Sex Scenes in games: Deep gameplay or CHEEEEEEEEEEESE

[Osterbaum]

Clearly all DADT cases there.

[32bit-RedMage]

Originally Posted by Osterbaum

Porn on the Atari 2600, oh yeah.

Oooooh yeah ... I almost forgot about that.
Atari had many porn games.... way too many...

[Nique]

Cmon, Nique, these are the types of things you read immediately after you post and then scramble for the delete button.

I say that becuase it seems to me that books and movies are more distinct from each other in a way that video games and film (including animation) are not entirely. This is probably another discussion altogethor.

And how can you not see the middle ground?

Becuase, as krylo + everybody else is showing, Film doesn't nessecerily handle mature subject matter any better than video games. That, and back to my earlier thought which is that a lot of the same basic methods of storytelling are used in games as they are in film & animation (and choose-your-own-adventure-novels, I guess?) so there isn't, in theory, any reason for there to be a huge gap in quality.

I think what I'm trying to say is that I'm questioning my own perception of how big that gap actually is. Becuase if you listen to Rodger Ebert, it's basically insurmountable. If you listen to, we'll go with Tycho since you mentioned him, it's barely there at all.

Ah! I think I see where you might be misunderstanding me. Let's use a chart;

Haters (Video games are the Devil! Can never be art. Blarg!)
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Apologists (So much potential! Wheeeeee! lookit ALL that potential!)
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Nerds (the lich king poster on my ceiling is the sistine chapel of modern art)

[Mr.Bookworm]

Originally Posted by DFM

Custer will have you know it was happening way before that.

It also was all about the rape, beating Japan at their own game by at least five or ten years.

This kind of trash is in video games now as much as its in movies and TV, and its not a coincidence that a lot of the major best-selling titles include it. Consumers are impulsive morons and sex sells. It contributes nothing to the game itself but everything to its sales, so its probably not going to change soon.

Here is a list of the top 50 selling video games worldwide in 2009.

To my knowledge, none of those have a sex scene in it.

EDIT: Oh, yeah, that's right, AC2 did have a sex scene in it, though I would argue it was about a million times classier then most sex scenes in movies.

Here is a list of the worldwide top-grossing films of 2009.

Paying attention to the top fifty, how many of those have sex scenes in them? Among movies I've seen, I count at least six, and I've only seen ten of those.

The point is, sex is far less prevalent in games than movies. It just seems to get more attention.

[Aerozord]

Originally Posted by Nique

Becuase, as krylo + everybody else is showing, Film doesn't nessecerily handle mature subject matter any better than video games. That, and back to my earlier thought which is that a lot of the same basic methods of storytelling are used in games as they are in film & animation (and choose-your-own-adventure-novels, I guess?) so there isn't, in theory, any reason for there to be a huge gap in quality.

they are widely different methods of storytelling and the amount of narrative in a game is also much higher and harder to control. Movies and TV the consumer is expected to sit down and shut up for the duration, lets say two hours. The director is in complete control of what happens in the narrative and knows the consumer will experience it in the same manner.

Games have two major changes. First is length. Not inherently better or worse but even 10 hours is considered a short game requiring a very different pacing. Secondly is its interactive. This makes it very hard to control when and how they experience something in the narrative. Complicating this further the player is himself a character that must not only be included in the story, but be the protagonist of it. Excluding cutscenes, which are the same as with movies and television, the director has no idea how the main character in the story will act, think, and feel. Characters and events must work on such a fundimental psychological level that for your average person its normal to feel and react how they want the main character to act for the sake of the story.

Comparing it to a mix between movie and a choose your own adventure book is like comparing DnD to a board game and generic fantasy novel. The interactivity is on a level so different its not far to compare them

and for those wondering why I was earlier. I mentioned movies to point out that this is a cultural trend, not a gaming trend. I feel games are a very different, but equally valid, story telling media

[Krylo]

Originally Posted by Mr.Bookworm

It also was all about the rape, beating Japan at their own game by at least five or ten years.



Here is a list of the top 50 selling video games worldwide in 2009.

To my knowledge, none of those have a sex scene in it.

Weren't we just talking about the sex scenes in numbers 6 and 18?

[Lumenskir]

Becuase, as krylo + everybody else is showing, Film doesn't nessecerily handle mature subject matter any better than video games.

No, what this discussion is showing is that there are a lot of examples of bad films that handle sex badly, not that Film itself doesn't handle mature subject material. Just because you can find a million examples of bad movies doesn't negate the fact that the medium itself is easily capable of greatness. Videogames on the other hand have a much shorter list of good examples, probably because...

my earlier thought which is that a lot of the same basic methods of storytelling are used in games as they are in film & animation (and choose-your-own-adventure-novels, I guess?)

A lot of people, even a lot of game designers, have this same incorrect assumption. They don't try to create a story from gameplay or something intrinsic to their medium, they default to what they know works in films (taking away control and telling the viewer directly).

Of course, this isn't even a problem thats new. If you look at the first films made in the studio system they were just filmed plays: the camera never moved, every shot was static, all the actors bit their thumbs to show inner anguish, and the frame was just the stage. Eventually people realized that you could use the camera to do things differently from the way people were used to from theater, and now we have movies that are a form unto themself, not theater knockoffs.

This will probably happen for videogames...if such things can be shown to sell.