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

[TK421]

It does, but it's a negative effect. If the game is trying to sell itself on sex, I won't buy it. I want a game that wants you to buy it because it's good in some way, not because it has boobies.

 

[RedDeadFred]

This is honestly one of things I never take into consideration for when I buy a game. Gameplay, Longevity, Story, and Graphics are what I consider when I look at games and I way their importance in that order.

Sex appeal isn't even on the list.

 

[TheEvilCheese]

Hell yeah it does. Too much fanservice puts me off massively.
It's like "hey, we made this new game, it's great we swear. I know! look at these tits to prove it"

To a minor degree it wouldn't bother me, but when it feels too tacked on or prevalent it makes me steer right away from that franchise.

And yet, I enjoy the odd VN where fanservice no doubt makes up a hell of a lot of it. It really puts me off there as well, but is redeemed in the case of interesting story / characters.

But I've got to ask- in games where you have a choice of characters to play or the ability to design your character's appearance, do you care if your character looks attractive? 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?

In games with appearance changes I either go full immersion (make myself), outlandish (make a purple lizardman who shoots fire) or generic (default / average guy). The characters I make often look pretty ugly, but that doesn't bother me in the slightest. As for companions? I played mass effect two with mordin at all times, the other squadmate rotating as appropriate, favouring legion. I think it's fair to say I go for interesting storytelling over visual appeal and I think that's true for most of the Escapist community.

Friends of mine in real life on the other hand? oooh boy I can see why games are marketed in such a way.

 

[OneOfTheMichael's]

If anything, if its a good game and a option i'll take it. But I i have to buy it just for that one factor. Hell no I'll stick to the internet.

 

[Extra-Ordinary]

Not really, I buy games because I figure they're going to be fun.
But having a pretty lady in said game is some pretty sweet icing on the cake.
The MK girls are a pretty good example of this.

Spoiler: At least until this...

Crazy b*tch

 

[Do4600]

No, and it never has, I'm a straight male and I find nearly all women in video games absolutely repulsive, vapid and obvious characterizations of the worst possible parts of sex phone-lines and bad pornography dialogue mixed with the wardrobe of a professional dominatrix; it's as insulting to men as it is to women and makes me cringe and roll my eyes more than any other element in video games since the cathode ray tube amusement device of 1947.

 

[Vausch]

I play games if I hear they're fun. If I see pandering on the cover or see the word "sexy" in reviews, I'm likely to avoid it if I don't see some talking about the gameplay.

 

[freaper]

Yes, obviously, both positively and negatively, as well as consciously or subconsciously. I can't see how someone could vote no on something like this.

 

[ninjaRiv]

The sexiest females and males, in my opinion, are those who aren't made simply to look sexy. I don't just fall for the looks.

 

[AgedGrunt]

If anything it turns me off, as most of the time it's in-your-face that it comes off as desperate, pathetic and hollow. That's not saying it can't be done right, but there is a line between beauty and harlotry.

 

[WindKnight]

not so much a purchase, but i was Intrigued by Scarlet Blade after hearing you have female options for every class, and its an online action game...

And finding out there's no male options, and its an online action game in the same way DOA beach volleyball is a beach sports simulator, and your customisation options amount to 'how far do you want that butt-floss rammed up your characters arse' pretty much made me want to wash my hands and walk away.

 

[ChaoshadowZero]

No, never.

My favourite game series are Zelda, Pokemon and Mario, so yeah, sex appeal really doesn't matter to me.

 

[IamSofaKingRaw]

No. I'm not going to be getting off on a video game, I buy them for the quality of play. I'm not going to go out and buy Lollipop Chainsaw because of the cover. The game looks sh*tty

 

[Therumancer]

It's said that female characters in games are overly sexualised in order to appeal to male gamers and hence sell more copies. But being a male gamer myself I just don't understand it. That is pretty much last on the list of my priorities when it comes to buying a game. So I'm curious to see what others think.

It can, but it depends on the game. If I'm doing a deep RPG game where romance subplots and such fit into it, then having characters I'm attracted to helps. If I don't find any of the possible romantic choices appealing a game that is in part selling itself on simulated social events has a hit against it. Granted writing and the actual personality of the characters matters more than anything, but when it comes to initial impressions, appearance helps, and to be honest when it comes to fantasy art a lot can be conveyed visually based on how the characters stand, facial expressions, and other assorted minor details.

On the other hand for a lot of games it doesn't much matter, because there is little or no interpersonal relationships involved and romance subplots don't really work. Indeed with some kinds of games the suggestion that such unnessicary things are being tacked on kind of hurts them. Let's say I'm getting a game like oh say "Zombie Driver" or "Twisted Metal" which is all about cars blowing the crap out of each other. How sexy the women involved in the promotional art has nothing to do with the game, and what I care about like handling, how cool the cars are, and what kinds of weapons they are packing. The over the top cinematics for a game like "Twisted Metal" might be entertaining for example, but they have nothing to do with the core experience, I mean at the end of the day if I'm not having fun flaming enemy cars in an arena, how "hawt" one of the drivers might be in the cinematics or promotional art is fairly irrelevent to the core experience, unlike say an RPG where I might spend hours listening to, chatting with, and deciding if I want to romance a character like Morrigan from Dragon Age as part of the game.

 

[Gameguy20100]

Not really I judge a game on its character's story and game-play not the size of the main females bust or the Main males muscle mass

 

[Vanilla_Druid]

Sometimes it does, like for some fighters or RPG's. I am not self-righteous like so many here are, so I will admit that I have been suckered into buying something because of it. Most of the games I have, however, are rated E-T, so I usually look for good gameplay when it comes to most games. Luckily for me, I have been mostly quite satisfied with the games I have bought.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Absolutely not! I may enjoy some fanservice but I'm not buying the damn thing to get it.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Depends.
Flagrant pandering is distasteful and annoying*, while incidental sex appeal isn't really a dealmaker or dealbreaker.
(*I like tits. I don't like tits that have their own quantum mechanics and occupy 40% of a woman's torso)

 

[Songblade]

Not whatsoever. Cartoon/pixel boobies don't really do it for me -- I can appreciate them, but not in the way some other people might.

 

[coates32]

If its just the icing on the cake then it might might have me take a second look, but if the sex appeal is the only thing a game has going for (example: Rumble Roses) then I'll lose all interest in it.

Sex appeal worked on my around the time the original Tomb Raider came out (~1996). It does not work on me today. At this point I generally require greater reassuring from games that seem to be trying to sell via sex appeal that they're actually still good games. To this end I thought that Bayonetta was alright and that Dead or Alive 5 was pretty solid until the developers went nuts on their own game with a "balance" patch.

I'll be honest that I don't know why I got into the old Tomb Raider games other than that they were popular at the time. As a long time DOA fan, I complete agree with you about DOA 5 and was disappointed with their inclusion of their motion-controlled "physics".