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Sex in Games: The Future
halkun
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So wondering about my internet travels, I came across an excellent presentation on Sex in video games. This particular gem was found by proxy on the Youtubes and I decided to share. I also would like to see you guys voice your opinions on the matter.
Now before I show the clip, I'm going to spiral into a diatribe of my own first. I'm currently pretending to a game developer and working on a game of my own. In my case, the game I'm making is a rather ass-backwards genre. It's an educational game, disguised as a very deep puzzle/adventure. The backwards of this is also true. It's an puzzle/adventure disguised as an adventure game.
The upshot is a good way though the game, if you play your cards right, you will sleep with the girl you are stuck on an island with. Not for the sake of having sex, but because your relationship actually grows with her. (Attitude not withstanding, if you treat her like shit, and not only will you do poorly in the game, but you will most likely make it non-winnable)
Anywho, this video is a good deep look in the growth, or the lack thereof, of sex in video game culture. I invite you guys a peek, and then a quick chat after the video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pEquofR2r0
Now, the point of Ico and Yora really make a point about "accidental intimacy". That point drives home so well, I'm actually making it a point to rip it off for my own game. As opposed to a blind princess in the case of Ico, My character simply can't speak English.
So what scenarios can you guys think of to introduce sex... I mean the non-shallow type expressed by the professor here, into the gaming mainstream? Did Mass Effect work? (I have a P4 with 1GB of ram and a Nvidia 6200. That game is a little out of my system's abilities. I also only own a PS2)
I'm interested to see other's takes on this.
Now before I show the clip, I'm going to spiral into a diatribe of my own first. I'm currently pretending to a game developer and working on a game of my own. In my case, the game I'm making is a rather ass-backwards genre. It's an educational game, disguised as a very deep puzzle/adventure. The backwards of this is also true. It's an puzzle/adventure disguised as an adventure game.
The upshot is a good way though the game, if you play your cards right, you will sleep with the girl you are stuck on an island with. Not for the sake of having sex, but because your relationship actually grows with her. (Attitude not withstanding, if you treat her like shit, and not only will you do poorly in the game, but you will most likely make it non-winnable)
Anywho, this video is a good deep look in the growth, or the lack thereof, of sex in video game culture. I invite you guys a peek, and then a quick chat after the video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pEquofR2r0
Now, the point of Ico and Yora really make a point about "accidental intimacy". That point drives home so well, I'm actually making it a point to rip it off for my own game. As opposed to a blind princess in the case of Ico, My character simply can't speak English.
So what scenarios can you guys think of to introduce sex... I mean the non-shallow type expressed by the professor here, into the gaming mainstream? Did Mass Effect work? (I have a P4 with 1GB of ram and a Nvidia 6200. That game is a little out of my system's abilities. I also only own a PS2)
I'm interested to see other's takes on this.
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That being said, it can be done it just needs to be done in a far more interactive fashion than Bioware's idiotic 'three conversations and then an achievement, you got sexed!' pattern.
Yeah, I still can't believe that sometimes.
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Sex as an artistic factor works best when it makes sense within the context of the situation. And this almost always is a result of a relationship building within two people. One night flings usually aren't going to be as tasteful as opposed to when it happens as the culmination of love between two people over a long period of time. Porn movies are an example of the former. They're essentially just scenes of people having sex and, while they may (ahem) have their certain benefits and uses, few would hardly call them artistic. I think Mass Effect is a good attempt of the latter.
Sure, the sex scene in Mass Effect is far from a great use of sex as art, but I think it's along the right track. Presumably, your spent days/weeks/months building a relationship with your romance option. The player him/herself had to choose the right dialog options as well. Granted, it actually didn't take that much in the end to trigger the scene, but hindsight is 20/20. While I was in the game, immersed in the universe and involved with the characters, I wasn't thinking "Oh I need to do these 3 things to make Liara have sex with me". It was more along the lines of, "As Shepard, I like Liara a lot. What would he do in this situation? What results from this?".
Certainly the games industry can do better though. And I'm hoping it will at some point. I do think it's going to be easiest in role-playing games, where developing relationships with characters is much more common than, say, your typical fighting game or shooter. (Although I agree with UnbreakableVow that were Gordon a character that actually spoke and had more of a 2-way relationship with Alyx, who knows where Valve could have taken that character development?)
There are lots of examples, aside from movies, that you can take a look at. Certainly many TV shows, from dramas to sitcoms, have been able to use sex artistically in many ways, from showing passion to the culmination of relationships building for several seasons. Another example that came to be comes from anime. His and Her Circumstances (aka KareKano), IMHO, did a fantastic (and arguably deeply moving to many) job of portraying romance and sex in high school. The show is essentially about the growing relationship->romance between two students. It's only natural that sex is a part of this. It sure was in my high school, and certainly in most others throughout the world. And this amazingly mature portrayal of sex is coming from a Japanese comedy anime!
Perhaps the best well-timed example that I can think of ... this week's PvP comic. I'll spoiler for those of you who haven't read the latest ...
Regarding my last two example, games don't even have to show the actual act of sex at all (neither KareKano or PvP did this). Leave that to other media (*cough Porn/hentai/h-games cough*). But being able to use sex in various means (the lead-up, using it to show passion, or as the peak of a romantic relationship, etc.) can be very powerful when used correctly. I do think as games become more and more mature (and not in that way), I hope we will see more sex in games, but in a good way.
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JCRooks thinks it's important because it's been building up. Whereas when it was just blatantly done (as it was done to me), it had no effect other than comedic.
Exactly. Back to spoilers ... (I know, probably not needed, but I'm being careful. After all, Gabe and Tycho are friends with Scott so this is a courtesy to anyone else who happens to follow the strip)
Sure, seems blatant for anyone who has no attachment to the character. It'd be the same if you just skipped to the sex scene at the very end of a romantic movie or TV show. I think that's another reason why the Mass Effect scene received such a hub-bub among the general media. I'm certain the first thing many of these media folk did was go to YouTube and search "Mass Effect Sex" and watch the video. Ignore the fact that you had to go through 30+ hours of gameplay to actually get to this point, and it wasn't even guaranteed in the first place. They must have gone bonkers mad (or at the very least, saw epic Nielsen ratings in their eyes).
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I work on this: http://www.xbox.com
People just need to stop being so antsy, and watch what their kids do.
This goes beyond vidja games, but censorship is never the answer. It only makes things more taboo which usually makes it worse.
The video makes it seem as if the incorporation of sex in games aswell as how people perceive sex in games is what is not letting video games develop as an artistic medium. This is what I disagree with. I believe it is how people, both gamers and non gamers, view games as a whole aswell as how industries view games which determines its growth as a creative medium.
My main issue with the game industry is how people view games. I agree with the points that the video made regarding how other people view games as entertainment for children, so I won't bother expanding on that. I will, however, say that many video gamers, bother casual and non-casual, view games in a way that will never fully allow the industry grow as an artistic and creative medium.
I know that when asked "Why do you play video games?" almost everyone basically bring up that it is because they are fun. This is -the- primary thing games are graded on by professional reviewers. I view games completely different. Why does a game where I play a World War II soldier storming the beach of Normandy HAVE to be fun? For once, I would want to play a World War II game that shifts the focus form me gunning down Nazi Germans to me as a character. Instead of nameless allies that waddle into enemy gunfire, develop some real characters who I trained with, only to die on the assault. Have my gun jam on me, allies mentally break down in the middle of gunfire, and have bullets cause some actual injury instead of knocking down my magical health meter. Why the hell would I want this mess? It doesn't sound fun at all. Hell, it almost sounds like you're really there.
Have you ever seen photography or art on human tragedy? People who are starving and homeless? It's terrible to look at, I'll admit. However, it's this kind of shocking realism that teaches us and helps build human empathy. Video games have the unique ability to allow us not only to view a scenario, but to live it. We have the opportunity to experience a wide variety of situations that we can't imagine. Instead, the game industry decides to reuse the same old formula for success. Games are classified into genres that determine what kind of fun you are looking for: racing, shooting, roleplaying, ect. Once in awhile, you get the rare game that dares to be different, like Killer 7. The game has puzzle elements and shooting elements, but to call it a puzzle or shooting game would be to miss its point entirely. The shooting and puzzle elements weren't exactly fun, but it was the storyline and the sheer impossibility of it all that made me fall in love with the game. Yet, if I enjoyed the story before all the other components, how come there is no "Story" genre?
Allow me to bring up another game called Pathologic. In this game, you play as one of three unique healers who come upon a Russian town that is slowly being infected by a plague. You are the only hope of saving the people in this town, yet the odds are horribly against you. Every day, the situation gets worse. Prices go up, more areas are infected, and every night before you go to sleep the game reminds you how many people have died. The combat was clunky and unreliable, you had to manage around 6 different stats including food, and you could effectively render the game unwinnable if you saved without enough supplies. If I had to be honest, the game was not fun. And I loved it for this. The stress from the games tasks and the seemingly lack of solving anything to do with the plague didn't make it into a game, but an experience for me.
Now don't get me wrong, I love having fun. Games shouldn't suddenly start being crappy just for the sake of being crappy. Beyond Good and Evil was an amazing game that was a fun platformer/adventurer all-in-all. I believe that we should instead look at games as to what they are trying to accomplish as a story or objective and how they do it rather than how fun it is. If a game can use stress and depression better than using fun to get it's message across, I believe it should be recognized for this rather than than penalized.
I know it sounds like I've went off on a tangent that is totally off-topic from the point, but basically I believe that sex in video games is the least of what is holding back the medium from developing into an art. I also believe it is primarily up to independent game artists to help show the way, as a game company typically wont gamble hundreds of thousands on an idea that could easily fall on its face. Yume Nikki was an excellent independent game that involved exploring a bizarre dream world of a shut-in. You didn't fight anything, you just explored. If we allow ourselves not to have fun once in awhile, we might just find a new experience.
That's not really his point though. His point isn't that sex in games is important, but that sex in games should be changing from the way it is now to something that deals with it maturely.
Instead of, say, a means to get some horny little boy to buy their game.
Besides, he's not just talking about sex sex. He's talking about the relationships and intimacy and how it should be done in games. Note the point that he brings up about Ico.
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I do tend to take the word "sex" very literally. To say that the role of sex in video games should change really isn't something new, though it is an idea most of us do shake our heads up and down like little bobble-toys (EDIT: Oh god, I love how this is right beneath the above signature). While I do love fanservice in some games, I would like most games that feature sex, though not always literal sex but the concept that includes relationship, to use it in a more mature way. I would also like it if games didn't make guns look like the solution to everything, had less pretentious wannabe-badass characters, and tried to have a decent storyline that didn't serve as the backdrop to the action and explosions. The problem is this doesn't pertain to games alone, but also to a vast majority of movies, which I've become even more bitter with as every movie nowadays seems to follow the same formula. So instead of it being a gaming problem, I think it is more of a cultural issue as to how we view entertainment. Or something.
That's very true- i recently picked up God of War for my PSP, due to hearing good things about the game, but when i got to the first 'sex' encounter with the two girls, i began to have my doubts- it was juvenile, objectified women in the worst possible way, and was so stupidly out of fucking context that from that point on, i couldn't take the damn game seriously. It really does just seem to be an adolescent wank fantasy put into videogame form. I mean, why the fuck are two women who have just witnessed such brutal violence now apparently so turned on that they want to have a quickie with this scary- looking guy, who just mashed another guy's head into pulp? Man, for all its fancy graphics, i really hate this game. Also cos of the stupid unfair mechanics, but that's another argument.
Rant over- back to topic, i really like Halkun's idea- i think it could potentially explore the concept of generating intimacy between two people in a manner that's very rarely touched upon in games. People always go on about symbolism, and how you can interpret this or that scene as showing how they're growing closer, but to actually be able to directly influence this, and see the effect of your actions, would be pretty awesome.
"press R1 to thrust, and L2 to nibble her ear"
So it can't be interactive. And since CG sex is creepy as fuck it cant be shown either.
I thought it was done in God of War quite well :winky:
This is my thing, Sex as a game mechanic can't be done well. (Or at least not that I'm aware of, maybe some Wii game will master it or something). At which point it kinda looks like you're saying, we need more cutscenes in games!
All this talk of sex is just complete misdirection over games general ability to have pretty atrocious dialogues and stories, whilst trying to somehow blame the lack of sex on some sort of prevention of advancing as an art form.
If you can't do something well without sex, putting sex on the table isn't going to make it any better. (or at least that's what she said). Games should stick to things they can/could do well, relationships.
Second,
I definitely agree with everything he said regarding sex being very immature so far in video games. If it were handled maturely and with a developing relationship in a game, I think it would be a bit more accepted, but I don't think it could be shown or made interactive either.
Some of you already stated that games are an interactive media, and that kinda changes what can and can't be done regarding sex without it being a little creepy or unacceptable by the public at large.
One thing I didn't agree with him on though is sex in movies. There have been more movies where I have thought, "That sex scene was totally inappropriate or unnecessary" than there have been times I thought it helped the movie. I think a lot of movies are ruined with sex scenes, when something just implied (similar to how PvP handled it - which I had to read that comic like 5 times before it really dawned on me what just happened - I just wasn't expecting that, caught me totally off guard) or assumed would have done just fine.
It's a fine line between inappropriate and unnecessary and helpful. It will be interesting to see who decides to try and walk that line.
Until then, I think most games would be perfectly fine without sex. So far, as a gamer, I haven't enjoyed gaming any less with games that didn't have any sex appeal. Nor have I thought - this game would have been so much better if those two had done it.
Anyway, good vid. Thanks for posting it.
When the hell is Gordon Freeman going to have time to sex up Alyx? Is he supposed to just tell the Combine to hold up while he does her hardcore in a dumpster? Or maybe they should have taken some time out in that hospital full of zombies for a quick shag?
The idea behind the silent protagonist is that the player not Gordon Freeman is supposed to feel a connection to Alyx over the course of the game. Of course some people just hate her regardless.
Wait, since when has GoW ever been a 'serious' franchise? It has always been about throwing as much testosterone-filled everything at the player as possible, to the point of self-parody. I mean, I'm surprised Kratos doesn't have a move where he forces a monster to eat its own cock, gagging itself to death yet.
The hazard suit has special attachments.
I have yet to see sex done well in a game. The are many, many examples of it being done poorly, with Darkwatch being the worst. Indigo Prophecy being a close second.
Completely and totally naive.
The build up to his thesis was compelling and well though out. I enjoyed it quite a bit. But as soon as he takes the corner and pushes towards a conclusion I felt a train car derail in my soul.
While I do think games are an immature and stunted art form, the direct comparison to literature and films is a crutch here because constructing sincere emotion in an interactive experience is an extremely complicated proposition. For the most part it has never been done outside of an emotional response to non-interactive cutscenes - and that, really, is a movie and not a game.
Developers avoid sexuality in interactive sequences because it is risky to sell and hard to implement - that means your game is more expensive to produce and will probably sell less. This is not a "wise business decision".
For games to TRULY thrive as an art form their creation must become democratic, meaning that the barrier to entry is lowered substantially and you don't need 20 people and a million bucks to make a tiny game like the PA Episode 1. Then we can explore, then we can push boundaries, then we can take risks. And we can all do it together.
Until that time provocative issues are pretty much a non-starter because this is a business and not an art. But kudos to designers that sneak some boundary pushing in the back door.
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:winky:
And yes, I realize the immature winky completely proves your point.
But god damn it that was funny (and unintentional).
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Like me. From my point of view, the thing to get frustrated about in regards to half-life 2 was that you couldn't shoot her in the face and move on. Why am I following this chatty broad around solving her problems, exactly?
Being forced into some weird relationship thing with her would have made the game look even more mediocre next to it's progenitor, from my point of view (I really didn't care much for HL2).
I can see your point.
But another good point that sits beside it is what the fuck would Alyx see in Gordon anyway? He is silent and creepy. Ewww.
Denying the player a sense of agency in the most primary and direct means of human expression was not an artistic decision, it was a cost cutting measure. It is interesting to observe the results of this choice on the story telling, but the primary implications are tragic and disheartening.
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There are parts to games that could be considered artistic, but the primary goal of video games is interactive entertainment, meaning any and everything artistic needs to be sacrificed in order to make the game entertaining. Video games are VERY compromising in order to make them fun to play. The only games I can think of which tries to make a point and is uncompromising is that terrible Desert Bus game (wiki: The objective of the game is to drive a bus from Tucson, Arizona to Las Vegas, Nevada in real time at a maximum speed of 45mph, a feat that would take the player 8 hours of continuous play to complete, as the game cannot be paused.). I'm sure there are exceptions to this, but I can't think of any.
Sex can and should be used at the discretion of the game developers if it adds something to the game, if it doesn't, it's superfluous just like it is in most movies. But claiming video games need sex to be taken serious as a form of art just doesn't fly with me.
I think having Freeman be silent was absolutely an artistic decision. I don't think having him speak would have added all that much to the production cost.
And it's a Valve game, if they felt the game would have been better with a speaking protagonist they would have made him talk.
Japanese Hentai games...?
Are you sure? I had thought it was very intentional that he did not speak and they could have decided to give him a voice but wanted you to "be" Gordon. Sort of like the Bioshock and CoD4 protagonists.
I'm not sure, I have no special knowledge. But the decision to have him not speak is tied at the hip to the implications of having him speak: writing, voice, production, impact on story, etc. I might have overstated it, but it kind of proves my point. It's not like they had a standard super-chatty protagonist standard before them and then artistically cut out what most players would take as a given. Most FPS protagonists are silent most of the time anyway. Chosing to extend that satisfies so many technical problems it had to be a combined decision making process.
And I don't think they fully understood the implications. While I admire that they stuck with it, the establishing phase of the HL2 campaign is one of the worst plot moments in the history of the genre. Where am I? What is going on? Why am I here? Why are they here? What time is it? So many questions, far to many to support the story point that Gordon *chooses* not to speak. Very rough of the disbelief.
And all art compromises. Provocative and challenging art compromises less. And sex is provocative and challenging. I would hope we could avoid this "is this art" debate and just accept that all forms of human expression to one degree or another are artistic. I think on average the artistry of games is poor, which is why I call it an immature form.
And again until costs can be really mitigated to democratize this unique form of expression, one that constructs human experience, very little provocative art can be tolerated to exist.
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Apo makes a good point though. HL1 came out at a time when being Valve meant nothing.
Well, I never took it at as Gordon choosing not to speak. Since the player is supposed to be Gordon, the things the player is saying/thinking is what Gordon is saying. If that makes sense.
For a much simpler example, take Zelda: Link is a silent protagonist, but he obviously is talking to people. Even if it's just stuff like telling people his name.