Sex in games
 

Quick question: As you know, it's quite okay for games to show people blowing eachother to bits, but showing people making love is, you know, very very bad. So I'm wondering, do you think this will ever change?

it's not bad, it's less bad than showing heads blowing up and other stuff.....at least over here in germany....

and the sex scenes in fahrenheit (and gta:sa too) are laughable, i don't understand the americans in that way....

cu :)

I still don't understand why we are not allowed to do in games what a regular movie or tv series can do. We cannot show two people kissing in a game while you can see naked girls in any tv commercials.

For Indigo Prophecy in the US, we had to put a swim suit to Carla when she takes her shower, although the camera angles did not allow to see anything... This was just in case potential hackers could get access to the data on the DVD and find a way to modify the cameras or extract the model. This would be a lot of efforts, when so much porn stuff is available for free over the net...

I will continue to put sex in my games, as long as it makes sense in the context. It almost becomes a political message. I don't understand why teenagers would be showked by a nipple in a game, and not by sex in movies.

We should evangelize people and explain that games become a mature media where authors should be allowed to tell the same stories than in movies.

On the opposite, I think that game went to far with violence, especially when it is gratuitous. I am ok with violence when it tells something, when there is a reason for it on a narrative or emotional point of view. I don't intend to make games where killing is the main focus anymore. I think that this is much more dangerous than showing nipples...

I tottaly agree Dave

me too....even if i where not a german guy...

I think this is so because of the cultural stigma of video games being 'only for kiddies', pretty much how rock n roll was perceived by parents of teenagers in the 1950s. And as with each successive generation, what parents don't understand they may immediately find threatening, so they lash out. It's understandable to show sexuality and violence on t.v. and the cinema - the older generation grew up with that. It's mostly likely going to take another generation for interactive media to finally surmount that very obstacle that jazz (in the 1920s), rock n roll, and television struggled to overcome.

Hate to say it, but it would have to take the powerful generation that includes Hillary Clinton and Senator Joseph Lieberman to die off before games are taken more seriously as genuine media and source of entertainment, and as a cultural force to be reckoned with. I myself belong to the generation of gamers who grew up playing Atari, Intellivision, Pacman, and Space Invaders, and many of use already have families. Our kids are the ones who will be enjoying 'mature' games when they begin having their own families.

My thoughts exactly! It's such a bummer being in the in-between generation. We grew up with them, but those dopes in power who didn't grow up with them think they are just for kiddies, and what better way to appease your constituents then to say you're just trying to protect the children.

Where can you see naked girls in commercials? Certainly not in the U.S. Except for certain cable channels, most TV shows are heavily censored, IMO. I find TV to be too restrictive (at least in the U.S.).

Movies, on the other hand, can show almost anything they want (except for puppet sex that had to be edited in theatres). :)

Then you're watching the wrong TV shows. There's plenty of nudity and full blown sex on US TV both network and cable. I hadn't watched any TV shows for a while and I couldn't believe some of the smut(ie pointless use) that gets through today.

Television has become adept at suggestion, but I think you'll find that there's no actual graphic nudity on American network TV. (Cable is a different matter.) A lot of times people will be in various states of undress, but not actually nude. When people are naked, they are always filmed from "strategic" camera angles so you don't actually see anything.

I thought it was interesting to hear about how the strategic camera angles for Carla's shower scene were not sufficient because hackers might be able to get around it. That problem had never occured to me.

Jackie Treehorn is great.

I'll toss my two cents in the bucket.

Gratuitous sex is what gets the industry bad press. Case in point, Grand Theft Auto. I'm still not sure whether I'll have to butcher 25% of my work to make it "media-acceptable". ;_; That would be unpleasant.