Why is sex and gaming so far apart?

[Illesdan]

I think you are looking to the wrong medium as an outlet for sexual frustration. Games are just that; games. We look to them to entertain and to challenge, because if we persist, we are awarded with generally more money than Bill Gates, enough ammo to start (and end) WWIII, and the occasional unlockable character. Games have always handled sexual encounters poorly because anytime they try to shoehorn it in, it comes off unnatural. Which, I guess it should, considering you are trying to get a bunch of pixels and a voice actor to try to simulate one of nature's most complex emotions.

Don't mess with the love story, go right to the act. Okay, fine. Here's the problem with that: The game wouldn't make it to the store shelf. It's not that game designers don't WANT gratuitous sex (and, let's get it right; if you want rape, it's not a form of sex, it's a form of violence) it's that they can't get it off the drawing board if it is going to be a 'selling point' to the game.

Game developers, like every businessman on the planet, are in it for the money, not the art. Game studios have investors, and what the investors say, goes. Investors are generally a hell of a lot older and more conservative than your average game designer. Also, with having to work closely with women (you can't get around it; women game, women design and develope and they make up a good chunk of the business force) these guys don't want to look like total losers and jerks in front of THESE type of women. Trust me on this.

I do try and make my own, but i might as well rub salt into my eyes, it more fun then playing it. But difference is, im not payed to make them, and i don't get paid by people to play it either.

Funny, you have 'Gamer' down under your job profession, and yet you don't get paid to play games. Okay, now I see the problem. Put the controller down, shut off the TV, get out of the house, take some English classes, get a job in the real world AND FIND A WOMAN. You're over 20 years old for Christ's sake.

 

[DemonI81]

Sex is so taboo in video games because of lazy parents that feel the media (TV, movies, video games, etc) should raise their kids. Rather than devote any time to their children, these pathetic women go on crusades to end video game violence, drug use, and sex. Look at how they reacted to GTA4.
Raise your own kids people, don't blame media for your kids' actions. It's YOUR fault as parents if your kids are f-ed up, not video games. If you neglect to teach your children what is proper and what isn't, you'll end up with the little assh*les that copied GTA4 and blamed it on the game.

 

[crepesack]

it would take forever to code in every possible action you could do. and its just plain stupid. if i want to get shagged i go to some chicks house and shag her, thats that if i want to pretend im shagging someone i watch porn. and if i want to rip some dudes heart out... errrr i get a degree in cardio.

 

[DemonI81]

Sex is so taboo in video games because of lazy parents that feel the media (TV, movies, video games, etc) should raise their kids. Rather than devote any time to their children, these pathetic women go on crusades to end video game violence, drug use, and sex. Look at how they reacted to GTA4.
Raise your own kids people, don't blame media for your kids' actions. It's YOUR fault as parents if your kids are f-ed up, not video games. If you neglect to teach your children what is proper and what isn't, you'll end up with the little assh*les that copied GTA4 and blamed it on the game.

yea that more or less sums it up, also probably has something to do with what the parents preachers tell them to think.

Good point, how could I forget about the hypocritical, insane rantings of the church? I'm off my game today.

 

[strayjay]

Because the main stream media and the public in general still see Video games as being something that's "for kids".

 

[amodelmerol]

I dunno, it's the world we're living in I guess

 

[Archemetis]

Because Jack Thompson will have a huge fit over it and i think it would increase realism and i would play games with that in it as long as the sex weren't a selling point, just a part of the freedom. Unlike Fable 2

If I remember rightly, the DOG was the selling point for Fable 2, not the "sex" if you could even call it that.

So either you bought a different game or i've been playing it wrong...

I understand what the OP is getting at, He's trying to say that Sex is an integral part of any human life, regardless of who you are, it's basic human instinct to wanna hump something or someone.

And while some games include it in a tasteful and censorship law abiding way (ala Fable 2)
I don't think we're getting any closer to the prospect of To rape or not to rape in a video game.

(only taking that from the example you gave of shooting the raider and fucking her.)

Some games are coming close, but like I said it's not exactly close enough to touch upon yet.

 

[klarr]

because us gamers are soo creepy.

 

[Jumplion]

I do try and make my own, but i might as well rub salt into my eyes, it more fun then playing it. But difference is, im not payed to make them, and i don't get paid by people to play it either.

AND WHAT IS IT WITH YOU PEOPLE!!? i bring up a valid point and suddenly IM the horney bugger? I knew the subject was taboo, but jesus christ, people use logic, don't think about yourself playing the game, put yourself in the mindset, its how you can figure people out, think like they do.

But you're suggesting rape! We havn't even gotten off the "Show Sex in a mature fashion" boat yet and you want to be able to rape someone mid-combat just like that?

Before games can get anywhere near being able to let the player activly play in a sex minigame, they have to show that sex isn't taboo and that if two characters love each other very much that they show it through love. Until that happens, then you can make a game where rape is an option, though I'd assume it'd be slaped with an AO rating so hard and fast that you'd think someone is fornicating.

....wait, that came out wrong...

 

[AdmiralWolverineLightningbolt]

Rape wouldn't work because who is sick enough to want to rape something? It's very very very wrong.

Morals are irrelevant when talking about wants.

I see your point of view, but obviously i worded what i was saying badly, and hentai games that i hear about is just sex, so it doesn't really class in the category I'm on about.

I don't mean large, indepth, graphic detailing (mini games either) on the sex scenes, im just on about the choice, like, say i went out tomorrow, went to a bar, and picked up a girl/guy who was asking for it(the story is so far from what would happen, its becoming a fairy tale) i would have the choice to, or not to (in reality i would just come home and play on Endwars or something) and games talk about being "free choice" so why not add such things?

And England are no better, i just want a game where you really can do something YOU want and such.

You're problem is that you're hamstrung by the fact that while there are choices you can make, it's impossible to have EVERYTHING be available without having the game be stupidly large, and even then the players would NEVER find everything. The more choice you have the larger the game has to be by geometic scaling.

The devs cut out sex from the sandboxes because A) it's a hot topic that might get them in such hot water that they couldn't recover as a company from the legal fallout B)because they might catch the dreaded AO rating which would kill the game faster than if you'd said it contains 3 types of smallpox C) it's REALLY hard to have sex in a game that's not incredibly shallow.

Wouldn't an extremely large game for an RPG be a good thing? I thought the bigger those games got the better. Also, while that is impossible we should try to anyway so we get as much as we could.
A:That's not why the OPs idea is bad, that's why it wont work at them oment
B: same as A
C:true.

GTA ...this is ok but rape in games is a no no, just like killing children in games, abhorrent crimes should not be depicted in any means.

Why the fuck not?

why the fuck not?
because games arent meant to be a realistic simulation of what life would be like
they're MEANT to be fun

sex (and rape as you said) is not fun in games, it may be erotic (if you're into that sort of thing, im really not) but just go on deviantart or something

i honestly dont want to have a game that im too embarrassed to play in front of my parents/siblings/friends/self

and crimes like child killing shouldnt be shown because, again, it adds nothing to gameplay and is just weird
just like how they shouldnt show children having sex/being raped either
- some things just shouldnt be shown, at the most referenced

 

[HazukiHawkins]

I remember the girl who assists you on the Stealing Independance mission saying afterwards when talking to her at the bar in Underworld how the first thing she did after getting paid was getting laid.
Main reason games do not focus on actual sex so much is that they are not trying to be porn. Mass Effect's sex scene is minimal as it is for story/RP, not for sexual pleasure of the player. They do have sex games out there though, and actually there are tons of japanese games all about sex, though I do not know how they play.

Sex in games really should just be for the sake of story/plot/Roleplay. Fable does it fine, and really does not need to get more advanced than that and that is more fitting for free roaming RPGs.

To your point, a counter-point: Are the games of today not, in fact, avoiding the field of pornography so much that they omit details of characters' needs, relationships and sexual orientations that are necessary to establish said characters as real and genuine, and to help us relate to them?

This attitude is further accented by a disgustingly shallow grasp of romance and love as related to sex, in games. Any character who even mentions it tends to use terms like "get laid" or "find me a hooker", and generally be the kind of shallow macho jerk one wouldn't spend two minutes with after work hours ended.

Such tripe does NOT constitute a boon to role play, plot or story. It is merely a crude scribble where one would normally expect to see an exquisite work of art or vista of natural beauty. There is no reason why games cannot do what novels, plays and movies have already accomplished: portray sex as a natural and beautiful expression of love and affection.

 

[Calax]

I see your point of view, but obviously i worded what i was saying badly, and hentai games that i hear about is just sex, so it doesn't really class in the category I'm on about.

I don't mean large, indepth, graphic detailing (mini games either) on the sex scenes, im just on about the choice, like, say i went out tomorrow, went to a bar, and picked up a girl/guy who was asking for it(the story is so far from what would happen, its becoming a fairy tale) i would have the choice to, or not to (in reality i would just come home and play on Endwars or something) and games talk about being "free choice" so why not add such things?

And England are no better, i just want a game where you really can do something YOU want and such.

You're problem is that you're hamstrung by the fact that while there are choices you can make, it's impossible to have EVERYTHING be available without having the game be stupidly large, and even then the players would NEVER find everything. The more choice you have the larger the game has to be by geometic scaling.

The devs cut out sex from the sandboxes because A) it's a hot topic that might get them in such hot water that they couldn't recover as a company from the legal fallout B)because they might catch the dreaded AO rating which would kill the game faster than if you'd said it contains 3 types of smallpox C) it's REALLY hard to have sex in a game that's not incredibly shallow.

Wouldn't an extremely large game for an RPG be a good thing? I thought the bigger those games got the better. Also, while that is impossible we should try to anyway so we get as much as we could.
A:That's not why the OPs idea is bad, that's why it wont work at them oment
B: same as A
C:true.

You realize the sheer amount of work it is to add something, like randomly being able to have sex, into the game? I mean massive amounts of work would go into making the whole damn thing the way you guys seem to want it (a sort of graphic minigame) and more than likely people wouldn't buy the game, or avoid the feature completely because it'd be shallow, asinine, and "corrupt" the children who watched it. I mean look at the controversy mass effect stirred up for showing one second of bare ass in a CUTSCENE! If you had the graphic minigame, and it somehow got below the AO rating, it's sales would tank anyway because of the current mindset. And that is why the OP's idea is bad, Games are designed to make money, the moment you forget that, you loose your investors because they don't want to be attached to a project that won't show them benefit. Also the OP's idea of sexual interaction is shallow, callous (what woman would want to watch herself rape somebody? seriously?), and utterly reprehensable.

Currently as a medium, games are still trying to figure out exactly how to write at a similar level of quality as say a movie or book. It's difficult because the movie and book are both non interactive and thus ultimately require much less overall writing, as in games you have to write not only for ONE story, but you have to write for permutations in conversations... and you have to keep in mind the characters view is not constricted to one extraordinarily linear pathway (particularly in this day and age). In games it's much harder to build characters that people can like/dislike very easily because the characters interact with the PC. Example: Alyx from half life, seems almost disturbed as she tries to carry on a conversation with a floating camera. Gordon doesn't say a WORD, but somehow alyx is able to develop feelings for him... she'd probably fall in love and want to have wall babies with the great wall of china . Anyway, my point is this, Games require a different writing style than most mediums, and thus often are much shallower. In terms of relationships this means that you won't see true love stories that come close to measuring up to something like Romeo & Juliet, or Trinity and Neo even, because those would require the player to spend a lot of time talking to the partner in question to develop that relationship, and thus usually the players would rather keep going to blow shit up.

 

[Kiutu]

I remember the girl who assists you on the Stealing Independance mission saying afterwards when talking to her at the bar in Underworld how the first thing she did after getting paid was getting laid.
Main reason games do not focus on actual sex so much is that they are not trying to be porn. Mass Effect's sex scene is minimal as it is for story/RP, not for sexual pleasure of the player. They do have sex games out there though, and actually there are tons of japanese games all about sex, though I do not know how they play.

Sex in games really should just be for the sake of story/plot/Roleplay. Fable does it fine, and really does not need to get more advanced than that and that is more fitting for free roaming RPGs.

To your point, a counter-point: Are the games of today not, in fact, avoiding the field of pornography so much that they omit details of characters' needs, relationships and sexual orientations that are necessary to establish said characters as real and genuine, and to help us relate to them?

This attitude is further accented by a disgustingly shallow grasp of romance and love as related to sex, in games. Any character who even mentions it tends to use terms like "get laid" or "find me a hooker", and generally be the kind of shallow macho jerk one wouldn't spend two minutes with after work hours ended.

Such tripe does NOT constitute a boon to role play, plot or story. It is merely a crude scribble where one would normally expect to see an exquisite work of art or vista of natural beauty. There is no reason why games cannot do what novels, plays and movies have already accomplished: portray sex as a natural and beautiful expression of love and affection.

Well considering DOA is around, not ALL games are avoiding being pornograhpic, and some games sexual interest seems rather out of place. And I mean, are you saying you want Link to make passionate love to Zelda after saving her, or what? It seems things have been decently fine in this, and focusing too much on sexual relations to the really physical part seems like it would be getting off-topic. Now if you want maybe as you mentioned orientation to see perhaps the hero and his male lover to passionatly express their love for eachother be in gaming, then that is something more on the topic of homosexuality in games as opposed to sexuality in general.

 

[Cid Silverwing]

Censorship.

/thread

 

[GBlair88]

It's hard to multi-task?

 

[Meta Like That]

AND WHAT IS IT WITH YOU PEOPLE!!? i bring up a valid point and suddenly IM the horney bugger? I knew the subject was taboo, but jesus christ, people use logic, don't think about yourself playing the game, put yourself in the mindset, its how you can figure people out, think like they do.

Why would you want to figure out the mind of a criminally insane rapist? They're mad dogs. Put 'em down and move on.

 

[gorillaZboy64]

well um maybe because sex is in real life and has more pleasure