Why does the games industry condone violence but stray away from sexual content.

[PauL o_O]

This might actually be a copy and paste of my old thread.... Not anything wrong with that, it needs to be discussed

 

[pulse2]

It always baffles me how games can have so much violence and gore, killing in every possible disturbing way but when it comes to demonstrating love and affection through sexual acts, hot coffee is spilt.

Now that goes without saying, I'm not saying more games like Sexy Beach 3 should be widely available, that would be to take my point widely out of contrast, but scenes like the one in Heavy Rain and Mass Effect shouldn't even be worthy of bringing up, in fact they should be so commonplace that it no longer causes controversy. These games ARE targeted at a mature audience, so I don't quite understand what controversy it causes. Movies have had sex scenes of all types without causing issue of raising an eyebrow, nobody called the ratings board to complain when they Rose from Titanic strip off and have sex soon after with Jack, so whats the big problem here?

Discuss

The game industry doesn't condone violence.

Regardless, the standards for sex are different in TV and movies as well. Look at all the murder that goes on TV and in movies with a TV 14/PG13 rating. That stuff would be an M in the gaming industry. But regardless, comparable sexual activity may be slightly more lenient, but that's because the reaction you mention is dsproportionate.

In short, I think you answered your own question with the Titanic example.

In a sense it does, its the people outside of that circle that are against it. EA want's it's command and conquer games to be about war, because war and strategy is fun, activision wants CoD to sell, so they push it out, why? Because shooting opposing forces is considered fun. No matter how you look at it, much of the games industry is about destroying the essence of life, Halo could be deemed mass genocide because an entire race of aliens are trying to wipe out humans and spartans, and in return we are trying to wipe them out, well at least Master Chief is (the mass murderer). Killing and destrying is what is classed as fun and it sells unfortunatly, its funny how a topic so dire and morbid could be a selling point of popular games nowadays, try getting a harmless game like flight simulator to sell as well as CoD. So it's nice when the likes of Sims and Roller Coaster Tycoon sell well for example because they step out of that violent box and still find success, heck, people even find ways to make those two games violent, lol.

Sex on the other hand raises alarm bells. I'm not comparing movies to games, I'm just saying that if movies can depict sex as harmless but at the same time ensure that only adults are seeing it, why can't games?

By all means, I'm not coming down on violent games, I play them and I never think twice about the violence, but it's just made me wonder how sex is swept under the carpet. Sex should be the opposite of death and destruction, but yet it is seen as the bad thing in the equation.

 

[Gigano]

Sex is simply more of a taboo subject, especially in the US where most AAA titles are produced.

It's not like they don't exist, they're simply rarer, and not marketed as openly. Who's going to bet 40 million $ on a game that'll be rated AO?

Gameplay options are fairly limited as well, outside VN's it's hard to think of way to implement meaningful gameplay around meaningful depictions of sexuality. It could probably be done though.

 

[Jabberwock xeno]

Because humans are stupid.

/my answer for everything.

 

[nuba km]

Welcome to college. We have a club dedicated to gaming, and the college gives us a few grand a year .

I think it's because they realised that a lot of the smart people like video games as well as those people who's family have large incomes and may generously donate money

 

[Jonluw]

That's easy: Because sex is worse than killing.

 

[MegaManOfNumbers]

look at Japan, its the other way around.

 

[sharpe95th]

Probably a mix of violence in general being a much more acceptable phenomenon in popular culture just look at boxing, that's essentially just a well lit fight, can you imagin Olympic level sex being shown on primetime tv? It's just one of western culture's unquestioned norms that violence can be heroic and idolised whereas sex should be something done in private. That and it's a lot easier to play a violent scene and be somewhat immersed. I've never stormed the beaches of normandy or punched an alien in the face so I'll accept that the game is presenting a somewhat believable senario, whereas pulling off a believable sex scene, even in movies, is incredibly difficult and more often than not just comes off as tokenistic or pandering to adolescants.

 

[Section Crow]

since the best seller games are mainly about violence because of the little midget people enjoying blowing up everything and killing everything in sight rather than a real relationship scene since at there age girls still have germs.

but seriously people still treat games like a childish thing so what does a child do? cause destruction, ruin everything and if that is how it is seen, a relationship will seem too mature for such a babyish device.

 

[Danzaivar]

Because kids running around pretending to shoot people is a perfectly acceptable form of play, while kids running around pretending to have sex with everything is a valid reason to book a session with a therapist.

 

[astrav1]

Well, sex is legal, wanton violence is not. The more a person is surrounded by sex, typically the more sexual they become, especially at a young age. Just look at the French.

 

[Palademon]

We live in a culture (particularly the US and a number of Western societies) that still treats sexuality like it's witchcraft. Even though the days of Puritanical sexual repression are gone, it's still easy for opportunists to use sex as a divisive wedge issue in order to gain political power. "Look at them, they're disgusting, but look at me, I am PURE" is a classic case of self-righteousness. It's easy to knock down other people down make yourself look better. Sex is lust, an expression of vulnerability, a display of power, a substitute for personal lost, a fantasy, a commitment, a celebration of life, an addiction. Sex is neither good or bad, it is simply part of being alive. It is at the heart of every individual's motivation to want to get up from their bed every morning and do something with their lives, so it's a power that opportunists want to manipulate and control, and take advantage of.

Impressive for a user's first post.

 

[emeraldrafael]

I wouldnt say it condones violence over sex. Yeah, violence is more heavily found in Video games then sexual content on the by and large, but even then the violence is ranked and usually kept out of kids hands (or at least attempted to) until they are ready to handle it. I think its more just that when sexual content is found in games, its more noticeable and publicized since people believe this is going to be a medium used to promote and corrupt kids to be rapists or actually find out what that thing in their pants is for.

 

[Assassin Xaero]

I have yet to see one game where sexual content is actually needed. Violence, on the other hand, is it move every game out there, but it different degrees ranging from Mario to Manhunt. It is pretty hard to make a game without violence... You'd pretty much have FarmVille, Guitar Hero, and puzzle games.

 

[Uszi]

Welcome to college. We have a club dedicated to gaming, and the college gives us a few grand a year . Who said your ever too old to play games?

Or welcome to life, where the age of the average gamer is now 35, and there are many of us who have graduated from college, gotten jobs, and continue to pursue gaming as a hobby.

We live in a culture (particularly the US and a number of Western societies) that still treats sexuality like it's witchcraft. Even though the days of Puritanical sexual repression are gone, it's still easy for opportunists to use sex as a divisive wedge issue in order to gain political power. "Look at them, they're disgusting, but look at me, I am PURE" is a classic case of self-righteousness. It's easy to knock down other people down make yourself look better. Sex is lust, an expression of vulnerability, a display of power, a substitute for personal lost, a fantasy, a commitment, a celebration of life, an addiction. Sex is neither good or bad, it is simply part of being alive. It is at the heart of every individual's motivation to want to get up from their bed every morning and do something with their lives, so it's a power that opportunists want to manipulate and control, and take advantage of.

That's about as well as it can be put.

 

[pulse2]

When I say sex, I don't mean just sex for the sake of it, but sex in correlation with a building relationship between two parties. It makes the emotions felt between them a little more, hmm, dow do I put this, intimate? I think that's because sex is a moment of vunerabality, where you offer your entire self in the way it is, so to me anyway, it makes the relationship a little more realistic. Thats not saying it can't be donw without it, plenty of games have, FF for example, but like I said, I personally don't see why it should be seen as taboo and broadcast on Fox news etc with rather exaggerated headlines to make games with sex seem like a tool to destroy the minds of children.

The media needs to realise that we are growing up and games are evolving, if a developer puts a sex scene in, there should be no reason everyone goes OMG, HOW COULD THEY? Games tell stories, sometimes better than movies do, and what better way to tell an intimate story than demonstrate it physcally as well as verbally.

I think that would be a way to attract female gamers as well as a diverse group of other people, instead of just adolescent boys who like to kill things.

 

[DaJoW]

Because media, and therefore large publishers, have much greater problems with sex than violence.