Well yes, that's exactly what I'm talking about - sex is just another form of expression, which is the essence of roleplaying for me (expression, not sex), so naturally, I want my character to get more choices than simple 'To have' or 'Not to have' sex, that then gets represented by a non-interactive movie or screen that blacks out. I don't necessarily want sex to be on a pedestral as something 'special', I just want it to be part of the story, just like it's part of life.

Ironically enough tho, sex in many videogames actually IS put on a pedestral, especially by games like Mass Effect where intercourse is the 'trophy' you get for pursuing a relationship, that then ends by the game's end, which comes extremely soon after that. I did like how Witcher games approached the subject there - pursuing a relationship with somebody was your own choice, there wasn't this kind of weird 'reward' at the end - in fact, in both games, sex with the potencial partner took place more or less at the beginning, or could take place if you wanted it to. I liked that.

Well, it seems you guys were civilized enough...and of course, tinyE is doing his usual thing. Didn't want to call him out in the OP already, though :D

Since I have to study, I could only see that the general consensus (at least on the first few pages) was "why not"? And I do agree with you guys. Don't know if someone brought up those Japanese digital novels, but they seem to be pretty popular in Japan (sexual or not). But I'm not that familiar with the topic, so I might be mistaken.

I myself also think the games should be given fair treatment. And especially people "welcoming" violence more than sex in medias in general, not only in games, is quite...interesting? Worrying? I know some people started discussing about this already, but I gotta be quick.

As for how good the scenes are...I thought the ME sex scene were okay, I guess. I mean, I don't really understand what people are expecting. I could have done without the dry humping in ME2, but other than that... One criticism in the ME series rather was that the romance arc leads up to this sexual encounter, which I also can agree with. Such romance arc could be structured/written differently, so it doesn't appear to be entirely about the sex you get as reward at the end.

But pure sex games will certainly be entirely different. And people will have different reasons (hehe) for playing it, depending if there's a story, how good it is etc. etc.

Several folks here have mentioned Seduce Me, but I'd like to point out Corruption of Champions from the same site. It's a simple text adventure (no graphics) that plays like a which-way book with "combat", and is by no means tame.

Your village is threatened by demons so you go through a portal to save them. You enter a land where everything is horny, and there are many ways for you get horned up as well. What's interesting to me is that this isn't typical masturbation material where you, the hetero white male, does a bunch of white chicks. Instead, there are ways in the world to gain and lose male and female genitalia, including being hermaphrodite, and you can transform various parts of your body to creature parts, as well as have sex with non-humanoid creatures. It's basically erotica set in a fantasy game format. There are some parts of the "game" that could do with some polishing, but it's still being worked on so maybe it's a beta.

It isn't steeped in game lore with super-deep characters as I was discussing earlier, but there is a plot, and it is far racier than I would ever expect to see in a visual game, (presumably because prudes don't know about erotica). The game is free so give it a looksee.

If you are a prude however you most certainly should not check it out, you wouldn't like it, very boring, reads like a technical manual in olde english. Total snoozer. Ignore all that other stuff I said.

It amazes me, honestly, that Rapelay is always the go-to example. Not defending the content of the game here, but it wasn't a particularly successful title to begin with, it's an extreme outlier among even the smuttiest of visual novels, and it's very nearly a decade old. The stupid thing's done more to set back any sort of sexual content in gaming then anything else, and its reputation comes almost entirely from people bringing it up once every few years just to point out that it's icky. And it's hella icky! Still, though. We didn't get rid of clowns just because of John Wayne Gacy.

I am definitely not against it. As others have already pointed out - how is spilling someone's guts out, or shooting him in the head better than sex? lol

I generally am against censorship, so I would even be fine with rape scenes (portrayed appropriately, without too much explicitness ofc).

However, tbh the only game that comes to my mind, which managed to pull off a sex scene well is Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven (GOG, WHEN ARE FINALLY YOU GONNA BRING THIS GEM HERE ?!). It was done tastefully, on par with the movies, and tied in with the plot nicely.

Neither did i. I just wanted to know why porn is apparently incompatible with having an active sexual life according to her. Do people still believe that only fat teenagers who masturbate the whole day watch porn? And that sexually active people don't? It's time to let stereotypes and prejudice go away already.

No one here is being overly defensive about it. We're just discussing why sex is such a big taboo in gaming (well, it's actually a big taboo in general, but it's even more noticeable in gaming than any other medium).
But that's a pretty bad example. It's like saying that FPSes suck because Ethnic Cleansing exists.

Not quite true, I recently replayed the final mission of ME2 and there were several cutscenes I wasn't allowed to skip. But regarding the 'sex' scenes, if I'm not mistaken, you can completely avoid any sexual relationships and tell everybody you just want to be friends. So if you wasted 30 seconds on that sex scene, doesn't that mean you were secretly hoping it would be better? Because if you thought that these things are always awkward and a waste of time in videogames, you could just have avoided starting any 'serious' relationships. ;)

Do you have any rational argument to bring to the discussion other than resorting to ad hominem?

I definitely agree. If you're going to judge sexually-explicit visual novels, pick something with at least a bit of quality to it.

For example, I run a small of fiction (video games included) which incorporates gender-bending and, while doing my usual cursory research for [url=http://gbindex.ssokolow.com/stories/44]Yin-Yang! X-Change Alternative, I got curious and tracked down some gameplay videos.

Some of those scenes are downright funny. For example, when the main character wakes up female and is initially in denial. (Among various other bits, near the end, It refreshes the stale old "pinch yourself" routine by having him bang his head against the wall, hard, and then, to prolong the denial just a little longer, concluding that, ouch, they're making dreams too realistic these days.)

Games are a proper artistic medium, perfectly equipped to tackle any topic developers see fit. This nonsense where people get their panties in a bunch when games veer into mature content is hypocritical and pathetic. Movies and books can do it, but games can't? Give me a fucking break.

When I date girls it is because I fancy them and I want to shag them. And sometimes the shag is the "trophy", especially when you realise that it is not going to work after that point. So what is wrong with portraying it in a similar fashion in vidya games? Or what about other "tastleless" things like bashing people's faces in with baseball bats? Surely if we start to restrict content in vidya games it will lead to the slippery slope argument?

Well, I've come to the believe that video game sex scenes don't work for me at all partly because I've seen how they play out in, for example, Fahrenheit (interactive) and Mass Effect (non-interactive). Similarly, my strong preference for playing, not watching, games is the result of having done both, many times. I'm not saying "I don't like bananas, therefore I'll never try them." I'm saying "I don't like bananas, I've tried them".

(I do like bananas.)

And yes, I'm aware that the fact that every video game sex scene I've encountered was shit doesn't mean there won't be any worthwhile ones in the future. Still, I have long since considered it and come to the conclusion that interactive sex scenes are inherently pointless. To put it in the most general terms possible, the act of inserting a penis in a vagina and all the feelings and implications surrounding it is so far removed from the act of pushing a button that any attempt to simulate one by the other will inevitably result in a vast feeling of disconnect. Which is generally what we mean when we say "ridiculous".

Of course, this is a topic on which I vaguely entertain the notion of being proven wrong in the future, which I expressed in my very first post in this thread.

Neobr10, you're unable to understand a simple, one sentence statement even after several people have alerted you to the fact. And it's not the first time that's happened by a long shot. And I wouldn't even care if you weren't so unnecessarily aggressive about it.

I agree with that. There's no point in restricting the portrayal of sex to "good sex". "Good sex" and "bad sex" are both equally viable (or not viable) as a means of expression.

For a developper to send messages on this kind of issue through an interactive medium is very risky and would very probably generate a lot of anger/misunderstanding which will result in endless discussions on the interweb. To further extent, if the message/content is poorly conveyed, it will have dreadfull repercussions.

On the other hand, on the web, videogames can lead to heated debates, sex can lead to heated debates too. The sum of the two things could take apocalyptic proportions. And there will be people to use that regardless of people's emotions to generate buzz and make money.

Bottom line, sex in videogames is the kind of things I truly expect to do more harm than good.


Edit : my opinion is 'as of today'. It may change anywhere in the future, it's just that right now videogaming is a spreading hobby and I don't think it's a good moment for the industry to explore such subjects.

Similarily, in the Witcher games I have mentioned (especially the first one, but second one too), you could shag those girls and then basically forget about them (or, to put it a bit better, prioritize other things than them). So... Yeah. I agree, more options are always a good thing. What I'm talking about is that sex is part of a relationship, and it doesn't necessarily have to be a romantic one - it's not something you should get as some sort of 'endgame' content, as in the endgame stage, the relationship effectively ends.

I will bring up the original Witcher again, if you have sex with a certain character and then screw her over, she's going to be pretty damn pissed at you when you encounter her later on. Now that's meaningful, that's sex actually used as a form of expression to an extent, and it has influence on what happens in the storyline.

Yeah, I know I keep bringing up Witcher after saying it has bad sex bits... It's just a game of great ideas and terrible execution

I have no problem with it. But even though there have been many advances in the last decades, western culture is still very anti-sexual. Christianity, tradition and mainstream feminist theory is to blame.

Oh wait there is one thing I dislike. Most female armor in fantasy games (as well as a lot of fantasy art). It just looks really stupid. If you want to have some bare female flesh as eye-pleasing material in your RPG game then please be a little more creative. Prostitutes, courtesans, relationships, there are many better ways to approach this. You could even flesh out a pseudo-medieval society with liberal attitudes towards nudity and pseudo-nudity. And maybe even make a you know fantasy game that is not set in some sort of pseudo-medieval society. Then again that would be actual creativity, and you can't really expect much of that from game designers.