Sex in Games: Live, Clothed Girls

[Russ Pitts]

Under the heading: Girls Just Wanna Have Relevance, the first ever Sex in Videogames Conference [http://www.sexinvideogames.com/] convened last week in sunny San Francisco and generally failed to catch the attention of gamers the world over.

With speakers spanning the full range of outspoken gamer chicks - from the always ready to intimidate, Sheri Graner Ray [http://www.reginalynn.com/wordpress/] - the stated purpose of the conference was to "Explore the Business of Digital Erotic Entertainment." I am honestly having a hard time imaging a way to make sex sound less interesting.

Adult entertainment is a multi-billion dollar industry. So is gaming. So why, therefore, have attempts to merge the two failed to penetrate the market; often showing limp (if not flaccid) sales figures?

 

[Russ Pitts]

Original Comment by: cibbuano
http://moviecritic.com.au
brilliant analogy... the loud girl vs. the girl that puts out. Huzzah!

 

[Russ Pitts]

Original Comment by: Bob_Arctor

Well what do we really mix sex with?

There are loads of films and books with sex in, but they are not really for the purpose of stimulation unless they are proper porn/erotica whatever.

No-one'd be happy if you starting playing with yourself in a romcom sex scene in the cinema...

Anyway, most people wouldn't bother paying for sex games, there is the world of the net with chatrooms and porn and dogging groups, all for free.

I just don't see it happening any time soon.

Plus it won't help the nerdy teenage image and parental/adult in authority/society disapproval.

I'd rather have game's treatment of women etc like on Monkey Island. He gets the gal, yay! No need for more detail.

 

[Fairygdmther]

I disagree - we just need to have it done tastefully. I am an adult, and would like to see sex in games as in real life, but what I've seen so far is abysmal. Why couldn't we have a scene at the end of a segment, or the end of a story where the hero and heroine are back home and holding each other, kissing, and the gal slowly slides her hand down the front of the guy's pants. He moans softly and when they separate, his pants show a tented up mound in front, as she takes his hand and walks off to the bedroom. No nudity needed.

Or a scene after dinner where she is at the sink, and he comes up behind her putting his arms around her from behind, and telling her that dinner was wonderful, but now he has another appetite to satisfy, and slides his hands up over her breasts. She leans back against him and sighs, audibly. Again, they go off to the bedroom. Fade to black.

Very powerful and sexy scenes can be done without using nudity to entice the player. And there would be more realism than virtual bodies humping, which for most is a mood-breaker.

A scene of sexual flirting, with good dialogue can be much more stimulating, and allows us to use our imaginations. Remember, our primary sex organ is our brain, not our genitalia.

FGM

 

[Lara Crigger]

I disagree - we just need to have it done tastefully. I am an adult, and would like to see sex in games as in real life, but what I've seen so far is abysmal... A scene of sexual flirting, with good dialogue can be much more stimulating, and allows us to use our imaginations. Remember, our primary sex organ is our brain, not our genitalia.

FGM

I agree with you, but I'll also add that I think the sex must be integral to the plot. You could have the most tasteful sex scene ever created, and if it doesn't fit into the storyline, it's just going to seem like out-of-place fanservice. Good sex in videogames should follow the same rules as good sex scenes in movies: the narrative sets up a compelling reason that these characters should have sex at this time, at this place, and for these motives.

I think a good example is in Prince of Persia: Sands of Time. That sex scene has a purpose. Not only has the sexual tension between the two of them been simmering for hours of gameplay, but she's also trying to distract him for a deeper purpose. Without the sex scene, the game wouldn't have played as smoothly, and the story would have lost something. We need more scenes like that.

 

[Bongo Bill]

Part of the reason it doesn't work as well is because many developers, despite all the commendable trends moving away from this, still seems to be stuck with the Male 14-21 demographic in mind. That particular age group doesn't have much of an idea of what "tasteful sex" even is, or at least not in numbers that are meaningful to a marketing focus group.

Of course, if it is to go mainstream, gaming needs much more than just tasteful sex. It also needs blatant pornography - not as a single title from a single developer, but as a common practice, with a broad range of varieties of smut. Once something like that exists, it'll be easier to stop putting the stuff in regular games (because if that's what people want, they can get it better somewhere else).

 

[Ian Dorsch]

Meh.