This is the first in our two-part series on the sexual content that is included in video games.
Define the need of sex in games and then define the commercial and economical side of it. Justify the booth babes at E3 and the lesser and seductive clothes of female characters in games and finally draw a parallel to stereotypical Indian music videos. I can see the reader totally at loss, maybe I pushed it a bit too much with our music videos.
The question is: Is the sexual content needed or is just lying around there without a reason? If it was lying around there just for the heck of it, then the games like Playboy Mansion and Larry Suit series of 80s would have fallen flat on the floor. That didn’t happen, and so we are forced to move towards the other alternative of its need. Who incorporates this need for sex in games? Developers? Publishers? Us? Nothing is without a reason, and I am more inclined to believe that its actually us who make publishers and developers put this buried side of our id in the games. No? Then why don’t you uninstall that Playboy: The Mansion that you have installed in that hidden folder on your PC?
History speaks for itself. The issue of sex in games is almost as old as the medium itself. Even before we had “Playboy: The Mansion”, we had pixilated horny images influencing erotic lobby of our senses. Before Hot Coffee, even before the 1980’s Leisure Suit Larry series, there was sex in video games… and lots of it. From flirting in MUDs, to hardcore sexual simulators, to the emerging field of teledildonics, sex in games has been lurking in the shadows. Its just now that it has come into the spotlight and that too in last few years. Sex isn’t limited to the games themselves, of course. As I mentioned above the infamous “E3” booth babes are as much a part of sex in games as the characters that walk through game worlds. Sexual content found in video game advertising has as strong a place in the discussion as emergent sexual content in MMORPGs.
We need to define what is immoral and what is not and it’s not an easy task to do so. To be frank its not even possible. What I might consider immoral could be a perfectly normal behavior for someone else. Moral issues are strictly individual and lie in the area of personal choices. Seeing some stinky clothes in games is not really immoral and a regular shot of the beauty in cut scenes is perfectly normal, provided it has been blended in properly. Remember Cortez’s waterfall bathing scene in Ubisoft’s FarCry? Or Mona Sax’s in “Max Payne 2”? Now if someone comes out protesting against such content, no doubt the person suffers from extreme case of immoral indigestion. People who play these missions again and again to watch the cut scenes are perfectly normal; those who throw grenades while Mona is taking bath are not.
While talking on the same topic, GTA series are a class apart. The content shown in the game, the actions, the language and the radio stations mimic the American Dream. The series itself is a mockery of the so-called cultural integrity of America in general. Though in San Andreas Rockstar took it a step further by introducing the pimpin’ missions. I suppose judging GTA and other games like Manhunt and Warriors by Rockstar are better left upon individual thinking. As for me, its perfectly alight because Rockstar has a valid reason for doing so. It’s a different story altogether that Rockstar actually condemned the Hot Coffee mod and came out with a new patch for GTA SA, that doesn’t support modding, not even for vehicles. Can you imagine? GTA without modding!! Of course the patch is unpopular in gaming communities and those who upgraded to newer version, soon went through the process of uninstalling the upgraded version and installing the basic game again, not because they wanted to enjoy the Hot Coffee mod, but coz they love the modding vehicles in SA. Keeping this in mind, note that most of the people play games like Sims just cause of the nude mod. So shouldn’t EA come out with a patch for banning the nude mods? Who is the larger culprit? EA or Rockstar?
Probably games like 7 Sins and Playboy: The Mansion are one of the few games which totally target on the sexuality and these are the games who brought the issues of sexuality to the forefront. 7 Sins, set in the hedonistic haven of Apple City, allows players to immerse themselves in the world of sex, celebrity and greed as they compete in a series of risqué and adult challenges in order to climb their way up the social and economical ranks of the neon-drenched metropolis. Throughout seven distinctive chapters, players will need to carefully build the right relationships with the city’s many flamboyant characters and indulge in each of the classic Seven Sins. By finding the right balance for their rampant emotions and conquering a series of fun-filled mini-games, players can manipulate, cajole, seduce and backstab their way through the city. Well it is another vaguely saucy combination of The Sims and American Pie-style teen sex comedies. One can remember the not so recent release of the sequel to “The Leisure Suit Larry”, plus, the sequel to Couples, a shag fest soap opera Sim on PC. Mildly more entertaining were Sprung and Project Rub on the Nintendo DS – better games but still rather silly and inconsequential in the sense of the sexual issues. The rate of interest in such games is so wide spread that now gamers can actually define if a game is good in sexual matters or not!! 7 Sins fell flat on its face whereas Leisure Suit failed to fulfill the expectations of the gamers. To think of it… the gamers actually had expectations from a game based on the sexual issues. In the mayhem Playboy came out as a winner with its shockingly open gameplay.
Historically, we can understand the reasons behind the industry’s introducing the adult themes: a younger audience, a male-dominated development environment and, of course, basic pixilated visuals which only ever really allowed a nudge, nudge, wink, wink, approach to portraying sex. But there is a way of portraying things. Anything related with sex portrayed in Playboy will do because the game is based on it primarily. But seeing a shower scene in the mid of a battlefield is nonsense. Arnold Schwarzenegger once said that he hated the sex scene in Terminator because it was totally at odds with the rest of the film – the same complaint would no doubt be leveled at sex in, say, Metal Gear Solid. Although ‘stealth sex’ is an intriguing concept. Perhaps the best example of a fitting storyline will be of the Nintendo Entertainment System spy game Golgo 13 which allowed you to use seduction as an element of the espionage storyline. Later, in the cyperpunk adventure Omikron: The Nomad Soul, one of the playable characters clearly has a sexual relationship with his girlfriend, which is reasonably well handled. Sex could be incorporated into adventure titles as a genuine game play element rather than a quick diversion. It has happened before. Some might say that the missing link in the GTA dynamic is some kind of emotional content, an ongoing love interest rather than a quickie with a hooker in the back of a Transit van. After all, even Tony Montana had a girlfriend. All too often any kind of emotional subplot is hurried out of the way as quickly as possible – the dead wives avenged in Max Payne and The Getaway. Couldn’t they perhaps hang around for a while before being riddled with bullets?
Now I want to touch upon the dating games published in Japan, which actually touch upon the sexual priorities of humans and use these carnal desires to sell their products. One of such games is Rez released on PS2, which actually ships with a trance vibrator. The game is, truly, a stunningly beautiful thing. It is a “music shooting” game, but of such elegance and coolness that it’s a genre all its own. The premise places you as a futuristic hacker, avoiding security systems and navigating through databases to crack codes in a way strongly reminiscent of Tron. The goals are simply to progress to the next level – not so complicated. But getting there is a sublime visual and aural experience. There’s also an invincible “travelling” mode, if you want to just sit back and move through the levels without worrying about your avatar’s taking damage. The game has been immensely popular with girls who actually use the Trance Vibrator while playing the game (you know where they use it right!). Is that crazy or what? Though the Japanese take 10 outta 10 for creativity, but selling and marketing games in this manner… is it justified? Is it justified in the name gaming?
Then there is the Nintendo advertisement of Juiced featuring a topless model being modded by the players sitting in a car. I was surprised to see this add. The game Juiced had enough Juice of its own to have an advertisement like that. This, in my eyes is downright shameless promotion of the product and vulgar in every sense of the word. Then there are great games like God of War, which feature completely topless females in the cut scenes, who you actually need to please to pass onto the next level. Somehow I find my head at the verge of a mind hang seeing all these products. Sometimes I find hard to decide what is wrong and what is right. Just as I said it’s a matter of individual choices.
Away from the virtual world of games the merchandise related with games is more shocking the games themselves. The October 2005 issue of Playboy magazine came out with the girls of gaming featuring erotic topless digital representations of the selective female characters from the popular games. There were eight of them and they were introduced as trading cards…!! It had Avalon from Hellgate London, Jacqui from Blitz: the League, Carla Valenti from indigo prophecy, Tala from Darkwatch, Faerie Queen from playboy mansion: Private Party, The Oracle from God of War, Alexa Thompson from 50 cent: bulletproof and Cassidy Sharp from Darkwatch again. Plus these eight trading cards had a large tempting illustration of Evil Tala and virtuous Cassidy overleaf. It’s a general truth that Darkwatch got more famous for these illustrations then for the game itself.
–Bobby Sandhu
Watch this space for Sexual and Explicit Content in Video Games – Part 2.