Poll: Does sex appeal influence your decision to purchase a game?

[aether-x3]

I dunno. hmmm, Other. I've only ever bought 1 game due to attraction, which was Resident Evil 6 cause Leon is really hot, like daaaaamn.

Well erm, MGR half counts since half the reason I bought it is because I'm ridiculously attracted to Raiden, especially as a cyborg.. mmm... What were we talking about again?

Other than that, no sex appeal doesnt really influence my decision.

 

[Voulan]

Nope, never. I'm a straight female, so that knocks all those games out of the way in terms of selling sex (but I'll buy almost any game that lets me play as a woman). As for sex trying to sell me games that star men, no to that as well. Mostly because they're all white, brown-haired men in their 30s. There's not a lot of options there. I don't want to play as an unattractive person, if that's what you mean. My favourite gaming series stars a 14 year old boy, if that tells you anything.

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

I'd be lying if I said that a well represented and fabulous looking rack didn't catch my attention on a box; but beyond that I've never made the purchase on that alone.

 

[DarkSeraphim02]

I voted no because, in all honesty, sex appeal does nothing for me. I buy games because the gameplay or story interests me. I actually feel kinda awkward when a game tries to shove sex appeal in my face.
Most of the time when I see some woman in a game that is either wearing a hyper revealing outfit, or is so well endowed that you'd think she'd need a back brace of some sort I just roll my eyes or ignore her.

 

[Sehnsucht Engel]

No, there's plenty of free porn. >_> However, I do prefer looking at a cute woman when I play, rather than some man. I wouldn't buy a game because of how sexy the characters were though. I'd buy it because I was interested in it, and it had gotten good reviews.

 

[Wereduck]

In a way: if having said game clearly visible in my home would be a sure guarantee that I'd never get laid again then I won't buy it.
I'm fairly certain that's not what the poll's asking about though.

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

In games where you have a choice of companions, do you choose to spend most of your time with the ones who you find visually unappealing?

I think this may be a case where people tell the advertiser, "No, I never buy products based on product placement or brand familiarity" and the advertiser smiles and nods because he knows his numbers say something very different.

Well, I did tend to favor these

over these.

But I hardly speak for everyone.

Well, Mordin and Tali are, as people, far more interesting than Miranda and Ashley and Tali is better looking than either of them (I miss ME1 Ashley's look).

 

[Comocat]

I voted yes because I can generally determine the quality of the game by an inverse relationship to the amount of clothing the developers sex fantasy is wearing on the cover. I have actually picked up titles that looked interesting and been turned off by over the top objectification.

 

[APersonHere]

I mean show me the AAA game where you play as a fat ugly guy? It doesn't exist.

I played Saint's Row 3 as a character who is fat, ugly, crossdressing, and blue. Granted, that's not how the game was marketed.

I saw a commercial on YouTube a while ago about some kind of shooter (Tom Clancy game I think? Not sure) that had this ridiculously busty blonde woman wearing underwear, jiggling all her stuff since she was using a motion controller and all... then she went on to talk about how she was totally one of "the guys" and was all badass at the game. Absolutely laughable. Seeing as I can't even remember the name of the game, it obviously didn't influence me much.

Somewhat relatedly: I thought that the female armor in Oblivion and Skyrim is rather modest, seeing as it's mainly just the same model with some vertices adjusted for hips and bust. (Although some of the armor the two women-warrior races wore in the Shivering Isles fell into that pointlessly exposing category.)

 

[Originality]

I don't care what's on the front cover - it's the gameplay (or story, or both) that matters. Usually I go straight for the screenshots and trailers, followed by the demos (or the "demo") before I decide to buy a game.

 

[Angelblaze]

Moderately, if I find the game actually makes the person as more then a sex object....but still incredibly awesome.



Oh god Raiden and Garrus.

 

[Raikas]

I voted "other" because while I don't buy games for the sex appeal, I have stopped playing certain games because I don't like the style of the character design.

That's not necessarily about those characters being sexy or not, but it is an aesthetic thing, so close enough.

 

[RJ Dalton]

Asexual. I tend not to even notice sexualization in games unless someone points it out to me. Or it is so blatant that it actually gets in the way of the game.

 

[Quellist]

Sort of....i must admit to having a weakness for womens bottoms and if the main character of a game is female and has a barely clad butt quite prominently displayed on the cover or if screenshots show it as prominent in the game, i might be swayed....but only if it was a game i wasnt planning to play seriously.

A fighting game with barely clad women?....yeah maybe (Mai Shiranui etc in mind here)
A 40+ hour RPG? no freaking way, needless sexuality would pretty much cheapen it.

So yeah, if i just want a game to kick around with maybe with friends, a bit of fanservice is good.

*Edit* To include a specific example. I would never have bought 'Beyond Good and Evil' if Jade had been portrayed as some kind of sex symbol. Equally i'm not really a big fan of Tomb Raider

 

[MetalMagpie]

Well, a sexy lady on the box will generally make me more likely to pick it up. It's unlikely to affect my purchasing decision much once I have picked it up, but that's all the box art is for - getting you to pick up the damn thing and look at it!

Box art that I find tasteless will put me off buying the game. Pretty box art (whether of sexy ladies or otherwise) will always tilt me slightly in its favour. If a game has box art that looks like it was hacked together in MS Paint, then it reduces my confidence that much effort went into the game itself.

 

[Scrustle]

Yes/other.

If a game looks like it's trying to sell itself to me based on "sex appeal" then I will be very quick to dismiss it. I find it insulting too.

I put "other" because in that sense it's not really "sex appeal", since it doesn't appeal to me.

This issue was actually partially what put me off playing Bayonetta for such a long time. I picked it up recently and I've been finding out how wrong I was in that instance.

 

[SweetShark]

After I played Saya no Uta for the first time, I decided to not judge a game from its cover.
Thanks to that, I enjoyed other really nice visuals Novels as well, like Katawa Shoujo or Yume Miru Kusuri. Great games!!!

 

[waj9876]

I have no idea.

I'm more likely to play a game with a non-horrifying looking protagonist. Unless they're supposed to look like that. I guess.

 

[templar1138a]

I voted yes, but not in the way you think. Often times I will be against buying a game that depends on sex appeal. After all, it makes me question how good the game actually is if they're trying to lure me in with T'n'A.

Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against sexy characters. But I will only buy a game that has them if I've been made aware after my interest has been grabbed by other features of the game.

The two games I bought where sex appeal weighed in significantly were Soul Calibur II and IV. However, it was only a secondary reason in both cases. With SC II, I was interested because Link was the guest character in the Gamecube version. And with SC IV, it was the first game of that series that wasn't exclusively on a Playstation where I could make custom characters (though I bought it used because I didn't entirely approve of the obvious cash-in that was Yoda, Vader, and Starkiller being guest characters). Still, I am not ashamed to admit that I occasionally enjoy watching Taki and Sophitia destroying each other's outfits.

 

[Mikejames]

Well, Mordin and Tali are, as people, far more interesting than Miranda and Ashley

My opinion of prioritizing characterization stands.

(I miss ME1 Ashley's look).

I did prefer the more practical casual appearance. I shan't miss that white/pink armor though.