Why Do Videogames Struggle With Sex? 465
brumgrunt writes "Why do videogames still treat sex in such a two dimensional way? Why do they snigger at it, or treat it as a reward? Den Of Geek has been taking a look." I always figured it was some combination of games being made by our inner adolescent, marketed to the outer ones, and getting banned whenever they take sex seriously.
Not just with video games, but in general (Score:5, Interesting)
In videogames, even ones that handle the subject deftly, sex is almost always a reward. Take the Mass Effect series, for example. Here, you can indulge in interspecies sexual relations, if you see fit, but to get to the point where a character is willing to bump uglies with you, you have to have followed the correct series of dialogue prompts. There's a veneer of freedom, but the relationship you're creating with the character you want to sleep with is a shallow one. Fail to perform one action, or choose incorrectly on one dialogue tree, and they'll lose interest in you. Sex becomes an achievement, a notch on the bedpost of your high score table, instead of being the physical expression of an emotional connection between two consenting individuals.
Not just with video games, but in general Well, it looks like the author thinks sex must only be some kind of expression of true love. What he is writing here is directly what happens in real life - you choose your words or actions badly and even one bad choice ends up to you not having sex with the girl. This seems to be more of a problem with the way US thinks about sex, while we here in Europe can just have it casually and not make a big deal out of it. Sure it might be shallow relationship, but so what, sex is fun, feels good and there really isn't any reason not to enjoy it.
I wonder why religions even have made sex to look like a bad thing. When you ask about it from someone who believes in god, the only responses usually are something like "because god said so", "that's just how it is" or "it's a special thing between a man and a woman". No actual answer. Sure, sex feels great with a person you love. But so does many other things, and you can also just have sex that feels physically great with no bigger emotions. It's nice to be close to someone, feel their skin and feel how you're inside them. Be it with love or not.
Re:Not just with video games, but in general (Score:4, Informative)
This seems to be more of a problem with the way US thinks about sex, while we here in Europe can just have it casually and not make a big deal out of it. Sure it might be shallow relationship, but so what, sex is fun, feels good and there really isn't any reason not to enjoy it.
I assure you, there's no shortage of casual and shallow sex here in the US.
Re:Not just with video games, but in general (Score:5, Funny)
I assure you, there's no shortage of casual and shallow sex here in the US.
The anecdotal evidence on that is conflicting. I have had a very difficult time finding a supply of casual and shallow sex here in the US, whereas my wife doesn't seem to have any problem coming by it...
Re:Not just with video games, but in general (Score:5, Funny)
I was in the grocery store checkout lane last night, and I saw a Cosmo with the headline, "50 WAYS TO SEDUCE A MAN". Look, ladies, if you get past the second one, he's just not interested.
"Would you like to—"
"Yes!"
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Seriously? You mean like all the right-wing congressmen who were cheating on their wives? Usually with congressional pages or guys in the restroom.
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Re:Not just with video games, but in general (Score:5, Insightful)
What he is writing here is directly what happens in real life - you choose your words or actions badly and even one bad choice ends up to you not having sex with the girl.
If I walked up to a guy and said "Nice shoes, wanna fuck?" -- there's a chance he'll say yes, despite this being one of the worst ways to go about it. As to actions, many hollywood movies have been made (How to lose a guy in 7 days, anyone?) about how sometimes doing everything wrong still leads to the desired outcome. The truth is... Sex happens because we have hormones and chemicals and stuff in our brains (and *cough* elsewhere) and sometimes they're the ones doing the talking -- and what comes out of our mouth is totally irrelevant. As to love or no love, emotional attachment or not... Being that you're not a woman, you don't have some extra chemicals besides the ones I mentioned above working against you. It's near impossible for a woman past a certain age to have sex and not develop an emotional attachment. Ever wonder why we want to cuddle or be clingy after sex (or octopus you during climax?) -- BRAIN CHEMICALS! Believe me, if we could shut it off, or take a pill to let us have no strings attached sex like guys, the world would be a far sluttier place. I'm totally serious about this... don't laugh.
Re:Not just with video games, but in general (Score:5, Funny)
"That's a joke, son! A joke I say!" - Foghorn Leghorn
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Re:Not just with video games, but in general (Score:4, Informative)
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Lighten up. It's a caricature used for comic effect. It's funny precisely because the stereotype is not (or no longer) true for most of us.
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What he is writing here is directly what happens in real life - you choose your words or actions badly and even one bad choice ends up to you not having sex with the girl.
As to love or no love, emotional attachment or not... Being that you're not a woman, you don't have some extra chemicals besides the ones I mentioned above working against you. It's near impossible for a woman past a certain age to have sex and not develop an emotional attachment. Ever wonder why we want to cuddle or be clingy after sex (or octopus you during climax?) -- BRAIN CHEMICALS! Believe me, if we could shut it off, or take a pill to let us have no strings attached sex like guys, the world would be a far sluttier place. I'm totally serious about this... don't laugh.
This is off topic, but a great topic none the less. I've known plenty of women who were totally fine with a physical relationship (at least that's what they said) but the majority would say they fall into the category you describe and really want more. For a long time scientists thought that women were mostly monogamous while men were inherently the opposite. They attributed these assumptions to the nurturing, demure character of women and hunter-gatherer and conquering nature of men. Recent studies have sh
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Re:Not just with video games, but in general (Score:4, Insightful)
Humans are much more than their physical contents, and I say that without any allusion to superstitious nonsense like 'souls' or what-have-you. If you cannot account for the social constructions and archetypes that both create and reflect the shared experiences between people, you will never be able to understand the broader motivations individuals have emotionally, with regard to sex or anything else.
What happens in a human brain physically may be reducible to a "simple" electro-chemical interaction, but that does not resolve at a stroke what each iteration means in concert over time.
To return to the subject, go talk to somebody who routinely has sex for money. Barring that, read some autobiographical work of somebody like that. You'll find your "sex leads AUTOMATICALLY to emotional attachment" theory sorely tested by those realities. Hormones only go so far in adjusting conscious experiences. That's why I spoke of self-fulfilling prophecies and placebo effects. If you already have a developing or latent emotional attachment, an oxytocin release will probably increase it significantly. If you already view a person negatively, either individually or as a class, an oxytocin release is probably not enough to change that already surfaced conscious position. When a person has a concrete idea, some vague, hormone-driven feeling is generally not enough to immediately reverse it.
Re:Not just with video games, but in general (Score:5, Insightful)
If I walked up to a guy and said "Nice shoes, wanna fuck?" -- there's a chance he'll say yes, despite this being one of the worst ways to go about it.
If you're even remotely attractive (Lets say, shy of disfigured), I'd say there's a very good chance. If the gender roles are reversed, there's a very good chance of getting slapped. I don't know if that's societal or biological, but I suspect it's societal.
Women decide when/if sex happens. Us men have to figure out what conditions have to be met in order for that to occur. The video game treatment, while simplified greatly, works along the same lines.
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If you're even remotely attractive (Lets say, shy of disfigured), I'd say there's a very good chance. If the gender roles are reversed, there's a very good chance of getting slapped. I don't know if that's societal or biological, but I suspect it's societal.
There's a biological basis. A woman is seldom physically intimidating / threatening a male who she is sexually propositioning. The opposite is very often the case. Consider that men are predominently larger and stronger than women. Consider also that a man can't easliy be forced to have sexual intercourse against his will by a woman because he wont get hard if he isn't turned on. But a woman can be forced.
A stranger coming up to you and saying they "want to fuck you" is quite different when it is someone
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Women decide when/if sex happens. Us men have to figure out what conditions have to be met in order for that to occur.
Eh, not so sure about this one. I used to think so, back before I got to know women, but now I think it's just a con. Especially if you're in a relationship, as a guy you're offered more than you can do with (you think you can do it every 15 mins for the whole day when you're 18. You can't by the time you're 30).
And why would this be? Well, for one, once you've gotten with a girl, all the mentioned hormones and that kick in. You somehow become the only good supplier of a rather intoxicating drug.
Another rea
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and what comes out of our mouth is totally irrelevant.
However, what goes in... [WARNING! INTERNET KILL SWITCH ACTIVATED. POST TERMINATED.]
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As long as you're not a total troll or cow and make it clear that you're serious about that statement, and the guys not gay ofc, theres a 90% chance you'll get a yes out of that. The other 10% are in relationships and actually faithful.
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There is nothing like no strings attached sex for either of the sexes. It's always emotional on some level. But like you say it's easier to find men capable of casual sex than women. But emotions always build up in the long run... Despite whoever trying to tell themselves whatever.
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Re:Not just with video games, but in general (Score:5, Insightful)
Were somebody to try that on me, I'd start looking for the first convenient excuse to get away as quickly as possible, or just plain run like hell.
That's because I'd start wondering, why would somebody do that?
One reason I can imagine is "look at me, I'm shameless enough to go and ask that to a random guy", which is done for the sake of amusing or impressing somebody else, and so almost certainly not a serious offer.
The other is that the one asking is crazy, high or drunk. Which very likely leads to problems later, because that would be statutory rape.
A much less likely one is some kind of drama, like "I'm angry at my boyfriend, so I'm going to screw with the first guy I come across". I highly suspect that this is inexistent in reality and only exists in bad movies.
Either way I can't imagine a single reason for asking such a question that wouldn't lead to complications later. And IMO, if you ever ask it and somebody replies affirmatively, run like hell, because you just found somebody without the slightest bit of common sense.
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A much less likely one is some kind of drama, like "I'm angry at my boyfriend, so I'm going to screw with the first guy I come across". I highly suspect that this is inexistent in reality and only exists in bad movies.
The question was asked to me. I'd gone to a nightclub (Electric Ballroom, Camden, London) with some old friends. To compensate for the music I wasn't enjoying I drank more than usual. (At some point all but one of the friends left without me, probably because I'd wandered off to a different room.)
I was pretty drunk, standing at the side of the dancefloor, and a girl wandered up to me and said something like "you're hot, kiss me", so I did. She then wanted to go to the bar, and got me to buy her a drink. We
Re:Not just with video games, but in general (Score:4, Funny)
My god, is this something I can request? I, personally, would LOVE to be octopused during climax. Do... do I get to specify the species, or is that something that comes up during dating? Would I come off as shallow if I told a girl about my favorite species and asked if she could provide it? Should I just accept that while I may want to be Giant Pacific Octopused (E. dofleini) during climax, the girl I'm with may only have, or be able to, Red Octopus (O. Reubescens) me; or god forbid Blue Ringed Octopus (H. lunulata) me.
What if I meet a girl that likes to cuttlefish?
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I wonder why religions even have made sex to look like a bad thing.
Control. Why else?
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I wonder why religions even have made sex to look like a bad thing.
Control. Why else?
Right.
And none of them can tell me where in the Bible it says "No sex before marriage", just like none of them can tell me where it says a priest (*cough*catholics*cough*) must absolve me of my sins.
I always use the desert island example. If I was stranded on a desert island, could I still be 'saved'? If I'm stranded on a desert island with a girl, could we get 'married'?
The Biblical answer is 'yes', but the 'religious' answer is 'no' because they want you to go to their churches, tithe money, hear
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And none of them can tell me where in the Bible it says "No sex before marriage"
1 Corinthians 7 mentions it several times, nor is that the only place. While it's true that most Catholic ritual has no Biblical basis, the restrictions on sexual contact are quite clear.
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And none of them can tell me where in the Bible it says "No sex before marriage"
1 Corinthians 7 mentions it several times, nor is that the only place. While it's true that most Catholic ritual has no Biblical basis, the restrictions on sexual contact are quite clear.
It's plain as day--it says that you need a wife to avoid fornication. Where does the Bible tell you how you get a wife? I have never once seen a scripture that says "Go find a priest, he will marry you, and you have avoided fornication." Sex is marriage.
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Are you kidding? Jesus said that that merely wanting to have sex with a woman counts as adultery (see Matthew 5:27). Like usury, divorce and the difficulties of getting rich men into heaven, fornication seems to be one of those things that Americans condone even though a lot of them like to insist this is a Christian nation.
Colossians 3:5
Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry: for which things' sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience:
1 Corinthians 5:7
But since there is so much immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband.
There's other ones too, but I'm too lazy to find them.
As for the hypothetical desert island, I would think that you could call your relationship a
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The Bible proscribes fornication several times. Obviously, if you were alone on a desert island you could only have a monogamous relationship or remain celibate.
So is marriage a function of the church? If it is, you're a 'sinner'. If it's not, what makes you married?
Sex is marriage. Remember Mary the prostitute? Jesus said 'You have many husbands'.
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I don't know what church you went to as a kid, but they sound seriously messed up.
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To be totally fair, it would have been necessary in an ancient civilization where birth control is nonexistant and a significant portion of the population is too stupid to know that sex makes babies. Otherwise, Israel would have had an epidemic of single mothers.
Alot of religious laws may seem like some sort of megalomaniac ruler's attempt at looking important by controlling people when you look at them today, but when you put them in a historical context, you realize that there was a time when they were a
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And your last point explains why religions preach against non-vaginal sex. So the OP is correct.
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2. The whole "sacrificial" thing where "one holds the other higher then themselves" doesn't really jive with that whole equality thing that went down about a century ago. Women are people too, and my wife is my equal. We both wear the pants.
3. You can't make everything be
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First up, lock up your daughters, sons and dependants, because we're going to talk about sex.
If that doesn't say it all about the US's attitude writ large in the author's article.
If you can't objectively discuss sex without hiding it as a dirty topic from "innocent ears", then he's just answered his own musings in this article.
But really, are video games really any different from any other form of entertainment in general? Just take a look at your newstands, TV, and movie theaters and tell me if video games treat sex all that differently
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But really, are video games really any different from any other form of entertainment in general? Just take a look at your newstands, TV, and movie theaters and tell me if video games treat sex all that differently
I am not/was not really aware there were normal/mainstream games including sex. I don't play games very often though, but I'd expect to hear about it when people are discussing them.
I know movies have sex -- both as the main point of the film (porn) and as incidental to the story (everything else). My nearest newsstand includes newspapers with a Page 3 [wikipedia.org] and magazines of semi-naked people and sex tips available to anyone.
Re:Not just with video games, but in general (Score:5, Insightful)
This seems to be more of a problem with the way US thinks about sex, while we here in Europe can just have it casually and not make a big deal out of it.
I also admire how you Europeans have mastered that whole arrogance thing.
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I'll give you 10:1 odds that he's french or italian.
Go go stereoypes.
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This seems to be more of a problem with the way US thinks about sex, while we here in Europe can just have it casually and not make a big deal out of it.
I also admire how you Europeans have mastered that whole arrogance thing.
As an American, I can assure you that we are closing the arrogance gap as fast as we possibly can manage!
Re:Not just with video games, but in general (Score:4, Funny)
This seems to be more of a problem with the way US thinks about arrogance, while we here in Europe can just have it casually and not make a big deal out of it.
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Who are these "Europe" and "US" entities you speak about as if they were individuals and not vast, diverse populations? :-) Sorry. Just speaking as someone who spent 12 years in the California BDSM scene where every type of sex known to humanity was experienced, much of it quite casually.
I wonder why religions even have made sex to look like a bad thing.
Go ask St. Augustine. He actually thought sex *within* marriage was bad, but a necessary evil. Yeesh.
Re:Not just with video games, but in general (Score:5, Insightful)
I wonder why religions even have made sex to look like a bad thing.
Historically, sex out of wedlock HAS been a very bad thing. Venereal diseases, unwanted pregnancies, death and sickness (really....the list of famous people who died of venereal disease at a young age is surprisingly long). Of course that's not really a problem anymore, but that's only been true for the last 60 years or so. For the thousands of years before that, religion was right on in their recommendations. Religion moves slowly to deal with new developments, especially on relatively minor issues (seriously....pick up any holy book and count the number of paragraphs talking about sex. It's a small proportion. Usually significantly less than 1%).
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"Of course that's not really a problem anymore"
In an otherwise good argument, I think you forgot a few continents when making this statement. But don't let me derail you by "well, actually"-ing you. In nature, casual sex is a mixed blessing. For a man, in good times it is the best way of increasing your chances of having surviving offspring, something which is less relevant in bad times when single mothers and their child are unlikely to survive. For women, having to carry the child for 9 months and being l
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And what do you do when there's no obvious connection between a certain act and it's consequence? How would you explain to someone about covering your mouth when you sneeze if you couldn't explain microbes and the germ theory? The common one is, "It's gross," which is a societal conformity response, much like what religions use to promote their edicts ("You'll go to hell!").
It's been known for a very long time that St. John's Wort has anti-depressant properties, rivaling modern pharmaceuticals. I guess t
Re:Not just with video games, but in general (Score:5, Insightful)
More like its difficult to portray sex as being at all interesting in a video game. Violence has blood and gore and explosions, and explosions of violence and gore. Not to mention laser beams, occasionally attached to sharks or giant robots.
Sex is at least two naked people getting it on. Watching it for a short time can be pretty compelling, but you're not likely to get very much good game play out of it.
Consider sex in movies. They all seem to have it to a certain degree, but honestly, if you give the sex anything more than a few scenes, the movie tends to turn into crap.
Re:Not just with video games, but in general (Score:5, Funny)
Or am I doing it wrong?
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Hey look, we might have an actual example of someone being effected by the evil pornographic content in Bulletstorm leading to increased risk of sexual violence! =p
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Sex is perfectly possible while (mostly) clothed.
Possible, but not as much enjoyable. Maximizing skin contact increases the pleasure.
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This however only a part of the answer. I think before condoms sex should certainly be mostly between two lovers. A lot of random unprotected sex leads to a lot random sex diseases and relatively unwanted children. I would think.
I think the sex-regulation by religions might also have a third reason. Jealous males killing their neighbors.
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And, don't forget the whole patriarchy of the Bible. The whole Bible portrays women as property and temptresses. If you "humble" a woman by raping her, she is forced to marry you (presumably because no other man would want a woman who isn't a virgin); if a woman has sex with someone other than her husband, he can get a divorce (but not the other way around). Women were commonly bought and sold as wives/servants (at roughly half the price of a man, at that). Women are usually blamed for the "fall of man"
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Because when you can control a persons sex-life, You can control them.
This has long been known, and exploited by more groups than I can name, both ancient and modern.
- Dan.
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Most notably, women... :oD
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Those are purely modern problems; women with illegitimate children, in Bible times, were pretty much expected to live in poverty for their "sins".
If it was really about preventing diseases or a plethora of pregnancies, infidelity perpetrated by a husband would have been grounds for divorce. As it was, only infidelity by the wife was proper grounds.
The prohibition of sex is more about keeping a man's "property" clean, pure, and virginal, rather than any altruistic societal ideals. If it was about actually
Fantasy Escapism (Score:5, Insightful)
I always figured that videogames treat sex two dimensionally because much of video games cater to fantasy escapism as its main draw. It's really no different from any other fantasy escapism outlet. If you look at high fantasy books of the last couple of decades, you'll see the exact same amount of treatment of sex and impossibly proportioned women. Same thing with comic books. On the women's side, it's no different from romance novels (with the impossibly built shirtless men on the covers), soap operas (although to a lesser degree) and all sorts of other similar stuff. They appeal to the idea in us of the quick cathartic thrill that we can fantasize ourselves into, and very few people fantasize about marriage, children and getting a mortgage.
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OK, it's SciFi, not fantasy, but I like the view on sex in some of Heinlein's books like "Stranger in a Strange Land".
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Well, I don't mean fantasy as in elves or magic or whatnot. I mean genres that lends itself to allowing the reader or viewer or player to fantasize themselves into the position of the protagonist or protagonists.
Although that was a pretty outstanding book.
Sex is a reward (Score:2)
Because that's how evolution works.
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evolution wise, offspring are the reward. sex is the work.
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Best description (Score:2)
This video [youtube.com] is about the best description of the problem I've seen. If you can't read the fine article, watch the fine video.
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That video requires you to log in to YouTube. Got a link that doesn't require an account to view the video?
Laisure Suit Larry (Score:2, Informative)
enough said.
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It is still available on my browser. Got the image from here: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3322650&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=2 [somethingawful.com]
right after the "Holding his breath and doing his very best to imagine that the hooker is someone that looks marginally better and smells a whole hell of a lot nicer, Larry dives in. "
Because...gamedevlopers, (Score:2)
Do not want you to know there's this much better game in town :p
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...with his nubby joystick.
Why post anonymously? It's not like a slashdot author couldn't look at the apache logs for your IP... Hell, they probably have it built in to their admin interface.
because they're video GAMES (Score:5, Insightful)
it's not like video games treat murder or money or physics or politics with reverence, respect, or precision either. why should a game be expected to treat sex as somehow immune from gamification? if it's included, it *should* be simplified in function and integrated into the gaming framework, just like every other complex human thing that gets reduced to either a goal, task, tool, or reward in a game.
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Easy (Score:5, Insightful)
Because any game that treats sex "properly" is going to end up with an AO rating in the US because of the absurd level of puritanical outrage about boobies, which means Walmart and the like won't stock it, so it won't sell as many copies and most publishers won't want to touch it.
Personally, I'd welcome deeper relationship modelling in games, especially RPGs, but I know it's unlikely to happen as long as people are so scared of AO ratings and their impact on US sales. A simple solution is to stick it on the PC, slap an 18 rating on it and sell it primarily in the UK/Europe; job done.
Escapist wondered about this was well... (Score:3)
... and created this nice presentation that's worth watching : http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/extra-credits/2505-Sex-in-Games [escapistmagazine.com]
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And of course, I hurried to post the message above and I forgot to mention this other presentation they made about Sexual diversity in games and how sexuality can influence the story and gameplay : http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/extra-credits/2520-Sexual-Diversity [escapistmagazine.com]
Here's my take (Score:3)
Society is too 'particular' about sex. The GTA hot coffee mod is a perfect example. How dare they put sex into that game! I want to shoot prostitutes, hijack cars, murder policeman and whack civilians with a baseball bat. For some reason even the largest amount of violence is less likely to cause controversy than a sex scene.
Now, a game usually has something which makes it fun, the main part of the game. That part is treated with the most 'respect' in a way. If its a FPS its about saving the world through shooting people or whatever. If its a city simulator then its about economics or whatever. I mean you don't hear complaints about how Mass Effect doesn't simulate a space economy well enough - because that's not the main point of the game, its a sub thing.
If you wanted a game that was all about sex, I'm sure they exist, but they'd be 'adult' games, or so heavily rated 18+ that nobody can really get to them easily (see Paragraph 1). And even then, do you think there is enough of an audience who wants to play a game who's main gameplay involves having a realistic relationship with someone? Nope.
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And even then, do you think there is enough of an audience who wants to play a game who's main gameplay involves having a realistic relationship with someone? Nope.
There's an entire "dating sim" genre in the Japanese market that disagrees. It just seems to be a US thing that any game that in any way involves sex is seen as a "sex game" and the rest of the game stops mattering.
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If you wanted a game that was all about sex, I'm sure they exist, but they'd be 'adult' games, or so heavily rated 18+ that nobody can really get to them easily (see Paragraph 1). And even then, do you think there is enough of an audience who wants to play a game who's main gameplay involves having a realistic relationship with someone? Nope.
I'm pretty sure the real reason is better summed up in your last sentence than the rest of your post. Even for someone who has no puritanical hangups about sex, it's h
Because with current tech its laughable (Score:3)
Until photo realistic graphics and realistic movement comes of age not to mention other forms of user "input" then sex in a videogame will remain funny rather than erotic.
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The point of sex in thoughtful media is to advance a story and show the feelings of the characters. Certainly excellent books including sexuality exist that do not include pictures!
Grow up.
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Newsflash - a videogame isn't a book. Its a visual medium and generally the "feelings" of the characters arn't crucial the the gameplay. You know its not real, right?
"Grow up."
*boggle*
The wait is almost over... (Score:2, Funny)
Balance will be restored to Sex and Video Games with the upcoming release of Duke Nukem Forever.
just sex? (Score:2)
Honestly, games treat pretty much everything in a two-dimensional way. Every system is a dramatic simplification. Every mechanic is there to make the game fun. You don't see a whole hell of a lot of depth or complexity to any of it.
Need only look at general audience and their age (Score:2)
Experience (Score:2)
.... there is no substitute.....
Why does anybody "struggle" with sex? (Score:2)
Because your cultural/religious repressions are making you all crazy. What makes you think that sexual deprivation is any less harmful than sleep or sensory deprivation? You should learn to let the kids play with themselves if you don't want to raise a psychopath.
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You should learn to let the kids play with themselves if you don't want to raise a psychopath.
A psychopath with skills well honed on FPS games.
Age Assumptions (Score:2)
Just like with comics and animation, the west (or more specifically, North America) has this decades-long issue where it is automatically assumed that videogames are children's entertainment.
Other parts of the world, like Japan, and parts of Europe, have gotten over this and accept that those forms of entertainment can be for mature adults, so their games, comics, and animation can be a bit more risqué.
Re: (Score:3)
No "kenshin", games comics and animation are seen as childish in Japan too, perhaps even more so. They're just practical about the market for adults doing childish things, and not so repressed about sex as to panic about children being exposed to risque content. But "mature" adults don't do anything "for fun" - you might admit to having a hobby, but only because there's a safe pretense that a hobby can be for self-improvement.
I can think of a few reasons... (Score:5, Insightful)
Then, of course, you have the US market's rather curious stance toward sex vs. violence. Violence may well get you rated M; but M is hardly the kiss of death. Sex will probably get you AO, which is.(Even if the selling point of the violence is realistic depictions of human suffering and death, and the game is all about tasteful loving relationships or something; but so it goes...) Even as the market of adult videogamers expands, you still can't get a mass-market game out the door if it won't be at least tacitly accepted by the households of millions of 14 year olds(because who else is going to scream "FAGGOT HACKER!!@!!" into the microphone all night on XBL?)
Finally, there is the matter of competition and competitive advantage: For things like violence and empire building, most people either have no options, or only options that are actually pretty costly, and thus not competitors as entertainment(Well, let's see... I could download America's Army or I could join America's Army...). There is some competition from film; but that is about it. For things like sex, a decent percentage of gamers old enough to be interested in a serious in-game depiction are substantially more interested in real life. Failing that(because of technological limitations, as described above) the conventional pornography industry is arguably pretty superior to the video game industry in terms of efficiently titillating depictions, and the film and novel industries are substantially ahead if you want deep characters and romance and things.
Re: (Score:2)
Heh... (Score:5, Funny)
obv (Score:2)
2-dimensional? (Score:2)
Why do videogames still treat sex in such a two dimensional way? Why do they snigger at it, or treat it as a reward?
I believe that's one-dimensional - love-it <--> hate-it are just opposite directions along a single axis.
Guns in games (Score:2)
And killing enemies is a metaphor for domination sex.
I tried arguing this point in a Modern Warfare multiplayer game once... and *they* called me gay.
Because they're video games? (Score:4, Insightful)
Seriously, when does a video game deal with *any* topic other than in a superficial way? What part of 'game' is confusing people?
Re: (Score:2)
In Heavy Rain it was included in such a way that you felt it coming (not a pun) a few minutes before - just like in RL