Sex, death and games

[David]

Maybe it's just me but I think someone needs to break the ironic trend in american entertainment of love of violence and fear of sex. I certainly am not suggesting a porno game but I just find this phenomenon interesting.

[Dr. Light]

The act of creation is sacred, and should be treated with the ultimate respect. That respect cannot be given to it when it is made out to be vile, or displayed to an audience of people in return for money(i.e. a movie). The innocence of the young is also deserving of the ultimate respect, showing them gore and sex-filled movies strips them of that innocence at a young age is wronger than wrong. Be honest, now, how many "R" movies have you seen before you were 15? I lost count. Death is worthy of reverence as well, and is not something to be depicted in some el cheapo video game, or any game for that matter. Its why I like the old arcade days, the greater part of developers wouldn't even think about doing some nasty-minded, back alley game, Or for that matter some gore-filled, free-for-all.

So, my basic point is, that to put something that violates one of these sacred events of life in in a video game or movie is just plain wrong. I want to make a good game in a professional manner, and I know how I'm gonna do it.

:oops:


I am no longer going to post to this thread or read it, for fear of starting a useless argument.

[Zwilnik]

Originally posted by Dr. Light
Its why I like the old arcade days, the greater part of developers wouldn't even think about doing some nasty-minded, back alley game, Or for that matter some gore-filled, free-for-all.

Actually in the good old days, most developers thought about it, but there wasn't the graphics capability to do it. (although Soft Porn Adventure managed to do it sucessfully as a text adventure and that became the Leisure Suit Larry series , there were several rather bad graphical attempts at pornography and gore turned up wherever there was enough graphics memory for red sprites).

The big idea was usually 'shock factor' to try and get the free publicity and theoretical extra sales. However, it's debatable as to whether or not this ever worked.

There is a market for 'porno' games, although whether or not it's a viable market and whether or not you'd want to write a game for it is up to the individual developer.

Gore fests are the realm of the FPS, although a Sim B-Movie or Sim Horror Studio game might be a good laugh, if the gore was able to be bought by the bucketload and it was made with humour rather than nastiness.

[Darkgold]

When on this topic I think its impossiable not to mention GTA3. We've all (or most) played that game. And look how well it sold. When regulations are put on games to keep 'bad' stuff out of games, when a game pushes those boundries people well play the game. Thats why I think GTA3 did so well.

[Zwilnik]

Originally posted by Darkgold
When on this topic I think its impossiable not to mention GTA3. We've all (or most) played that game. And look how well it sold. When regulations are put on games to keep 'bad' stuff out of games, when a game pushes those boundries people well play the game. Thats why I think GTA3 did so well.

I beg to differ on this one too Darkgold. GTA3 sold well because it was a spectacularly good game with a very good plot, very good controls, excellent use of the media (even more soo with GTA VC's 7 hours of radio stations) and one of the few really good implementations of an open ended game system out there.

If anything the 'mature' rating on it and the reputation it got (fairly enough, although I've seen much worse) of violence and mayhem may have actually lost it a few sales, as there are plenty of under 18s out there who want to play it, but their parents wouldn't allow them to buy it. (although this wouldn't be too much of a problem in the current PS2 market, as it's current demographic is quite mature).

The violence in the game (or the hype about it) would help get some extra publicity, but the fact that the game was really good fun sold it.

[Darkgold]

I see what your saying. I've only played it once so I guess I was going off the media hype (they over do every thing.) Thanks for the correction.

[David]

The act of creation is sacred, and should be treated with the ultimate respect. That respect cannot be given to it when it is made out to be vile, or displayed to an audience of people in return for money(i.e. a movie). The innocence of the young is also deserving of the ultimate respect, showing them gore and sex-filled movies strips them of that innocence at a young age is wronger than wrong. Be honest, now, how many "R" movies have you seen before you were 15? I lost count. Death is worthy of reverence as well, and is not something to be depicted in some el cheapo video game, or any game for that matter. Its why I like the old arcade days, the greater part of developers wouldn't even think about doing some nasty-minded, back alley game, Or for that matter some gore-filled, free-for-all.

So, my basic point is, that to put something that violates one of these sacred events of life in in a video game or movie is just plain wrong. I want to make a good game in a professional manner, and I know how I'm gonna do it.

How is it somehow better to be ignorant about sex and violence? That seems to be our fundamental disagreement here... I saw hundreds of R movies before I was 15... so what? I didn't think there was anyone left who was mortally offended by the mere thought of fantasy violence, sex and language.

I beg to differ on this one too Darkgold. GTA3 sold well because it was a spectacularly good game with a very good plot, very good controls, excellent use of the media (even more soo with GTA VC's 7 hours of radio stations) and one of the few really good implementations of an open ended game system out there.

If anything the 'mature' rating on it and the reputation it got (fairly enough, although I've seen much worse) of violence and mayhem may have actually lost it a few sales, as there are plenty of under 18s out there who want to play it, but their parents wouldn't allow them to buy it. (although this wouldn't be too much of a problem in the current PS2 market, as it's current demographic is quite mature).

I have to say that despite GTA's mature rating, I didn't really think it was a 'mature' game at all. On the other hand it is, as you say, very fun :) A significant part of the fun in these games is in the violence... i.e. have you ever tried playing gta3 or sof2 with blood turned off? It's just not as interesting.

[Dr. Light]

If you had bothered to read the thread with any sort of dilligence you would have seen that I said "I've lost count", menaing that I've seen hundreds too. I was stating the way things are. As for remaining completely in the dark about certain things until we are 30 or so, no, I didn't say that either. Just wait until the young 'uns are mature enought to handle it in a um.. mature way. I wasn't starting an argument, or at least didn't intend to, just giving my moral viewpoint.


Oh well, so much for good intentions.:D

[David]

Originally posted by Dr. Light
If you had bothered to read the thread with any sort of dilligence you would have seen that I said "I've lost count", menaing that I've seen hundreds too. I was stating the way things are. As for remaining completely in the dark about certain things until we are 30 or so, no, I didn't say that either. Just wait until the young 'uns are mature enought to handle it in a um.. mature way. I wasn't starting an argument, or at least didn't intend to, just giving my moral viewpoint.
Oh well, so much for good intentions.:D

I know you lost count, but I was answering your question. I'm still confused about how that helps your point... are you saying that by seeing R movies you were somehow traumatized for life? It's not as if anyone forced you to watch them, or at least I hope not, and it doesn't seem like these movies brainwashed you into a killing machine or anything. Anyways I am still in the dark on how it's immoral to write games that include fantasy sex or violence...

[Dr. Light]

There you go again. I said that I was just stating the way things are, nothing more, nothing less. Go back fifty years and it wasn't exactly like that then, but its like that now. However, I'm sure all them cowboys shootin them varmits might have left many little children emotionall scarred. :D

Second, if you don't understand why its wrong now, you probably never will.

[w_reade]

Originally posted by Dr. Light
Just wait until the young 'uns are mature enought to handle it in a um.. mature way.

I don't want to have a fight, but perhaps the reason sex is usually presented so immaturely is because people are imperfectly shielded from it by embarrassed adults for most of their childhood, so they grow up (1) ignorant, sometimes dangerously so, and (2) with this ingrained view of sex as somehow shameful and dirty.

I would contend that sex and death are subjects with all the sacred gravity you claim, but that they have an enormous impact on human affairs, and so they simply cannot be avoided in real life. Many books and films, and even some games, treat these events with respect - and some even provide valuable insights that help one deal with them in real life. Most books/films/games don't, but that's not the point, and it doesn't especially bother me anyway.

I believe that both can be incorporated in "entertainment" without cheapening them - just because most depictions of sex or violence are trivial and thus arguably immoral, it doesn't mean that any depiction of sex or violence is automatically immoral.

For that reason, I can accept the argument against showing children some films/games (even though we'd all be serial murderers and rapists if they really had much effect), but I can't accept the argument that death and sex are entirely inappropriate subjects for children - if you present them maturely they are likely to respond maturely, and it may even help them to deal with them in later life.

Just my thoughtsÖ

[Dr. Light]

Very intelligently put.

However, I would like to point say that the ten minute, precariously detailed loves scenes that have no relevance to the plot or storyline found in many movies is more what I'm arguing against. Forest Gump, for instance, is a good example of how to display it maturely. Backdraft, Desparado, and Enemy at the Gates however, show how it can be done wrong and make it seem dirty. To further the example, Enemy at the Gates was a true story, but they didn't have to do all that to get the point across.

[Shivers]

i have no argument at all with sex. like a fart, sex is funny and part of life, laugh about it, but it is still part of life. i also agree, it is very pointless in many cases.

Violence on the other hand, is also part of...life...if you will, but is also often unnecessary. violence, i think is fun to fantasize about, and also a reality sometimes so my argument is that violence should either be abundant in very unreal (not the game) sort of ways or as part of life. As much as some people would argue, GTA does not realistically, portray daily life in a city. I would find it acceptable to have armed robberies sometimes in a bank sim, or large battles in a city builder/rts. but having a game/story revolve around this is kinda silly, in my opinion of course.

[David]

There you go again. I said that I was just stating the way things are, nothing more, nothing less. Go back fifty years and it wasn't exactly like that then, but its like that now. However, I'm sure all them cowboys shootin them varmits might have left many little children emotionall scarred.

Second, if you don't understand why its wrong now, you probably never will.

I know that's what you were stating... did you have a point? Before accusing me of not reading your posts, it would help if you read mine. If you've watched countless sex and violence-filled movies, and you turned out to be totally anti-movie-violence and anti-movie-sex, doesn't that sorta defeat your whole argument? Nobody is forcing kids to watch violence and sex, and they're not interested in it until they're "ready" for it. If you don't EXPLAIN why depicting violence and sex in entertainment is wrong now, then you're right, I probably will not understand...

[Carlos Camacho]

Maybe it's just me but I think someone needs to break the ironic trend in american entertainment of love of violence and fear of sex. I certainly am not suggesting a porno game but I just find this phenomenon interesting.

This thread is about game design right? If so, all replies should be on the original post.

David, I think there have been some "fringe" games during my years that used sex to sell. Remember "Strip Poker" series? Leisure Suit Larry, that beat'em up by Access (before they started to make Golf games). Also during the "multimedia age", we had games like "Virtual Vixens" and many other porn-based games. (Still do for all I know.)

Thinking of how I would incorporate sex into your game "Black Shades"... Like "The Bodyguard", I get to sleep with my boss? For me, I don't need to have sex in games because it is something that is easy to do (get ;) ), but handling a rocket launcher and shooting it down the street is something I can't do. (Well, I could go to Cambodia to one of those many camps and do that for a fee.) So, my point here is I think a large group of gamers want to play games that allow them to do something they can't do in real life.

That said, if you could build a game like The Sims, but improve the AI to such a level that it was like watching a real soap opera, then I would become interested. As "director", you have to use enough "spice" in your show to keep your ratings, but not too much that you lose sponsors or get people protesting. So, sex/love/relationships could be incorporated into a game like that, but I don't think I want to watch my two Sim characters "doing it" for 2 hours. Sure, the graphics at some point would make it like watching a video, but watching it "is lame" IMHO. (Kind of like the difference in watching sports and doing sports.) Perhaps, when technology gets to the point where you are ONE of the Sims (ie VR) then I think that genre will take off and be HUGE. You know, your typical FPS based on James Bond, and as Bond you get to do all the fun stuff as well. (Most likely even get to pick your co-stars.)

Back to the subject. All of you must come to Japan to get your eyes open about game dev and design. There is a HUGE genre of games aimed at teen age boys, which are like "cartoon adventures" (based on anime). Magazines devoted to it, and everywhere you look, naked manga babes. Some kids are really into it (some adults too I would guess.) I admit when I first saw them I was amused but it wore off quickly. There are also other type of harder games using other genres. They do in fact sell (in very often, in the open.) Footnote: Japanese TV and media are just as open. (ie walk into a video store go to the new videos section and see "Harry Potter" box next to "Marry Potter" box.)

Most interesting to note is all of this ultra-violent and porn games, comics, TV in Japan doesn't really raise flags. (Only the insert of sublimanal stuff that make 1/2 the kids in the country puke do :0 ) However, as sometimes it is exported to the US, it has to be "censored." Take "Sailor Moon" cartoon of yesteryear. Lots of taboos for US TV.

One negative side to these type of games in Japan. The majority of them portray females as:
a. Sex slaves
b. Under 15-year old nymphos
c. E-Cup bust size (often combining a and b)
d. Under 12-year old innocents
For many grade school, teens and young men, this builds a "wrong image" of females in their minds. We had a little taste of this with Lara Croft, but that was pretty tame compared to what is in Japan. They make females like that because a.) the devs are geeks themselves b.) their target market are geeks.

I recommend you read the position paper by "Women Developer's Association" (something like that) on sex, porn, advertising, etc in the business. Their president once said, "We aren't against women that show their femenity (spell?) in games, but are against the silly usage of it. For example, an RPG has a dwarf, thief and female warrior. The men are all wearing plate armor while the female is wearing a wire-thin bikini. Why would she do that?" Not exact words but you get the gist.

Well, I will sign off by saying -- Make the games you want to play. That said, keep in mind if you want to reach the largest possible market (or ever get a sweet heart deal like Brian), shoot for the "norm." Unless your market is Japan. ;)

Cheers,

[Dr. Light]

I've watched movies that containted sex and violence, but have always, and still do, fast-forward those parts. I'm a big stay-at-home movie watcher.:D

O.K., I'll give this a shot. Maybe I cracked down on you bit. My apologies. I recently had a big disscussion over at mac.the-underdogs.org on swearing(don't ask), and most guys just can't make or take a formal argument. It got irritating, and I didn't want to go in-depth here for fear of igniting something.

And no, originally I did not have a point. I was just giving my moral outlook.

Formal argument:

EXTREME violence (i.e. ripping someone's heart out), and pronographic material have no place in video games. Because, if it is wrong in real life, then why should it be right in fantasy? Furthermore, the act of creation is sacred and beatiful, so why should it be made vile by some back-alley game or movie?

Now, I'll be softer on movies because of w_read's argument, but a video game is, in many respects, not like a movie. It is interactive, and in many cases is not an art medium like a movie is.

[Darkgold]

Originally posted by Dr. Light
...and in many cases is not an art medium like a movie is.
:argh: :envy: Woohoo...wont even go there.
(cause I'm sure someone else will)

[David]

This thread is about game design right? If so, all replies should be on the original post.

David, I think there have been some "fringe" games during my years that used sex to sell. Remember "Strip Poker" series? Leisure Suit Larry, that beat'em up by Access (before they started to make Golf games). Also during the "multimedia age", we had games like "Virtual Vixens" and many other porn-based games. (Still do for all I know.)

Thinking of how I would incorporate sex into your game "Black Shades"... Like "The Bodyguard", I get to sleep with my boss? For me, I don't need to have sex in games because it is something that is easy to do (get ), but handling a rocket launcher and shooting it down the street is something I can't do. (Well, I could go to Cambodia to one of those many camps and do that for a fee.) So, my point here is I think a large group of gamers want to play games that allow them to do something they can't do in real life.

Haha true it doesn't make sense in a lot of games. I was thinking of games that do it more tastefully like Silent Hill 2 and Metal Gear Solid, where characters have some sort of sexual identity without needing huge breasts or skimpy clothing or anything like that. I don't think games need MORE of it, but I think in the games that try to have it (like Tomb Raider et al.) should try to make it less superficial and just incorporate it as part of the character's personality. However I do NOT think games should be based around sex or violence... i.e. when a game suddenly becomes non-fun when you get rid of the "adult content" (i.e. soldier of fortune) then you know there's something wrong.

That said, if you could build a game like The Sims, but improve the AI to such a level that it was like watching a real soap opera, then I would become interested. As "director", you have to use enough "spice" in your show to keep your ratings, but not too much that you lose sponsors or get people protesting. So, sex/love/relationships could be incorporated into a game like that, but I don't think I want to watch my two Sim characters "doing it" for 2 hours. Sure, the graphics at some point would make it like watching a video, but watching it "is lame" IMHO. (Kind of like the difference in watching sports and doing sports.) Perhaps, when technology gets to the point where you are ONE of the Sims (ie VR) then I think that genre will take off and be HUGE. You know, your typical FPS based on James Bond, and as Bond you get to do all the fun stuff as well. (Most likely even get to pick your co-stars.)

You're right. I'm not suggesting explicit sex though, I mean if they really wanted to make an 'adult' version of the sims they could just replace the 'adopt a child' command with 'make love' or something and blur it out like they do everything else, or just fade to black, or whatever. I wouldn't find it interesting at all but right now it just seems... cheesy.

Back to the subject. All of you must come to Japan to get your eyes open about game dev and design. There is a HUGE genre of games aimed at teen age boys, which are like "cartoon adventures" (based on anime). Magazines devoted to it, and everywhere you look, naked manga babes. Some kids are really into it (some adults too I would guess.) I admit when I first saw them I was amused but it wore off quickly. There are also other type of harder games using other genres. They do in fact sell (in very often, in the open.) Footnote: Japanese TV and media are just as open. (ie walk into a video store go to the new videos section and see "Harry Potter" box next to "Marry Potter" box.)

Most interesting to note is all of this ultra-violent and porn games, comics, TV in Japan doesn't really raise flags. (Only the insert of sublimanal stuff that make 1/2 the kids in the country puke do :0 ) However, as sometimes it is exported to the US, it has to be "censored." Take "Sailor Moon" cartoon of yesteryear. Lots of taboos for US TV.

One negative side to these type of games in Japan. The majority of them portray females as:
a. Sex slaves
b. Under 15-year old nymphos
c. E-Cup bust size (often combining a and b)
d. Under 12-year old innocents
For many grade school, teens and young men, this builds a "wrong image" of females in their minds. We had a little taste of this with Lara Croft, but that was pretty tame compared to what is in Japan. They make females like that because a.) the devs are geeks themselves b.) their target market are geeks.

I recommend you read the position paper by "Women Developer's Association" (something like that) on sex, porn, advertising, etc in the business. Their president once said, "We aren't against women that show their femenity (spell?) in games, but are against the silly usage of it. For example, an RPG has a dwarf, thief and female warrior. The men are all wearing plate armor while the female is wearing a wire-thin bikini. Why would she do that?" Not exact words but you get the gist.

Well, I will sign off by saying -- Make the games you want to play. That said, keep in mind if you want to reach the largest possible market (or ever get a sweet heart deal like Brian), shoot for the "norm." Unless your market is Japan.

I agree with all of that, I am not a huge fan of the superficial silliness of ridiculous bikini armor (like in diablo) but I don't really mind it either. Whatever floats their boat :) But I think it's kinda silly how in most games the characters have no relationship at all with each other unless they are mortal enemies. The characters are all totally emotionally asexual. I mean even Lara Croft as far as I know has never had a boyfriend. I don't want them to show them having sex or making out or anything but would it kill them to have some kind of personality? The Indiana Jones movies are a good example of adding some kind of relationship just to make him a deeper character with more believable objectives.

I've watched movies that containted sex and violence, but have always, and still do, fast-forward those parts. I'm a big stay-at-home movie watcher.

O.K., I'll give this a shot. Maybe I cracked down on you bit. My apologies. I recently had a big disscussion over at mac.the-underdogs.org on swearing(don't ask), and most guys just can't make or take a formal argument. It got irritating, and I didn't want to go in-depth here for fear of igniting something.

And no, originally I did not have a point. I was just giving my moral outlook.

That's alright. I could discuss swearing also :) I think it makes emotions more plausible when used prudently (i.e. if the main character accidentally cuts off his hand) but is ridiculous when just randomly inserted everywhere (i.e. Blood Rayne).

EXTREME violence (i.e. ripping someone's heart out), and pronographic material have no place in video games. Because, if it is wrong in real life, then why should it be right in fantasy? Furthermore, the act of creation is sacred and beatiful, so why should it be made vile by some back-alley game or movie?

Now, I'll be softer on movies because of w_read's argument, but a video game is, in many respects, not like a movie. It is interactive, and in many cases is not an art medium like a movie is.

Ah ok. I think extreme violence is alright sometimes when it's sort of tongue-in-cheek like in Mortal Kombat, where they just have it for its over-the-top absurdity. I mean maybe I just have a sick sense of humor but I thought it was funny to rip my friend's leg off and club him to death with it, and so did he. It gets old after a while though.

I think it's fine to be able to do what ever you want in a game, because real-life morals don't apply. The characters simply don't exist. If someone wanted to make a game where you pointlessly torture someone... fine. I personally wouldn't play it, but I don't see anything inherently wrong with killing or otherwise harming non-existant people. I generally prefer games with some sort of justification... like you've been hired to protect someone, or the people you shoot are trying to destroy the world, etc. but games like GTA 3 are fun and have their place.

[David]

Woohoo...wont even go there.
(cause I'm sure someone else will)

Hehe I guess I might as well go there... I think games are essentially interactive movies, and are just as much art as any other discipline.

[monteboyd]

I agree with David, I think it should be more acceptable to include sexual relationships in games if the story requires it. The actual sex doesn't need to be depicted, but sexual interactions form quite a basis for a lot of human relationships and if it would help explain a character's motivations and actions it would be appropriate.

To give an example, in the game I am working on now the player is a Vampire Hunter but also a Dhampir (half vampire half human). To make the player a little bit special in the story I wanted to give them a unique birth/conception. So I hit upon the idea of making her human mother being turned into a vampire by her vampire lover right at the point of conception. The question then is how to depict this scene tastefully in an intro sequence.

On the note of ridiculously dressed female warriors in games - I've been designing the heroine of this game with practical considerations at the forefront of my mind. Her armour will be light but sturdy, probably treated leather. Certainly no bikinis, loincloths or short skirts!

[David]

I was just playing a game that's a lot like that called Blood Rayne (http://bloodrayne.com/loband/index.html) , have you tried it? Although that one has some rather silly outfits :cool:

I suppose you could put them under a cape or a blanket for that scene... I generally think of 'tasteful' as a scene where little kids who don't know anything about sex wouldn't be able to figure out what's going on. Because if you already know about it there's not much to hide is there.

Or just make it really dark except for their heads or something. I don't know :???:

Oh yeah and if this is based on blood rayne I could offer some suggestions but that would be in a different thread.

[w_reade]

If we're up for a formal argument (on a strictly polite and academic basis):

Videogames and moviesÖ sorry, but you can't apply a blanket definition and say that movies are art and games aren't. Some movies (and some games) are mindless trash with nary a redeeming feature... but some games (and some movies) are works of sublime beauty on various different levels. The addition of interactivity, in my opinion, gives games even more potential than movies as a medium of expression.

I admit that no-one has produced a mature game about sex, but I firmly believe it is possible - after all, this is a medium in its infancy. Humanity has been writing and painting for millennia, and we can do those pretty damn well; the moving picture is more recent, but we've still had some practice at it, and can turn out some fine works.

Games are barely toddling - in movie-evolution terms, we're not that far beyond the zoetrope. We're approaching the point of diminishing returns with eye-candy, and when people are no longer wowed by intestine-perfect disembowelments (ETA: SoF5 :p), I expect there to be surges of creativity in wholly unexpected directions. At the birth of film, a train rushing towards the screen was amazing enough... but after a while people started to demand plot, characterisation, truth, beauty and all the rest of it. Compare right now, where you can shoot people and the bodies flop realisticallyÖ this is great technical craftsmanship, but pretty soon it'll stop being impressive, as will photorealistic direct-your-own-porn-movie games, when they come along (which they will...)

Perhaps it won't happen for a while, but gaming (as a medium) has the potential to produce great art. I don't know how; I don't know when. I do have faith that the power is there, and that some human being somewhere will understand and use the interplay of game and gamer to communicate on the same level, with as much force, as any great artist or composer.

Many artistsin many media are communicating feelings about death or sex with their work - some explicitly, others less so. To say that these fascinating and eternal subjects are inappropriate for this artform hobbles creativity needlessly.

Some things may be inappropriate in certain circumstances, but it's hard to say precisely what. I'm just going to quote you, if you don't mind...

Because, if it is wrong in real life, then why should it be right in fantasy?

Because fantasy would be dull, and bear no relation to any real-life situation, if the only choices for any character were morally "good" ones. Without conflict of some sort, there can be no drama, and human conflict (as we all know) makes for very good drama. This is often played out with a hero/villain situation... but if your villain is not allowed to do anything villainous, then there can be no moral justification for thwarting him.

A similar argument applies to player actions - in Fallout, I can be "good" or "bad", and have to reap the consequences, and that lends my actions some moral weight. However, if certain actions in a game are necessary to continue, then they have no moral weight - it's the equivalent of doing something under duress in the real world. These necessary actions may mean a game is more or less "tasteful", but they cannot be intrinsically immoral.

I have no argument (other than commercial) for "pornography" in videogames, but I don't wish to forbid "explicit sexual content", which is not necessarily pornography, and may have artistic value somewhere down the line. As for extreme violence, my argument is again that is has inspired (and sometimes been depicted in) great artworks in various other media, and so should not be automatically branded unacceptable.

Just more thoughts... ;)

[edit - oof, 5 posts late]

[monteboyd]

Originally posted by David
I was just playing a game that's a lot like that called Blood Rayne (http://bloodrayne.com/loband/index.html) , have you tried it? Although that one has some rather silly outfits :cool:

I suppose you could put them under a cape or a blanket for that scene... I generally think of 'tasteful' as a scene where little kids who don't know anything about sex wouldn't be able to figure out what's going on. Because if you already know about it there's not much to hide is there.

Or just make it really dark except for their heads or something. I don't know :???:

Oh yeah and if this is based on blood rayne I could offer some suggestions but that would be in a different thread.

Hope this isn't getting too off topic, but I guess we're still talking about game design. My game would be quite different in style to Blood Rayne (hadn't heard of it before you pointed it out) and quite different in plot, mine being set in a made up world etc. Having a Dhampir as a hero/heroine isn't a very original concept, but it makes for great ambiguity of intention.

As for the depiction of the sex, I was thinking it could be dark and only a head shot. Afterall, if he's going to bite her neck you only need to see their heads right? The problem is making it look passionate without making it go too far.

But maybe it wouldn't be necessary to show it at all? Maybe it could be told through simple narration. Either way it is introducing sex into the story not just for the sake of it. I think so anyway.

[Baldock]

Originally posted by Dr. Light
<snip>...
Just wait until the young 'uns are mature enought to handle it in a um.. mature way. I wasn't starting an argument, or at least didn't intend to, just giving my moral viewpoint.
<snip...>
I would agree, I think I'm going to try and keep R rated movies away from my son until he is at least 14 then I think I'd like to watch them with him just in case, might be handy to have an older person around to hit the stop button. I remember watching .. I think it was day of the living dead when I was 12 and it messed up my sleeping pattern for weeks.. maybe even months.
I might be a bit naive about this since I'm only new to fatherhood.

[skyhawk]

Originally posted by monteboyd
As for the depiction of the sex, I was thinking it could be dark and only a head shot. Afterall, if he's going to bite her neck you only need to see their heads right? The problem is making it look passionate without making it go too far.

The deepest shadow holds the most pleasure. After all, a woman has a black void between her legs that no man can ever reach unless she lets him, right? In short, have it dark and reveal a thigh or so in well light and then fade, then depict her from the collar bone on up (naked of course) while the vampire guy slowly makes his move (the biting of the neck ). Follow that by whatever you want. Sex for cinematography (sp?) sakes such as an intro doesn't have to be realistic, just believable enough to get the idea.

[skyhawk]

Originally posted by Dr. Light
Furthermore, the act of creation is sacred and beatiful, so why should it be made vile by some back-alley game or movie?

I have disagree. Creation is not "sacred" or "beautiful." Otherwise all animal would be sacred and beautiful. But sadly, the platypus is kind of ugly. And creation CAN NOT be sacred if ANYTHING on the planet can do it. Amoeba's can create via asexual reproduction. Is that beautiful and sacred? What makes our species any more sacred at performing the same acts as bears and deers? Now if you extend yourself beyond procreation, and have a platonic view on love and such, then okay. But then you also see no reason for marriage. Plato's theories on relationship and marriage are well known. If you don't know, the simple answer is no. If you can prove to me through reason, that creation is sacred and beautiful, I will withdraw all my arguments and let this drop and test your latest version of your game :D

[Carlos Camacho]

David, said "him a deeper character with more believable objectives." What are ya talking about? You mean Lara doesn't have believable objects? :D

Oh, objectives. Got that wrong. Sorry.

Ah, I think many of you want to see a game made by a mind that combines "Taratino, Kubick, Geiger and Barker." I recall a pretty greasome game that was very Geiger-like. Can't recall the name and sorry for the wrong spellings.

"The deepest shadow holds the most pleasure." I just picked myself off the ground. When I read that I burst into laughter and 100 Japanese businessmen turned to look at me. ("Oh, the American has lost it now, he will surely pull out his hidden gun and kill us all.") That sounds like some movie tag line.

Anyone see or read "Ghost in a Shell"? That manga/anime artist is interesting and I admit, I wouldn't mind seeing more things like that. (When my wife isn't home of course.)

I'll give you a good example of using "this" stuff right. Look at Defender of the Crown when the "lady" moves towards you. Breathtaking, even for us non-geeks. Also, "Rising Sun" I think it was called, by the same developer.

>I think I'm going to try and keep R rated movies away from my son until he is at least 14
:rolleyes:
I think your father said the same thing, and his father and so on. ;)

>I think it was day of the living dead when I was 12 and it messed up my sleeping pattern for
>weeks.
That's nothing, try living in an old New England home that had a death in it by a previous owner and one night having a cold breathe touch your neck. To this day when I sleep I have to cover my neck because I'm afraid of vampires.

>Sex for cinematography (sp?) sakes such as an intro doesn't have to be realistic, just
>believable enough to get the idea.
The example here is Physco's shower scene. One of the most scariest moments of a movie. A.H. didn't show the knife going in and out like today's movie, but use his skills to scare ya buts off.

Question, suppose we have a game like the WarCraft series, or any RTS game based on dark-ages/middle-ages/fantasy/northern Europe. Would the game be better or worse, if the AI sends in his bandits into your town to "To crush you, see your men driven before him, and to hear the lamentation of your women! " All that vividly played out on the screen. Hmm..

[David]

When I was about seven I decided there's no point in being afraid of monsters or murderers when you're sleeping because if it's there it'll kill you if you're awake or not so you might as well ignore it. Unless you have a gun under pillow and want to stay away all night aiming at the door.

[inio]

Very interesting discussion, but I'm estimating that Goodwin's Law will assert itself within a couple days ;).

I went searching for a relevant quote from someone who... well, we'll just say he's more related to uDG than one might guess. I figured: "sex, violence, 'sacred events', story telling... he has to have said something relevant about this at some point". Unfortunately the most relevant thing I could find was a rant on the stupidity of the current television ratings system. feh.

[griffin239]

I agree with the original post and to it I add:
AMERICA IS SICK.
because
SICKNESS SELLS!

The popular media does not want the average human to feel
normal about sex or nudity, because then their advertising won't work anymore,
there will be zero seduction to it.

Moral zealots do not realize the harm they do with their
closed minds. They stand up against the naked human body
and the act of human bonding but do little to nothing
to curb the enviromental, and mental pollution of the world
as it threatens to fall apart everyday while they are distracted
by nipples and penises.

Since we are game developers I say:
Hey if you can invent a game, totaly out of the norm, a game
about meeting and bedding the opposite...or same sex...more power to you.
If you can make a game like Picture me Pickachu..only with hot bodies...I'm all for it.

I'd love to boot up a game version of Girls Gone Wild or Mardi Gras on Bourbon Street..if it wasn't trash..which most sexual oriented games devolve into. I've seen a number of these on the shelves at, are you ready for this? VIRGIN Megastore. Go figure. I even borrowed two from a friend, horridly lame things made in Director, there's more sexuality in a split peach than those games.

I'm all for playing naked fare competitive sports as opposed to watching some brute pound
the life out of some bouncing breasted teenage ninja girl.

I would love to be able to get the cable turned back on and let my
daughter see naked people telling jokes, the news, or anything not too ..penetrating....
rather than flip channels to find 1 million rounds of ammo being fired
or some serial killer being hunted, or a rape or sexual harrasment trial Or the glory days of war told by the king of Crack Cocaine Oliver North on the History channel!

The year is 2003, its time to GET OVER THE HUMAN BODY.
Get human priorities straight.


"Nothing to see here people, move along"


Of course....there is a flip side...I'm American and I LOVE MY VIOLENCE, like I love my Coffee and Cigarettes and all my other vices which I've had in my hand since I can remember (all of them).

But given a chance to make something different, something non violent, something with sex that didn't exploit anyone in particular...that would be a great challenge.

Thanks for bringing up the topic.

[griffin239]

Some other notes about girls in games.

Given the option to play male or female character, I take the female, its just easier on the eyes to sit through 40 hours of game play with a cutie than it is to look at another Duke Nuke 'em butt.

Parasite Eve portrayed the female as just a girl in her regular everyday detective clothes, she was sensual in her face and motion in the cut scenes, which carried out through the rest of the game.

Lara Croft's wardrobe's are sensible, except in the snow levels..there she is running around in shorts. People can comment on her chest size all they want, but these are the same people who would comment on a real woman's real large chest, which would make that woman feel degraded.

Final Fantasy characters, good and evil and NPC, perfect example of not taking things too far any direction. Also there is a love interest in the plot lines, which totaly makes that game and its cuts scenes moments of emotion and not just, oooh eye candy. I forget the girls name (I renamed them all when I find them), but when she's about to bite the bullet in space after 20 hours of play..I was on the edge of my seat....better than a soap opera.

A note on Lara Croft, she doesn't have relationships, if you ever read her biography from Tomb Raider I, or developers talking about her, you would know that she is essentially insane.
Thats right, she may look hot, but spending a few hours with her would scare your manhood back to boyhood. She might make a good match for Bruce Wayne for a night or two, but then he'd have to go into a hunt/bondage episode because she is hell bent on stealing things.

Other fine female characters are the girls from resident evil. No blatantly sexuality there, even when you get the spiffy cute wardrobe bonus.

Ok now for some game characters that one would not expect.
But these characters actually have sex, or so I assume.
Not in game. but outside the game...they are people
Brittany Spears, Spice Girls, and the Olson Twins!!!!
Oh lets not forget Julie Strain of FAKK 2.
(the comic of which that is based on had extreme graphic sexual situations)

Last but not least, that wanton wench, Ms. Pacman, wearing nothing but a bow!!!


oh if you want to portray sex in game without being explicit, base it on reality, and use the
same methods that film uses.
Eye contact, closeness, pillow talk, high contrast and shadows, switch from a kiss, to the sun rising over the sleeping lovers, or a romantic embrace the pushes the lovers out of the scene, or some other tasteful technique. To show the vampire conception mentioned above, use sound and innuendo...that is what the ENTIRE bite of the Vampire is all about...its about Penetration.
So think about it...the beating heart (vampires don't beat..only hers), you could show the rushing blood, the woman revealing herself -cut- his naked back, the dilation of her pupils...darkness, her sighs, his breathe, a kiss, a silhoutte of the pair entwined, then the bite. Study a few traditional vampire movies, like from Hammer films, you'll see how they were trying to get the audience aroused.

I do believe at this point in time if you were at any point to show graphic nudity or sexuality, even for a 15 seconds, that is all the recognition your game will ever get, all it will be reviewed on.
Sad but true.

[w_reade]

All the discussions about how to show vampire sex tastefully are worthwhile, but in the end you're still just trying to depict sex tastefully in a movie. Just because the movie is part of a game doesn't mean it isn't still a movie - as skyhawk pointed out, this is essentially just sex for cinematography.

In my mind, the important question is how to work sex into a game, with all the interactivity (etc) that implies. But then I don't know how anyone might do thatÖ

Skyhawk, you may have a point about "sacred and beautiful", but if you just substitute the phrase "really important and special, from our privileged human point of view", then the sense doesn't alter much. From a human point of view, the creation or destruction of another human is a big deal... call it "sacred" or not, you can't deny that there's a lot more emotional charge in a film of two people shagging than there is in a film of two deer shagging.

I suppose it's that these subjects have the ability to mess with our heads more comprehensively than many othersÖ and reasonably enough, Dr.Light wants these subjects to be taken seriously. I personally believe that it's good to trivialise and make fun of everything (in moderation), on general principles... but when I'm not doing that, I can agree that sex is, in some objective sense, more important than (say) bowling.

I think I had a point there for a while, but it's slipped just beyond my grasp. I'll shut up for a bit now.

[Dr. Light]

What? A programmer, and game programmer, an artist, at that, cannot find the beauty and wonder in all of creation? Look all around you, everything you see is a marvel, whether you think it was created by some infinite being(s) or evolution or even aliens from another planet! For instance, imagine if we could unlock the secrets of DNA encoding and storage. It might make your hard drive about the size of a walnut(at a wild guess), and you'd never have to buy another one, ever. The encoding technology alone would probably allow us to never buy another hard drive anyways. Can you not see the beauty which surrounds us? The way in which it sustains and regenerates its enviroment, habitat, and creatures within it? What is NOT beautiful and marvelous about it, rather, is the question one should ask!

And:
Man is special among all this specialness because of his intelligence. Can a dog or a dolphin construct a computer or a skyscraper? Since all of creation is beautiful and wondrous, man holds an even greater position among the animals, yet at the same time is dependent upon them as well for food, work, and even companionship.


Formal argument:
All of life is beautiful, it bears no resemblance to the actual meanness which we have assigned it or think of it with. Reflection upon its wonders and complexity provide enough proof for anyone to be satisfied with.


And, Skyhawk, you ought to know that the only good reason that I am replying is that you are such a great beta tester. :) As for the latest version of Microbian, I am working on another one, so don't waste time with that last one.


w_read: yup, that was in fact meaningful.

[Joseph Duchesne]

RTTP: If you game needs sex or it won't be good, don't make it
If you think sex will make your game better I probably won't like your game

About gore:
There is a cretian point whare it is absurd but I really don't have anything to argue about this. Gore should have a control in the control pannel.

Gore level 0 guys fall over dead and fade away.

Gore level 1 guys get hit, blod sprays and they fall in a heap with a puddle of blood aka wolfenstein 3D

Gore level 2 Guys get blowen into a million bloddy limbs and bones AKA Duke Nukem X

conclusion: I don't need sex to make my game good, Thats what the plot is for.

[Mark Levin]

Originally posted by Dr. Light

Man is special among all this specialness because of his intelligence. Can a dog or a dolphin construct a computer or a skyscraper? Since all of creation is beautiful and wondrous, man holds an even greater position among the animals

"For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins, because he had achieved so much- the wheel, New York, wars, and so on- while all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man- for precisely the same reasons." --Douglas Adams

[w_reade]

If I thought that sex, or violence, would somehow improve a game just by their presence, it'd probably be a crap game at heart anyway. But if they were relevant to the situation, then there shouldn't be any dogma keeping them out.

If you feel it's ok to have different levels of violence-porn, why not different levels of sex-porn? Entirely sexless plots tend to feel a bit empty (just like entirely conflict-free plots), when real humans are involved... so why not a Porn level system? Not a good name, indeed, but:

Porn level 0: chaste kiss and fade to black

Porn level 1: heavy snogging and occasional visible nipples

Porn level 2: gruesome closeups lasting far longer than necessary

After all, this caters for all players' desires in the same way as yoursÖ and I don't see how you could argue with such a system, unless you hold that seeing an erect penis is somehow worse than seeing a shower of guts. If so, please explain how...

[Joseph Duchesne]

Better Idea: No sex!

The common conclusion that sex=love is seriosly flawed. Would you want to marry a person that wouldn't want to marry you if you couldn't have sex? No! You love a person for their personal traits and sometimes their flaws. a good plot shoudn't have a sex=love=happyness. It should have love and hate on more than "I love you because you look good and are Good in bed" It should have to do with their personality.

I don't like games that focus on sex. Thats the way I am and always will be. I see no reason why Porn level 1: heavy snogging and occasional visible nipples
would make a game better.

[w_reade]

My point is that I don't see how Gore level 1 will make a game better either. They're equally gratuitous from one point of view, and equally relevant from another. I tried to copy your gratuitousness-ratings as closely as possible:

x level 0: essentially-abstract signifier of x

x level 1: essentially-realistic portrayal of x

x level 2: over-the-top and utterly gratuitous portrayal of x

And I'm certainly not saying anything like sex = love. However, sex is an important and wonderful part of love, and you can't just cut it out of the equation. You don't have to include sex, and you probably shouldn't unless you have a good reason to do so... but it seems a bit silly to suggest that such an important aspect of being human should be inadmissible, and I certainly can't accept that there will never be a good reason to include it.

[edit - spelling]

[griffin239]

Man is special?
For his war, his genocide, his backstabbing, his pollution, his rape of the world and the life on it?
His obsession with his own image and his own actions? For his lust and his greed?

The invention of the computer...is a dirty horrible thing for this planet, Silicon Valley is the #1 source of toxins in California. Recycled electronics is a noxious carcinogenic thing being carried out by the absolute poor of Asia...involving acid and fumes for the little bit of gold and silver in it.

Man is no more special than cancer.

I'm sure Cancer would argue the point that they have more specialness than the animal whose life they devour, if it could.

Ants are more important than human beings. Humans spread disease and ants clean the world of bacteria. Bees are more important than humans, without them humans could not take a single breath. Birds like wise.

Humanity is a plague.

Perhaps its time to make games that turn the tide..play a virus wiping out this species instead of the usual reverse theme. Play an alien race bent on wiping the dirty biped from the planet.
Play a woodland animal being hunted by the ape-ish menace.
Play a rainforest trying to grow in the face of Beef production and herbacide sprays and gasoline firewalls and drug wars.

Perhaps we ARE only a game.


Praise the Developer. Oh mighty Keystroker of The Kosmos!

[Dr. Light]

So, man doesn't have a special place, he will one day die, and does nothing AT ALL that is worthwhile? Well then lets just all kill ourselves since there is nothing to look up to! See where it goes?
For heavens sake man, get a grip! There IS more good in this world than evil, but its always the evil that ends up on the news!:rolleyes:

[Hog]

Originally posted by w_reade

In my mind, the important question is how to work sex into a game, with all the interactivity (etc) that implies. But then I don't know how anyone might do thatÖ


how about giving the player exact instructions on when to be cuming and when to be holding back...

seriously now, too much sexual content heavily distract the player from plot, gameplay and any other elements of the game (must not even be that much to be distractive). You would not put that into a game unless it is the thing your game is about (in that case it would be just cheap porn).

[w_reade]

No, no, NO! Sexual content != cheap porn, dammit.

Why should a game about sex be automatically assumed to be cheap porn?

Books, films, and paintings have all been created that deal with sex maturely, tastefully, and meaningfully, and don't feel the need to coyly hide the facts of the matter. Why should sex in a game be different? I feel that games have as much potential to illustrate the human condition as well as any other artform, and so they should be able to deal with the same breadth of subjects as the other artforms.

If I were playing Strip Tetris, that would indeed be distracting and pointless, but that's because there's no reason to have sexual content in tetris. That doesn't mean that sexual content is always just a distraction - you might as well say that visible nipples on a painting of a nude distract the viewer from the arrangement of the pigment-smears and the beautiful framing.

[Sta7ic]

---WWWAAAYYY OT---

Dr. Light, I had an interesting set of conversations with a Mormon guy a year older than I am at college. He seemed bright enough, but had a serious stumbling block with his inability to decipher the purpose that he had been put on this world for.

"Why am I here? What am I supposed to do here?", he asked.
"'cus you are, and you're supposed to find a woman and make two kids. Other than that, you're on your own," I replied.

He took this badly, under the impression that I thought we were, tangent to your conclusion, supposed to literally make to kids and twidle our thumbs until our race became a plague.
This is not the case I was trying to bring up. Instead, humans can do whatever they want, from hunting deer to designing nuclear power plants (which the U.States NEEDS more than those ****ing coal and oil plants) to exploring distant worlds. This is a free-form play that has rules known as Physics.

Games are fun because they allow us to bend those rules. We can lug around enough guns and ammo to level a tank batalion, and jump around like a mutant fairy. We can rule the universe, beat the undead Nazi abominations back to their resting places, save the girl, or bring peace to Middle Earth. It's not about what we're SUPPOSED to do, it's what we WANT to do.

My aquantence didn't get that, and he's probably wondering why he can't get a job with good grades, an AA, and A+ certification.

I think sex is overrated, as-is. ::thwaps c_dev::
IMO, keep it in the stories, unless you want to sell USB briefs with your "game". Which would just be groan-worthily wrong.

-Sta7ic Matt

[skyhawk]

if one truly believes that all sexual content is cheap porn... oh man, their honeymoon is goign to be quite hilarious. I can see them getting into bed. The guy puts on his cheesy music. "Bow-chicka-wow owwww" the wife immediately gets into position and they go on for 8 hours. The guy being a jackhammer and the wife being the toughest cement block there is.

Also, we must distinguish between sexual content, and stuff that is just sensual. Just because it gives you a boner, doesn't mean it is sexual content. Any game with female characters should include at least a little sensuality. Even if it is just a beautiful face, and alluring look, or a nice skirt that shows legs up to ya! :D Delicate women need to be portrayed delicately, and I find most delicate women to have a strong sense of sensuality around them, whether they mean to or not.

[skyhawk]

Originally posted by Sta7ic
...unless you want to sell USB briefs with your "game". Which would just be groan-worthily wrong.


USB... briefs.... *jots down* this place is GREAT for ideas :D

[acedia]

If you can think it, you should be able to show it or talk about it. The key ingrediant for making serial killers isn't permissiveness, it's repression. It's the *portrayal* of sex and violence that we're talking about, not the actual acts - and as such, when used in media they are strictly devices used to facilitate meaning and metaphor. Death doesn't always represent death, sometimes it's change, loss, acceptance. Sex can mean union, abandon, consumption - sex can even mean death, and vice versa. Just like the use of, say, mythological imagery, Marxist subtext, cultural icons or even simply the color blue... if we are to be critical of them, it should be in the context of whether they help or hinder the artist's expression. Separating them ad-hoc from their intended function and calling them 'immoral' or something, just seems like lazy thinking. There is plenty of violence in the Christian bible... sex too. It's there to add consequence to the choices of man - are we to fast forward through it?

Now, granted, things become a bit more complicated when we get to games. To use the terminology from a few years ago, every other artform is 'push' technology, whereas games are 'pull.' A filmmaker can take responsibility for what's being expressed by her work because she maintains complete control over its images. This 'control' is actually what 'art' is (or at least how we have always classically thought it to be). What happens, though, when that control is given over to the audience/player? Sex and violence can serve valid functions in art, but the *function* must come first. They're tricky to incorporate, not because they're immoral or whatever, but because people tend to react to them hysterically/emotionally, and therefore unpredictibly. When I see Nazi gibs coating the walls of Castle Wolfenstein, I see good triumphing over evil, but obviously Senator Joseph Lieberman experiences something completely different - And when games become sexually explicit, hoo boy, imagine the communicative chaos then! If you include the facility for sex in a game, what results when the player can use it for whatever function they want? At the very least, bad art.

The question isn't, should it or should it not happen, because it's inevitiable. The question is, will it be done eyes-open and responsibly, or not?

IMHO :)

[griffin239]

Right, the addition of sexual content would become the focus of the game.
Even if it was only rumored to be at level 400, players would be only
concerned with getting to that level to see the sex.

Return to Castle Wolfenstein has a nude patch.
Great, the Nazi Leatherettes are naked, and the game play
remains the same: kill them all. Something is very wrong with
a person who needs to kill nude women.

Virtual sex is an eventuality though, via force feedback and other
advances in technology. I did a robot mind control expirement this past spring,
you can see how a set of VR goggles and the mind control head band could
open up player opportunities to "hit the right button", with force feedback
stimulation...this is a whole new genre of game waiting to be explored.

Pornography plays an important role in repressed/depressed societies.
Our Mommies are offended by it, or so they say, and so we are taught
to treat it as a spectaclur taboo, which only gives it strength.
Obviously there is an explosive market for it, it never goes away.

Anyone from India here? I know they have a totaly different outlook on sex
than the entire world. Would be interesting to hear that point of view.

[skyhawk]

Originally posted by griffin239
Virtual sex is an eventuality though, via force feedback and other
advances in technology. I did a robot mind control expirement this past spring,
you can see how a set of VR goggles and the mind control head band could
open up player opportunities to "hit the right button", with force feedback
stimulation...this is a whole new genre of game waiting to be explored.

If I am correct, didn't the subject, man or mouse, just keep pressing the right button to keep getting pleasure till it died. I know the mouse pleasured itself to death. But wouldn't a human do the same thing?

[Hog]

Originally posted by w_reade

Books, films, and paintings have all been created that deal with sex maturely, tastefully, and meaningfully, and don't feel the need to coyly hide the facts of the matter. Why should sex in a game be different? I feel that games have as much potential to illustrate the human condition as well as any other artform, and so they should be able to deal with the same breadth of subjects as the other artforms.


and of course we can't resist dealing with such material "maturely", "tastefully" and "meaningfully", or at least thinking so...

and aren't we when we call them forms of "art" just coyly hiding the facts of the matter?

Freud went as far as saying that anything, may it contain sexual material or not, actually depicts our hidden desires.
how crazy,
though i think it is justified to say that anything that contains explicit sexual material actually does depict our desires.

[Sta7ic]

::groans at skyhawk::
Just remember to use force-feedback -- no reason to make a half-assed product (no pun intended).
And send royalties, I'm a poor college student :)

-Sta7ic

[griffin239]

Skyhawk the expirment you are thinking of involves cocaine, not sex.

[acedia]

Originally posted by c_dev


and aren't we when we call them forms of "art" just coyly hiding the facts of the matter?

You can't eat them, so we can't call them 'food'. :) Art is a 'quantitative' term, not a qualitative one.




Freud went as far as saying that anything, may it contain sexual material or not, actually depicts our hidden desires.
how crazy,
though i think it is justified to say that anything that contains explicit sexual material actually does depict our desires.

An interesting point, but Freud never meant 'desires' so much as 'drives', and he was speaking about that which we produce sub-consciously, rather than deliberately. Plus, I think you're being a bit overly-literal. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, perhaps, but an artist can choose to make the cigar anything they want, that's the whole point. The sex scene in THE ACCUSED is pretty explicit, but I would hardly call it a manifestation of the desires of the filmmakers.

[w_reade]

c_dev, art based on sex is not the same as pornography. Art tries to communicate, pornography intends only to titillate. If you're putting sex into a game to try to make the player's experience of the game deeper and richer, I'd class it as artistic. If you're putting it in just so the player has some titties to look at while they're playing, that's pornographic.

You can only accuse me of "coyly hiding" behind the definition of art if your contention is that "if it involves sex, it can't really be art". If that really is your viewpoint, I suspect I'll never convince youÖ however, if your argument is simply that most sexually-explicit games will not be art, then we're basically in agreement, and our only difference is that I believe non-tawdry sex games are possible, but you don't. In defence of my viewpoint:

When the first caveman scrawled a naked cavewoman on his wall, was that cheap porn? Perhaps. Certainly there exist many pornographic paintings. But to decide on that basis that all paintings of naked women are just cheap porn is logically flawed - even if Titian didn't turn up for millennia, the potential for non-pornographic nude paintings was there from the start. Likewise with games, now. I don't think anyone here has any real idea how the potential will be tapped, but it takes a woeful lack of imagination to deny that the potential exists.

Still, all this is just my view - everyone, just make and play the games that please you. If you wish to cut yourself off from all art that involves sex, it's no skin off my nose - in the end you're only impoverishing yourselves.

[applekid]

Whew, this topic should be restricted, but it's a good debate worth bringin up.

Sex in games isn't far off at all where you'll see some... more realistic and long scenes:

A game called BMX XXX (http://ps2.ign.com/articles/377/377283p1.html)

The PS2 version (it's also available for GameCube and X-Box, uncut) has a little censorship but that's beside the point.

Games just seem to be using violence and sex and anything else controversial for their games to be sold. It may be the fact they're trying to attract the age group that buys the most games, but I think games are losing their fun value. Luckily, this game got a pretty weak rating. Games still need to be fun to sell well. I want a game with a good plot, then graphics, then good sound. If you're gonna have sex in games, it should be more like movies. A little kissing builds up but the audience never gets to see too much. But it shouldn't so extreme that you got a whole class on family life in one scene. But really, do ALL people have sex after their first date? Whenever I see a movie with some romance, there's a good chance they'll be in bed and enjoying themselves. Maybe I'm too young and I don't know about this.

Violence on the other hand...
We're getting close to a point where the gore and blood you see flying is almost undecipherable to real life. Graphics cards have come so far, reality and virtual reality are about to be synonymous. Not so close, but it isn't far off. Soon enough, headsets with a virtual gun will be the norm and bring the realism even closer. Heck, one day we may see technology that allows us to feel pain.

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe there will be a game that will bring more controversey. Then it probably will be accepted. Look at rock and roll music, look at rap, look at GTA, look at Eminem. They're accepted now. Even though I hate to admit, these controversies are probably going to be accepted.

Remember this though: Whatever man creates, there is always something wrong with it. Man's inventions aren't fullproof. Everything and anything can damage, hurt, kill, yet also be able to fix, repair, and help. Yet man also has the power to control what is invented. But will man do the right thing before or after the damage or help that comes with it?

[Carlos Camacho]

how about giving the player exact instructions on when to be cuming and when to be holding back...

When I read that, I immediately saw the playscreen in my head. On the right is your score and a meter. Like in the game Snood, the meter goes up when you do badly, when it reaches the top the game is over. So in this game the meter is the male sex organ and doing bad makes the player "reach the top"... fade to "white". Ok, so what is in the main screen? Something like Snood? Some type of activity which you need to be able to control your urges? Many interesting examples based on retro-like games. My first thought was Bersek...

Little man (or women character) runs through a maze. Enemy naked people give chase or sometimes have their own fun. (please use better AI!). Your character either needs to look away, or throw clothes (birth control or anti-aspirin) at the nudists. If you happen to see the nudist the meter goes up (or if you can't stop their indicent acts). Stay too long on a level, and <fill in voluptous person's name/macho stud's name> super nuder enters the maze and gives serious chase. Perhaps like Robotron, not everyone is a nudist (enemy), so you might have some kids, priests that you need to save during each level. I think some nudists should also throw some things at you like sexy underwear, porn mags, etc. Get hit and your meter goes up a bit. Some levels have hazards like TVs showing porn movies (simple looping 4 frame anim is enough) and you will need to deactivate them. Perhaps some levels have a second floor. Female enemy wearing dress happens to be on the 2nd floor while you are on the 1st, your meter goes up. Another level is in a video store so you will need to pick up all the AV movies and throw them away. What other elements can we put in this game? Remember it must stay true to its roots which are Berserk, Venture, Robotron, FoodFight. Sounds like a fun game and a bit like a Wooden Allen movie (when he made fun ones). I'm not so crazy about looking at a male's sex organ so I hope we can make it a simple thermometer type. (But I'll volunteer if the screen size is 1800 x 1600 pixels if nobody can be our model.)

Anyhow, we don't see many games like this at all at the shareware level. Anyone willing to give it a try? I'm sure you Metal or TNT programmers could BANG out such a game in a day or two.

Figures it takes a thread with sex and violence to make all the lurkers come out from the dark. Hey David, "Don't feed the lurkers!"

[Quicksilver]

I would make that, but if my mom ever found out she'd shoot me. Plus my cutscenes would have to have very hot actresses which are very hard to get.

[kemalyun]

I could make that game without any problem, but someone has to provide those gfx stuff. And of course, send me the models for "testing" before I agree to include them in the game. By the way, I like asians most, but blondes will be ok, too.

[w_reade]

Originally posted by cosmid
[everything I've been trying to say and more]

Thank you. I'm heartened that someone else understands where I'm coming from. It's amusing in a depressing sort of way that the thread is degenerating into a design doc for really rather a juvenile game... but I suppose I must defend their right to make whatever they like. Perhaps it's a faltering step towards what we're looking for. Anyway, changing the subject a bit:

Drawing some inspiration from the generative art discussion, I feel that one could see the artistic quality of a game in two ways - EITHER that the artwork is an individual player's passage through the game's parameter space, and is hence a collaboration between the developer and the player, OR that the artwork is the totality of the game's parameter space, which is created by the developer and simply experienced by the player.

I suspect interactivity may be a red herring here - after all, the value of art is firmly rooted in the eye of the beholder already; any appreciation of art depends upon the mental filters through which we perceive it. There is potential for us to engage with a game on a deeper level than is possible with a film, but on balance I feel that the art is essentially in the game, not the interaction between game and gamer.

Sublime experiences can come from the interaction, but I'd argue that only the most breathtakingly wonderful of play-paths could count as art in their own right - and even when they do, they are entirely derivative works. The player is only expressing himself within the constraints set by the developer, and the bulk of the credit must go to the developer.

And finally.. bad art still exists, and probably won't ever go away. Currently, I'd say that an awful lot of modern conceptual art is bad (or at least poor-quality) art because (1) without the illustrating text, it is often utterly meaningless to the average human being, and (2) even when the artist is actually trying to communicate some message, it's often utterly facile (like "racism is bad". No shit, Sherlock.).

More random thoughts...

[Feanor]

Whomever deleted my reply on this thread, it was my understanding that such deletions were to be accompanied by an explanation in email or a reply to the thread in question stating the deletion happened and why.

I believe that I made some very important, if disturbing, points. The fact that they are disturbing was not sufficient to remove the post. Reality is often disturbing, and it is the role of responsible people to acknowledge that.

Possibly someone misunderstood my analysis, and took it as some kind of recommendation for how to depict sexuality in games on par with violence? If so, you should have read more carefully. It was a stark examination of how they DIFFER, pointing out why sex is generally a USELESS subject to depict in games.

Amazing how blase we are about some things, and how prudish about others, most notably about unfiltered reality.

Sincerely,

FÎanor

[Feanor]

Originally posted by cosmid
why can't sex be PART of a game like it is in film. as an important PART of plot and character development. because human relationships are interesting.

The main reason is that "relationships" in games are not interesting, and we don't currently have the technology to make them interesting, sexual content notwithstanding.

I think a lot of people are getting distracted by sex as subject matter and forgetting about the nature of gameplay. You could have a game featuring disembodied sex organs and some people might in fact enjoy the humour, absurdity, and arousal such a game might awake, but it is a fact that they would get bored of it quickly if the gameplay was identical to some other game(s) they had already played.

Sex is a theme in the context of computer games, nothing more. Like war, outer space, swords and sorcery and sports are themes. Games generally break down pretty simply, and are very abstract except for the themes, which merely serve to create a semiotic context to allow for role playing of some kind.

Let's face it -- for all the time and effort it takes to get good at, say, being a sniper in a FPS game, you're really just moving your mouse a certain way to track a moving region on the screen with the scope/cursor. The particular images used, or the complexity of the simulation governing the timing of your "shot", are all parts of the theme. They are in no way a reflection of reality, except in the wish fulfillment of the player, and/or the social context of being good at tracking moving regions on the screen with a mouse.

"Killing" in a game is really just a matter of successful targeting, in terms of accuracy and/or number of "hits". Because the mechanics of killing a real person have a passing resemblance to this (in a simplified, cinematic interpretation), this is straightforward to apply as a theme to mouse-tracking mechanics. Sex has little or nothing in common with mouse-tracking mechanics. Maybe some pathetic attempt at working the (twelve? thirteen? remember the Friends episode: "five, two, one, five, six, seven, five, seven, seven, SEVEN, SEVEN!!") regions of a partner's body.

However, I'm sure you could find other gameplay mechanics used in different sorts of games which would jive better with sex, either the physical act, or pursuit. But it would all be very flat and very boring, unless you were somehow rewarded with sexually arousing artistic content.

As for forming sexual relationships with virtual partners, you will have to wait a long time for this to be possible. The extent of relationships in games right now is whether you use a person (ask them questions and get information) or frag them, and maybe steal from them before or after fragging them. NPCs are so far from being like people -- we can't even simulate ants properly, let alone the moods of a person. There was an attempt at a sexually explicit (if cartoony) MMORPG. I wonder how that's working out.

[Feanor]

acedia, you make many interesting points, which I would like to respond to:
Originally posted by acedia
Now, granted, things become a bit more complicated when we get to games. To use the terminology from a few years ago, every other artform is 'push' technology, whereas games are 'pull.'
This sounds an overly simplistic contrast. A lot of games involve little more than the requirement to follow through a number of mechanical behaviours in order to get the next chunk of art pushed at them. Is this your definition of "pull"?

To me, many games, in fact, have very little 'artistic' content at all, despite so much media content. What I mean is that most of it is neutral, made up of icons of little or no symbolic complexity, and are merely representations of simple things: enemy/opponent, doorway, measure (e.g.: weapon, money), counter-measure (e.g.: armour, health), focus (e.g.: ball in sports games), objective (goal, exit, treasure). Again, these are manipulated mechanically by the player.

It is difficult, but not impossible, to use sexualized icons, but they will lose their emotional power very rapidly, except as a simple source of arousal. However, sexual arousal does not seem to inspire one to play the game more diligently, whereas violent themes seem to inspire conquest urges which do intensify gameplay. If I may be suggestive, sucess in games inspires one to play more, whereas success in sexual fantasy inspires one to go find something else to do (like play games).
A filmmaker can take responsibility for what's being expressed by her work because she maintains complete control over its images. This 'control' is actually what 'art' is (or at least how we have always classically thought it to be). What happens, though, when that control is given over to the audience/player?
See above -- players really don't have any "control" over the artistic content in 99% of games, except over the rate at which they can reveal new areas of the game (new/better opponents, new maps, new measures/counter-measures). What they do control is their own strategy for gameplay, which has nothing to do with the artistic content at all.
Sex and violence can serve valid functions in art, but the *function* must come first. They're tricky to incorporate, not because they're immoral or whatever, but because people tend to react to them hysterically/emotionally, and therefore unpredictibly.
That's a whole other thing that I don't want to get into, since that's an issue of how games are interpreted in a social context. It is difficult enough just to match up sexual content to game mechanics in a non-stupid way that people would also not tire of quickly.
When I see Nazi gibs coating the walls of Castle Wolfenstein, I see good triumphing over evil, but obviously Senator Joseph Lieberman experiences something completely different - And when games become sexually explicit, hoo boy, imagine the communicative chaos then! If you include the facility for sex in a game, what results when the player can use it for whatever function they want? At the very least, bad art.
When I see gibs coating a wall in Wolfenstein, I think about the use of the stencil buffer. ;) Good and Evil, eh? I guess I don't believe in those so much anymore, so I usually just think of "Me triumphing over Enemies (read: obstacles) which are in my way, with special effects reminiscent of movies". Like I said a few months ago in the "religious content in games" thread, games are all about ego and self-serving behaviour. Goodness, righteousness, and social justice run against the central purpose of playing games.

Lieberman is just a reactionary of the simplest kind. He is obsessed with depiction and cannot tell the difference between a theme and the real thing the theme borrows from. Even children know the difference.
The question isn't, should it or should it not happen, because it's inevitiable. The question is, will it be done eyes-open and responsibly, or not?
Art and media are static -- responsibility has nothing to do with it. Teach people to think and they will laugh when you show them lies, and pay attention when you show them truth.

[Feanor]

Originally posted by cosmid
the other point about the game player changing the meaning/function hangs of the artist intent thing as well. also can the player not be an artist too, the experience of the game is the combined input of game developer(s) and player(s). maybe the player can express themselves and learn something about themselves in this way (sort of like the personality test aspect of b&w)
The word art is too restrictive. You are talking about PLAY, and new means to play, i.e.: gameplay. Black & White extended gameplay somewhat, by giving you the opportunity to actually affect the behaviour of game entities in a non-trivial way. Furthermore the range of consequences of actions was a continuum, instead of a crummy state machine (or, worse, a terrible win/lose situation). Most games have some continuous gameplay, but it's trivial (like, what order do you shoot people, do you shoot them all).
is there such a thing as bad art anymore
You can't call something good or bad unless you define good and bad in that context. You can't call anything anything unless you define your terms. If you do, you can. But you can't make other people adhere to your definitions if you use such painfully generic terms. Better to rate things in narrower terms, just like they rate games on gameplay, sound, graphics, originality... you could do the same for any artwork if you wanted to.

[Sta7ic]

...
I'm not going to consider what Carlos and company brought up. My idea was bad enough, though it did have a point.

I don't think that we're likely to see many games that reasonably incorporate sex in a mature fashion, mainly for the lack of personality in most games. As Feanor covered, most of computer game art is utilitarian, driving towards the points of the game. There's a profound lack of interesting level design in so many games that it's almost sad. By comparison, waltz through the old Marathon games (where the modders did insane things with such a limited engine), or try your hand at Splinter Cell (which feels like an actual set of places). As for actors, the situation isn't much better. How many actors have tatoos? Scars? Distinquishing features?
With barely recognizable places and people in games, how do we expect to convey the less than tangible elements such as mood, with dark shadows and lots of meat to smear against the walls? What about the feelings of the characters -- without which, you can barely have a dynamic (in-game) relationship -- beyond the voice actors and obvious movements (innkeeper's daughter in Majora's Mask)? Scripting? Those games get very old the second or third time back through.
For that matter, how do you tell the agents what your agent is feeling, more scripting? You can kill a tree with the design notes on a reasonable system to convey emotion that the engine understands, here.

...the graphics tech is improving, that much is for sure. However, there could be a lot more work deepening the experience of many games out there.

-Sta7ic Matt

[w_reade]

Feanor - almost everything you say is valid, in the context of gaming today. However, I feel that we've barely started to explore "gameplay space", and (as you say) somewhere therein we may well find a mechanism that does work appropriately with sexual content.

When that comes along, I don't think it'll necessarily need "rewards" to avoid being flat and boring - if the mechanism is good enough, just playing could be intrinsically satisfying. A game that is nothing but mouse-tracking around virtual erogenous zones is unlikely to be the answer, because apart from anything else it would be dealing with purely physical sex, rather than sex in a human context - which is what's really interesting.

The point is that sex shouldn't be just a theme - it's an important part of life that intrigues, fascinates and affects (almost) everyone in the world, in a huge variety of ways. Taken on its own it may not make for a very good game, but if it's embedded into a game in the same way it is in life, I think it could make that game far deeper, richer, and more believable than an equivalent which utterly ignored sex.

The technology may not be up to it for years to come, but that doesn't mean it's an unworthy goal to pursue - in fact, quite the opposite, for the reasons I have outlined above.

[edit - dammit, late again]

[Sta7ic]

I suddenly find it rather amusing that so many around here are confused with the desire of the newbie designers to create RPGs. I mean, look at the bad influence this thread is having on those poor designers!

Cosmid, your idea might be doable. Talk David into taking 'Shades, making it a bit more like Deus Ex, and mixing a femme fatale into the MC's chair instead of an undentable Denton. I sure you can find a good way to charm this into him. <g>

-"Sta7ic" Matt

[w_reade]

cheers :)

I'd be interested to hear what you have to say about the what-is-art thing - email me if you want to pursue the discussion sometime.

[Feanor]

OK, we definitely have different opinions about what is possible with computers when it comes to creating synthetic experiences.Originally posted by cosmid
i think you mean that they are not interesting to YOU
Fair enough, probably understood by most people, though. We could convene a panel on relationship complexity, believeability and computer simulation of such... but I think the characters in games are dull and flat, and can only be sketched with lots of textual content. My favourite computer game characters are Leela and Durandal from the Marathon trilogy, but I was never under the illusion that I had a relationship with them. (I respond to your B&W stuff later.)
no, the point i've been trying to make is that sex shouldn't be the theme but a component. eg sex could be a component of a spy/james bond type game. to say that in the context of games sex can only be a theme is completely close-minded and illogical.
Here's our difference of opinion. I argue that the entire James Bond-type milieu is a theme, including sub-themes. My thesis is simple: most computer games are mechanical in nature, and themes (usually quite literally in the form of icons/skins) are applied on top to hide the mechanics in various ways, using symbols and story.

There is nothing especially German about the Nazis in Return to Castle Wolfenstein. Evidence that in Germany, where Nazi symbols are illegal, they replaced all the parephernalia with completely different symbols with no affect on gameplay. They could have been the blue monkey brigade and shot paint gun pellets at you, and had no effect on the gameplay, but only on the fantasy that the player invented in his or her imagination, in an almost pavlovian response to Nazi icons.

Similarly, try as you want, you cannot simulate sex or anything like it with a mouse, keyboard, and a video screen -- or any other intermediate specialty device you want to name. You can only paint sexual icons (and playback sexual sounds/voices, whatever, same deal, different sense organ) on an abstract mechanical system. I'm sorry, but there's no there there. It's an ILLUSION.

I am not criticizing, btw, just offering an interpretation. There are many possible interpretations, after all.
like I said in a previous post, yes game UIs are clunky at the moment, and the best you could probably get would be a combat-like control system which would probably just result in random key hitting by the player. a console controller would be better then mouse tracking here.
Sorry, same thing, different buttons.
no, i think the creature ai in b&w was getting quite close, i felt a real attachment to my creature ... my creature also had a relationship with the creature of another god
I'm sorry, but this all existed in your imagination only. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I love RPGs and pretending to be a holy Paladin saving the world from evil, and that the enemy characters have real motivations and lives and all that.

But as a game developer (in training), I cannot allow myself the luxury of believing in the fantasy that I am creating. The goal of making a good game is good gameplay, and you have to see it sans paint job or you will fail to make a good game.
[QUOTE][B]

[Feanor]

Originally posted by cosmid
no, the alignment in b&w solely affects the appearance of the land, creature and your hand, it is like a personality test and purposefully does not and will not affect gameplay.
Sorry, but I wasn't talking about alignment per se. I just meant all the things you could ask your creature to do, and the different types of miracles you could teach it, and the flexibility of the tribespeople to do different things and the infinite variety of ways this would cause the tribe to grow and change. Small input, big output.

Peter Molyneux commented in an article somewhere about the need for very specialized, careful multi-player code to ensure that things did not get out of synch between two computers, because a tiny little difference (his example was throwing a tribesperson at a hill, and he either falls left or right) could make massive changes in the development of the world.

Sex in computer games won't be interesting until you have characters with the same dynamic range as the entire tribe and island as found in Black & White.

[Feanor]

Originally posted by w_reade
However, I feel that we've barely started to explore "gameplay space", and (as you say) somewhere therein we may well find a mechanism that does work appropriately with sexual content.
Oh, sure, the future is unlimited. But keep in mind that as we know games today, the gameplay is designed and driven by the intentions of the creators. When the players decide what is fun, you must give them a lot of flexibility and cease to impose what it means to succeed or win. That requires, I think, a simulation system. I am all for those! (Erm, not sex simulators, per se. :oops:).
A game that is nothing but mouse-tracking around virtual erogenous zones is unlikely to be the answer, because apart from anything else it would be dealing with purely physical sex, rather than sex in a human context - which is what's really interesting.
Yep, and I hope to help design the simulated personalities which will be used in these scenarios, but it's still a ways away, because human characters have to talk to you, or you'll know they're dumb. No one has a good conversation engine yet (please don't tell me about Alice, which is crap, or cyc, which has no personality).
The point is that sex shouldn't be just a theme - it's an important part of life that intrigues, fascinates and affects (almost) everyone in the world, in a huge variety of ways. Taken on its own it may not make for a very good game, but if it's embedded into a game in the same way it is in life, I think it could make that game far deeper, richer, and more believable than an equivalent which utterly ignored sex.
I think the answer, aside from waiting for that mythical day when A.I. is good enough, is to keep with themes and window dressing, but to do a better job with them. Suggestion is more powerful than simulation, in horror and sex. We are affected by our own feelings, and the role of entertainers includes the job of tapping into the feelings our audience already has, and using them without their knowledge. You don't show sex or even seduction, but you show the setup and the results, and maybe a bit in between, and suddenly your character is having an affair with an NPC. Vice City has managed to do prostitution in this way, so maybe we can up the ante a bit, and add some more sophistication, or at least mystery and glamour.

I still want more simulation elements, but the blending of player-driven games and fixed game design is touch and go. I got sick of the story in Vice City and decided it would be more fun to practise mugging, vehicle jumping, taxi driving and other side games which had more freedom. I would have done the missions eventually, maybe, if I still had access to the PS2. Because if you don't affect the game world, you lose interest. There are no significant consequences in the world of Grand Theft Auto III, except in the main missions.

What makes gameplay interesting is the consequences: the choices that you cannot take back (without restoring from saved). For sex to have a valid role in games, it must lead to consequences which affect the game world and your character's status in that world, and hopefully more than a simple win/lose outcome. In the Sims, getting married has consequences for your character. You can have kids, right? Maybe you have in-laws. Maybe you get a disease. Maybe you make new friends who get you a better job.

We can do this in games using current technology, but we can't simulate the relationships, only suggest them. The player is still going to be mostly looking to progress through the game, mechanically, but that's ok, because that's what computer games are (mostly) about. As we can do more simulation, yeah, it could change, but I'm thinking that it probably won't, in most cases. The basic storyline will exist from the beginning, and you will be pushed through it, with the illusion that you are making decisions. And that's how players will like it.

[w_reade]

Feanor - yes, absolutely. I agree with everything you've said. The technical challenges are insurmountable right now.

But they'll never be overcome if people don't try to push the boundaries. Doubtless there'll be a number of embarrassing failures along the way (Alice, cyc? :p), but I think that's an acceptable price to pay.

I also think we would do well to remember the sheer pace of change, and how completely it can confound our expectations - remember Doom was bleeding-edge state-of-the-art gaming less than ten years ago (December 1993). If I'd magically shown you Halo then, would you have believed it would be out in under a decade? I doubt itÖ Likewise compare Populous with Black & White - a similarly breathtaking evolution over a very similar timespan.

I could be wrong, but people are nibbling at the edges of those insurmountable technical challenges as we speak, and I think there's an awful lot of potential progress for gaming to make over the next couple of decades. Even if this debate seems a bit cloud-cuckoo now, I think people will be discussing the issues with some urgency in the next few years.

Sigh... we're just ahead of our time ;)

[monteboyd]

I don't see why it is ahead of our time to incorporate sexual relationships into the storyline of a story-driven game. If it is appropriate. I'm not talking about the actual act of sex being part of the gameplay, that would be difficult to do without it becoming ridiculous. After all, the act of sex can appear quite ridiculous when examined outside the heat of the moment.

In the real world, sex is a part of almost everyone's intimate relationships and it does play a part in them, I would argue a big part. It doesn't have to be explicit in a story. Say you have an RPG, it could be set in any era/world, if your character has an intimate relationship with someone you would assume they would be sexual partners as well. Then if your partner (or you) indulge in a little infidelity it would be a great way to explain a twist of allegiances in the story. It can create complicated urges and emotions which may influence the choices you have your character make.

Is this sort of example so far out of the realm of today's story-intesive games?

[w_reade]

It isn'tÖ the ahead-of-our-time bit was meant to refer to simulated relationships, not scripted ones, and was a bit tongue-in-cheek, anyway.

In my view, your suggested plot device is perfectly reasonable, in any sense you care to name.

[griffin239]

I had a game ages ago, MacBabes or something like that. Which involved sex toys, and/or bondage action. It was funny the first time I played it, and the first times I showed it to people. But really it was a novelty, kind of like all the sex games and toys at any adult "novelty" shop.

If the purpose of a game is 100% comedic entertainment, then incorporating sex would definately be a path to take. As was said before, sex outside the heat of the moment, is pretty funny.

Strip poker games have been popular since graphics have been on computers.

It has been my experience that first time Poser users tend to put the models in sexual situations.
Both Men and Women have exhibited this phenomena.

I would imagine a 3D app with Kama Sutra presets would be popular.

I even found bondage gear for Poser...and I think I saw an X rated comic made with poser!
I'm pretty sure I did.

No matter how ridiculous any game concept involving sex is, there will be people who download it and enjoy it. Maybe we should invite Larry Flynt, Hugh Heffner, or Bill Clinton to the forums for their viewpoints. :) Or rather for their sponsorship :D

[Carlos Camacho]

why can't sex be PART of a game like it is in film. as an important PART of plot and character development. because human relationships are interesting. For example if the character in your game forms alliances with other characters and enemies with some. if any of these alliances became so close they involved a sexual relationship would that affect your loyalty. could you be a classic femme fatal and seduce men, get them to do your bidding, and then dump 'em.
I'm not really so convinced that films do a good job. Seems like most Hollywood movies throw in the sex for the sake of having something in the movie. (Worded wrong?) Maybe 9 1/2 weeks is a bit different or Fatal Attraction.

I like the second idea. I could see a game based on Empire building that used those ideas. Like perhaps on what happen with "Mary of the Scots", and various lovers. One thing I haven't seen much in games is the use of forming alliances by marriage, which was often done.

[ricuse7]

Don't you guys understand this has already been done. there have been shareware games created with large #'s of options of how to have your character look. I happen to know three people who just look at their created figure from their computer terminal then start drooling, and decide it is much better looking and better at responding to their whims than their girlfriend so deciding that the CG girlfriend would be better. Then sequecially dump the real girlfriend.
Which makes no bit of difference they shouldn't have had the girlfriend in the firstplace. If you want to create say some game such as the sims and have it have the options of clothes or no clothes, (Which has been done and many people are choosing to download the created patch for no clothes...) who is to stop them. This is not only a moral issue with the person but a moral issue with the computer (that is if they start thinking...) So I think we have no hope except for making the game world more real to help those who are in serious need of mental reprogramming and slide them into "the world" of say... an anime called "Hack Sign"...?

along with annother point about having USB powered and run boxers, this is going to get a little... Sick!
(Glad to be the bringer of obvious news)

[Feanor]

cosmid,

Maybe I was talking too different things at the same time, without realizing that. I tend to do that, and it's confusing. Mostly there's the player viewpoint and the designer viewpoint, and I think I was trying to make points about both, since a lot of the discussion here was drifting back and forth. I should have separated my messages.

I guess in any creative work, there is a duality in being both a creator and a fan/patron/lover of the artwork in question. I do believe that there is artistry in games, but it's very different than in other media, though the similarities with fiction and movies can be confusing.

I think I'm frustrated by the problems of integrating gameplay and story, and I think people understate the conflicts. The discussion of sex in games just brought that to the fore in my mind. Sometimes I think I'm coming full circle in my attitude towards game design, to a point where I'm now cynical of story-related elements, since the result is often a bad compromise. Trying to deal with sex really accentuates that, since all the aspects of sex which you can consider narratively and which are essential to creating characters in pure narrative work (novels, movies) are only doable in the story component of a game. Whereas in my deleted post (and another post) I commented on my interpretation of the close integration of killing and violence with the mechanics of gameplay.

I did not intend to downplay the value of imagination in narrative games. But I would like to strive for better integration of story elements with gameplay elements. Violence was easy and obvious, so now the challenge is to figure out how to include less simplistic aspects of human behaviour into gameplay itself. That said, a well scripted narrative is no less enjoyable, but these are different approaches, different technical problems.

I'm getting very stuck on the absence of language in games, which is so essential to relationships between people, and to revealing the relationships between characters. I have a literature background, so this is quite possibly a bias, but since story-telling is an even older practise than writing, and writing is five thousand years old, I think that there is a lot of authority in the rules of story-telling and literary theory, and a lot of power in language.

We had a debate last Summer where I tried to get people to consider if there were any new kinds of games, and we did not have much luck with that. But I could change that by asking if there are any new kinds of gameplay, and I could point at human relationships and ask, "Can't we base gameplay on other aspects of human behaviour?" But I think we figured out that the limitations are on the input/output system.

I think when someone comes up with a usable language interface for interacting with in-game characters (and by necessity characters which can understand this language), we will exceed the current limits. So, sex, friendship, mistrust and all the other grey areas of human relationships will be left out (of game mechanics, not story), and we'll be stuck with what I see as basically the "resource or obstacle" model for characters that I think exists now.

Sorry if I've hi-jacked this thread. I didn't realize what I was really thinking about until now. I guess I think that the original implication in the thread title -- that violence is allowed and sex is not due to moralistic reasons -- is misleading. Yeah, most developers avoid sex per se due to morality concerns which are unfairly looser on violence. But I think the imaginative failure of game developers has been to try to make a story-driven game without violence. I argue that this is very difficult because of the ease with which violence can be integrated into gameplay mechanics, while other human activities are difficult to integrate.

I guess the Sims and other Will Wright games are great exceptions, and that is why they (especially the Sims) have been so successful. But the Sims ignores what most hardcore gamers love, which is a defined goal that they can pursue relentlessly. Is there room for sex or other human characteristics in a goal-driven design? How can you take time to form relationships when your over-riding concern is to get to the next level, defeat the boss monster, get the better weapon/armour/treasure? In real life there are maybe three main analogues to level-domination: combat, sex, and career. Sex as an end in itself would be either gross or funny, never noble or honourable. And anyway, you can do it in real life.

Yeah, that was a point I made in my lost post: games usually involve doing things you can't do in real life. Kids play games where they do what grown-ups do but they cannot, and grown-ups play games where they get to do things that are utterly impossible or so dangerous that nobody does them by choice, and usually both. The (The Sims is again an exception, because you do things that you can do in real life. Actually, you're not doing them, your Sims are, and if you make a mistake, well, try again, no harm done. I don't think the Sims would work if you had to play a direct role in the Sim world yourself. It would be an interesting experiment.)

I'll stop now. I think I need to write a research paper on this subject, and get it out of my system.

[Jake]

I haven't read most of this post, but if you want something to talk about go here

NOTICE : If you are easly offended by sex in atari games then don't click this and don't get mad at me

http://www.classicgaming.com/rotw/custer.shtml

download the rom and play it... I can't beleve that this game was actualy released!:eek:

[David]

This is a sketch I made of a character in my game... (yes, he's a one-armed rabbit)
http://w3.oekakies.com/p/makube/36.jpg?36
I can't directly link it so you'll have to copy/paste. :eek:
Would people complain that he's not wearing very much? :bored: I personally would find it silly to give him more clothes.

[Feanor]

David,

Help me out -- what's that debonaire-looking rabbit got to do with this thread? Is his lack of clothing supposed to be arousing? I myself am not into rodents, pleasantly furry or otherwise.

Just curious.

[David]

He's definitely not designed to be arousing... I'm just wondering if the people here think along the same lines as those who want to ban Porky Pig because he doesn't wear pants or if they agree with me that it doesn't matter. This particular character has a reason for everything he wears and any more, I think, would be superfluous. I never even thought about it but a friend pointed out that he's not wearing much and some people might find that offensive, I'm just wondering if that's true.

[DaFalcon]

he's... a rabbit. I would think that as long as there are no reproductive organs sticking out, you're fine with 99% of the public, and the other 1% just like to be heard complaining.

[monteboyd]

I always think that when people complain about cartoon animals not wearing pants then they are the ones with the problem. They must have a lot of pent up sexual frustration if they are thinking about sex when looking at something like that. How come they don't go around complaining when someone is walking their pet dog and it's not wearing pants?

[Hog]

Originally posted by David

Would people complain that he's not wearing very much? :bored: I personally would find it silly to give him more clothes.

well, he's definitely wearing too much for a rabbit. i find that silly

[David]

Hehe true, but he has an actual reason to wear that. Basically this character's family was attacked by wolves, so his arm was ripped off, and he was left for dead. His mate and children died, but he barely survived. He wears the cape to hide his missing arm and the bandanna because his daughter made it, and the belt is just to hold his sword and dagger.

[griffin239]

http://www.somethingawful.com/articles.php?a=497

This article is about Hentai games.
It never even occured to me that someone would
make games of this stuff. But they really do.

The writer of the article had me laughing in stitches.

This is definately one of those things some people
would say if you are not over 18, you can't see.
But I'll just say if you don't know the birds and bees and
right and wrong, then, ask your parents for supervision.


Only Carlos could know....what the hell is wrong with the japanese?!?!?
How can they make and buy this stuff?
I know its not ALL of them, but obviously there is a market.
Or maybe the market is outside their culture?

I just imagine like a class of 30 art students in Japan
and half of them are drawing bondage/rape scenes.
With the teacher commenting "needs a bigger tentacle!",
"she looks happy, change that mood", "whats this Love stuff? make it violent!",
"look at Hiro here, now HE, is a Hentai Master! the rest of you can go slave for Disney"

Boggles my mind it does.

[monteboyd]

What is interesting is I believe Japan has a very low violent crime rate compared to the Western world where entertainment like this is not as common.

[griffin239]

Japan has the highest teen suicide rate in the world.
And their kids are going psycho according to the BBC
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/world/asia-pacific/1377781.stm

In 1994 they had closed a national park because it had become so popular for
people to kill themselves in it.

I was posting how the crime statistics for Japan
are created by under reporting then I started
digging up info to this effect.
here have a gander at this letter to the editor