SeXBox Followup!

Allen replied to my last topic asking me to elaborate on why I think it's so important for the industry to monitor the use of sex in games. I had to think about it a bit... but here's what I came up with.

I think that it's more about American society than anything else. Sex is still kind of taboo in this country and I feel like we're far more likely to be censored as an industry for featuring sex than we are for featuring violence. Sex feels like a major hot-button for conservatives and "family-values" organizations. I don't want to see the games industry relegated to comic-book-like status. The comic code of the 50s was really detrimental to the success and growth of the comic book industry, and now comics have sort of been pushed to the fringe and only enjoy cult status amongst nerds. (You probably know all that, but I really think there's a parallel here... and here's the wikipedia page for more info if anyone needs it... I know that I did!)

There's also the negative stigma that games are just for children. This really isn't the case, but I can certainly understand why those on the outside would have that view. It's up to the folks inside the industry to try to broaden the appeal of games and snap this mindset, but there's sort of a chicken-egg problem here. You can't really prove that games aren't just for kids if they only deal with kid-friendly issues. But then when you put sex or other mature themes in your games people are going to attack them outright. It looks like games are targeting children and trying to expose them to filth. Blech.

I do feel like Mass Effect is going about this the correct way by putting in tasteful sex scenes that feel more grownup. This is good way to avoid offending people and also show them that we can responsibly approach mature themes. It's basically the exact opposite of Manhunt's approach to violence.

I try not to get super defensive when people attack games for being too violent or too sexual. They're trying to protect America's youth and that's a noble goal. And it still hasn't really been proven if gaming or other media can sculpt someone's psyche. But even with ESRB ratings kids are going to get a hold of the games and they're going to experience the content. I don't think that we should be censoring extreme content but I also don't want to personally work on a game like Manhunt. You have to take the good with the bad though, so I guess we have to just do our best as responsible adults to keep the material out of the hands of kids as best we can.

Hope that clears it up! Thanks for reading, Allen!

-Brad!

Off-Road Velociraptor Safari!

Off-Road Velociraptor Safari looks amazing.

That is all.

-Brad!

Alien Sex!

Mass Effect was released in November amidst all of the holiday hullabaloo. The good doctors over at Bioware were shooting for an incredibly immersive sci-fi adventure with a host of interesting characters... including a bunch of aliens. During your travels through the stars you can stop and chat with your crew members and the denizens of many planets. Two characters in the game, a hot girl and a hot alien girl, are open to extra curricular activities if you talk to them often enough and ask them the right questions. Bioware refers to these in-game actions as "romantic subplots" in their 360 Achievements. Clever, clever guys.

So there's a sex scene in the game. Check it out here on the youtubes. And again!

(I'm going to skip over the fact that you can only choose between boy-girl sex or girl-girl sex. Apparently boy-boy sex is just too taboo...? Holy crap is America weird...)

So now the stage has been set. And with a presidential election coming up it only took a couple of months for someone to notice. Kevin McCullough scooped it up and wrote a scathing article bashing the shit out of the industry and Mass Effect. Then of course some gamers flew off the handle and told him that he was an asshat. I wish they had exercised a bit more restraint... but it's on the internets and people are pretty serious about things over here. Kevin then went on to post a scathing rebuttal to all of the "Gamer-Nerds" that wrote in to him. I guess I shouldn't be too offended... I mean, he capitalized both "Gamer" and "Nerd." And he hyphenated it. Thanks Kevin! I appreciate your support.

I'm not sure how I feel about this entirely. It seems like Kevin really enjoys riding that moral high horse around, telling us why we're bad and what we can't do. But while his sensationalism is bringing readership to the site, it's also weakening his position because he's such a dick about it. It's hard to think of this as little more than an internet troll.

But at least he's coming at it from a respectable position: we don't want our kids exposed to smut. That's pretty reasonable. I don't want kids seeing smut either. There's a time and a place for everything, and it's the exact moment that you turn 18. But these scenes in Mass Effect aren't exactly hardcore pornography. Kids are probably seeing worse stuff on tv, in movies, or on the internets.

The only difference here is that it's interactive. But here's where Kevin conveniently gives the industry too much credit. The scene isn't really interactive. You make a couple of choices and then the characters do pretty much whatever they want. You have about as much control over what's happening in this sex scene as you do in any standard porn dvd. This is kind of another topic altogether, but Mass Effect is a far cry from a "virtual orgasmic rape" simulator as Kevin puts it.

Sex in gaming is kind of a big deal and it's something that we have to monitor closely as an industry. The ESRB, the media outlets, and parents need to keep fighting the good fight and try to keep adult entertainment out of the hands of impressionable youth. And by and large it appears that they're doing a solid job. Kevin doesn't really point to a solution in his article, but I hope that attempts to legislate this kind of thing fall flat. Self-regulation seems to be working for other types of media and the games industry shouldn't be treated as a special case.

-Brad!

Play This Thing!

Indie Games proponent Greg Costikyan has said some pretty bold things in the past. (Just read some of his stuff... like Death To the Games Industry: Long Live Games) He's also formed Manifesto Games, an indie games label, and a new-ish website called Play This Thing!.

Play This Thing! is an amazing showcase for indie games... they serve up one indie game everyday. They've been very consistent and there are some real gems up there. Most of the games are on the PC, and there's usually a free playable demo so it's easy to check out anything that sounds interesting. This site is the raddest thing ever and my hat is off to them for helping indie devs get more exposure. Hopefully we'll see more innovation trickling into the mainstream because of sites like this. Go Greg Go!

-Brad!