ages old...the legality of it all is, like marijuana prohibition, a pretty new thing after thousands and thousands of years of not having any regulation or laws to do with, AFAIK.

As for sex in games...do it, but aside from cosmetically-driven titillation, there needs to be something a bit more substantive than just big bewbs and round butts for most people to go with the flow a bit more. Like, maybe, better character writing, performance, and interaction instead of just the usual marketing department's two-dimensional character designs that appeal based on how it looks on the box and not how they work in the game. Until something more mature happens with how games deal with it, I don't really think sex, as an interactive element, is even worth the time.
 
Always-honest said:
although fond of sex, and against censorship.. i'm in no need of sex in games.

Though i like beautifull women in games!! Naomi, Heavenly sword, etc.
i'm also for independend boob physics ofcourse

Every part of this post is top-notch.
 
Perhaps it's a little bit of this!

Killing people is objectively bad. It gets LESS bad if you do it in a video game because it's "just a game," you're killing random polygons, not people.

Sexy times are objectively GOOD. Perhaps a bit socially taboo in public and whatnot, but they go on a list of good things in general. They get LESS good if they're in video games, however, as it's basically applying sexual feelings to inanimate objects, which is just perverse.

Killing random polygons is less awful, but sexing random polygons is more awful, due to the innate natures of the two acts to begin with. You remove the real killing, which is good, but you remove the precious and private specialness of sex, which is bad.

Not that I necessarily agree with any of that, but it maybe in line with what the general public is thinking here.
 
It comes from the notion that games are for kids under the age of 10, and having explicit sex will keep parents from buying their game when they read it on the back. Yes, the game is rated for adults, but they want to sell as many as possible. For example, I was 11 years old and playing FFVII when it came out, and it was all like "god damn" and shit like that, and I ate that shit up.

Why violence is acceptable? I think parents realize just how bad it feels to commit acts of violence for normal people, and how good it feels to commit acts of sex for normal people, and feel children are more likely to go out and knock fuck (this was a typo, but I like it! knock fuck!) after watching it more than go out and stab somebody.

To tell you the truth, this shit is stupid, cause I was watching hard hard hardcore porn by the time I was 10. Really, the internet has us all spilling our seeds anyway. Just, seeing firsthand how knocking a girl up ruins your life if you are young, I wouldn't want my kids fucking either. Cause, it will ruin your life.

Also, Germany, the fact sex is taboo, makes it all the more fun.
 
The actual answers have already been posted, so I just want to point out the extreme smugness of this:

Anth said:
2. There are countless good movies that have sex in them, especially European ones, and they don't seem to cause a stink (or do they?) Now I understand that the backwards rednecks that have such big issues with sex probably don't watch arthouse movies in the first place, but not playing them doesn't seem to stop them from condemning games either.
 
I think a big portion of the problem is a translation over from movies.

In movies, murderous and violent behavior is faked, and in most cases, it's obviously fake. There are special effects that do not look real. Sex, though, is normally not fake. Most of the times when you see boobs in a movie, those are real boobs; when you see penetration in a film, that's real penetration. It's not something that's very fakable, and the real thing costs 0 dollars.

Thus, parents have to compare fake violence to real sex, and they find real sex more disturbing for their children. I think that sensibility has transferred over to video games. Obviously that's not rational (as sex really IS fake in Video Games), but it's nearly an instinct now.



And of course, Americans love guns and hate sex. That's been mentioned before, and it has some truth to it, too.
 
Video games are escapism. We often play them to live out things that we wouldn't, or often couldn't, do in real life. Its all part of the fun.

So you add sex to that formula and what do you get? Possibly some S&M? Or rape? Maybe some pedaphilia (I'm proud that spelling might be wrong)? Snuff? That is unless you're a socially introverted gamer that can only live out his sexual desires in fantasy, which would make the most normal sexual situation in a game THE BEST THING EVER.

Me? I don't see the point of sex in games except to push another envelope and claim to be embracing some level maturity. That's my opinion on the subject.
 
Weird...

I remember in my old (1995 Kiss my Axe Issue) Computer World Magazine there was a HUGE listing of porn games in the back that you could order by mail.
 
of course, the funniest thing is, that the porn industry in america is MASSIVE and rakes in billions. it isn't that american's don't like sex. they do. they fucking love it. they just want to pretend that they don't because no one else seems to like it.

of course, those people love it too and are just pretending that they don't as well.

seriously, interactive porn will be massive when it happens.

such a shame that we can't get sex included for dramatic purposes in our M rated titles.
 
Darth Tigris said:
Video games are escapism. We often play them to live out things that we wouldn't, or often couldn't, do in real life. Its all part of the fun.

So you add sex to that formula and what do you get? Possibly some S&M? Or rape? Maybe some pedaphilia (I'm proud that spelling might be wrong)? Snuff? That is unless you're a socially introverted gamer that can only live out his sexual desires in fantasy, which would make the most normal sexual situation in a game THE BEST THING EVER.

Huh? We censor peoples naked bodies while they shower in the Sims. Nipples in the most bland games are still deemed evil and moral corroding.

I am also confused by the value judgment that S&M is on par or worse than serial killing.
 
Metal Gear?! said:
Sex is more imitable than violence. Unless it's rape.
so is opening a door and pushing a button to call a lift.

consentual sex between people of the right age (that includes two twelve year olds) is perfectly legal.

anyway, your statement is wrong. it's a lot easier to punch someone than have consensual sex with them, in terms of how easy to imitate that may be.
 
iapetus said:
It's not a videogames thing. There's just a vocal group of Americans who don't like sex, but love their guns.
I'll never understand this. It's the goddamn bible belt doing what it does best.

plagiarize said:
consentual sex between people of the right age (that includes two twelve year olds) is perfectly legal.
I don't know where you live man, but in Georgia any pre-marital sex is illegal. How are they going to enforce it? That's not the point, but it is illegal.
 
People who say "We don't need sex in games" dismiss what it can add to a good story. It is literally the next level in storytelling for games.

Having sex in games doesn't necessarily mean having porn scenes every 5 minutes. Even if it would maximally reach the level of Basic Instinct, it would still mean that the stories that include sex naturally on top of what elements are used today have a higher potential of speaking to you personally.

Even if sex was just included in cutscenes, that would be a big step forward. Whoever doesn't see that needs to watch some movies with sex scenes that use them to get beyond simple amusement.

Man bites Dog. Baise moi. Basic Instinct. Teen Nurse Orgy XIII. A whole new world for us to explore.

Sex. The final frontier.
These are the voyages of the videogames industry.
Its nextgen mission
To explore strange new worlds
To seek out maturity and new customers
To boldly go where movies haven't gone before
 
ciaossu said:
I'll never understand this. It's the goddamn bible belt doing what it does best.


I don't know where you live man, but in Georgia any pre-marital sex is illegal. How are they going to enforce it? That's not the point, but it is illegal.
i don't live in georgia obviously.

that's A: scary and B: funny.
 
wmat said:
Even if it would maximally reach the level of Basic Instinct, it would still mean that the stories that include sex naturally on top of what elements are used today have a higher potential of speaking to you personally.

I'm not sure what the first part of the sentence means. BI isn't as explicit as many people remember it as. Also games could benefit from scripts of that quality.
 
Count Dookkake said:
I'm not sure what the first part of the sentence means. BI isn't as explicit as many people remember it as. Also games could benefit from scripts of that quality.
Well, the near-rape scenes in BI would automatically lead to an AO rating if it was a video game. But if they weren't present in the movie, the protagonist's actions wouldn't be understandable and the whole movie wouldn't make much sense. That's what I'm basically getting at.
 
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