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Editor’s note: Aaron makes some great points about why sex isn’t done right in games — and why people aren’t necessarily ready to see it “done right.” And sorry to disappoint anyone, but Nathan Drake will not be “doing it” in Uncharted 2. Uh…not with Elena anyways…. -Shoe
Everyone remembers what happened with Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas’ Hot Coffee and Mass Effect’s famous sex scene: The mainstream media practically thought games were raping our children’s minds.
The idea of depicting sex in games is so outrageous for so many people, it probably won’t be a significant part of any mainstream titles for a very long time to come. At least not until the industry truly matures and becomes widely respected — or until the weirdos stop making us look bad.
The key problem is that the media (and the people who aren’t heavily invested in gaming culture) can’t tell the difference between a game trying to depict the act of emotional-physical expression or being blatant polygonal porn (see Japanese “dating” simulators)….
To some degree I think these people have the right to object; off the top of my head, I can’t think of any games that have come out where a sex scene would have added anything. In Mass Effect it kind of made sense because you were trying to be emotionally involved with another character, but that was really more of a “I picked the right buttons to click to make you want me” situation. As anyone who has ever had a real relationship knows, sex generally doesn’t happen right when you get involved with someone unless they really like you — or they’re, you know, easy.
Sex didn’t really add anything to Mass Effect — I personally liked Tali the most anyway, but I didn’t want my Shepard to bang her. Bioware apparently didn’t want me to either. I thought of my Mass Effect crew as “my awesome team of buddies” while Tali was the “bad ass and mysteriously hot alien friend” I always wanted by my side when shit hit the fan.
Still I’m glad someone is trying to bring classy sex to games — after enough attempts, some developer will hopefully get it right. Hell, maybe Bioware will do it in Mass Effect 2. Of the many reasons I’m excited to play that game, that’s one, I guess.
Maybe it’s simply an issue of context. Say you’re playing a game where you are the new guy — the person no one knows — and your job is to prove to the world you’re awesome. Assuming you’re the typical male protagonist, having some friendly lady jump on your lap after a few dialogue scenes is hardly an accurate depiction of anything except maybe the simple mind of a teenager where the end result is more important than the process that lead to it.
Now if you were playing a character that had already developed an intimate relationship with another, say the way Nathan Drake did with Elena Fisher in Uncharted, it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to see them “expressing” themselves in a sequel. I doubt that will actually happen in Uncharted 2, but it wouldn’t be out of place — especially considering how realistic and believable the characters are.
Looking at it from another perspective, however — sex for most people is something so personal, that they don’t want to see it acted out by polygons no matter how logical it may be for the characters to do so because it’s almost like creepy voyerism. As gaming progresses and we get closer and closer to realism, maybe that will change, and maybe it will be accepted just as it is in TV and film.
We are talking about virtual characters in virtual worlds compared to real people in mostly real worlds, so perhaps it will never be “right,” at least not until we’re all jacked into the Matrix and…yeah, I should end that trail of thought here.
You can’t really tell a realistic, highly emotional story without the old love sub-plot, which generally involves more than talking. If the popularity of romatic comedies is anything to go by, a lot of people out there — especially women — love a good love story.
Maybe that’s the bigger problem — that we simply don’t have enough games that are interested in telling that kind of story. You could probably relate it to what I talked about in my other article about most games needing violence to sell.
When sex in games will be anything more than a bad Internet joke or an excuse for politicians to rant, no one knows. But hey, look at the bright side. If that’s all you want in your games, Japan has been delivering the goods for years. Just don’t tell anyone what you’re playing.