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Bioware Talks Sex In Games
BioWare co-founder Greg Zeschuk believes there’s no reason for developers to ignore sex in games if it's in the right context and the subject's handled sensibly.
“I think from our perspective we want to reflect real human relationships… And if that involves some sort of intimate scenes, we want to provide those for the player,” Zeschuk, who’s now creative officer at EA’s newly formed MMO RPG group, told CVG.
“It's based on the fact that this is a sophisticated mature experience. The same way that a kid's anime or cartoon will have a different style of content in it than a really serious drama, this is like a serious drama,” he said of BioWare’s upcoming Dragon Age. “Really what we're going for in all cases is emotional engagement, some kind of impact.”
BioWare’s depiction of sex in games hit the headlines last year when Fox News Channel ran an error-laden news segment on Mass Effect. The coverage in question indicated that the game featured “full digital nudity and sex,” while a voiceover claimed that players could engage in “graphic sex,” neither of which were true.
“It's interesting because I think the Mass Effect thing was completely overblown,” Zeschuk reflected. “There wasn't even really nudity; it was like the side of a leg. I think some of the press took huge advantage of the situation. The reality was that it was the kind of stuff you'd see on evening television.”
You can read more about how sex is represented in games in this feature.
Image credit: IGN
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Copyright 2006 - 2009 Future Publishing Limited, Beauford Court 30 Monmouth Street Bath, UK BA1 2BW
England and Wales company registration number 2008885
That Fox News "expose" was hilarious. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKzF173GqTU)
Really, if it's rated appropriately there's no reason for this to be even talked about as though there's any real controversy surrounding it.
Well yes there is still reason for talking about it because there still isn't much stopping kids at all from buying adult games. A 13 year old can't buy a Playboy so why should it be any easier for him to buy something equally as adult in a video game?
Secondly, the industry does need to grow up and quit focusing on the same old teenage boy market. If you market primarily towards children then you will be viewed as a children's industry and it will forever be hard to have grown up games.
Perhaps instead of selling games in Toys-R-Us, they should sell them in more mature retailers. Bookshops or game retailers who cater to adults instead of spotty little twats.
Freaky!
Dreamhunk, is that you?
You haven't been on in such a long time.
We, the Edge community, have missed you terribly.
What's stopping a kid from getting a Playboy that isn't stopping him from getting an M-rated video game?
"The industry" does not just do one thing. There's a lot of people in there. They're the ones that will make decisions on this, and it won't all be one way.
Publishers do get to decide how their products are displayed and they're the ones happy to set GoW beside Banjo Kazooie where as if you look at books and movies you do not find horror movies mixed in between children's movies.
The movies may be in a movie section so, in a sense they're together, but there is generally a separation of adult and children's books / movies.
Games don't have that and all games aim to be sold in places like Toys-R-Us so it's no surprise that people think games are for children.
Retailers don't mind doing things this way either because their margins are low so they need to do things like that or start selling more used games. But again, this is the publisher's fault.
It's difficult to imagine games handling the subject well, though, certainly on current evidence. Considering that morality in games still seems mostly to boil down to fairly simplistic choices between the obviously good and bad, it hasn't fundamentally evolved very much either in implementation or by adding to gameplay. If we can't do basic morality how can we do other mature concepts?
I'm all for less immature games, but the addition of sex to games doesn't equal added maturity so much as more scope for toe-curling embarrassment. While games are trying to build deeper relationships, sex is actually a lazy way to drive this - at least until other mechanics are better understood or utilised as well. It's interesting ground to navigate, I'm just not too hopeful yet.
But if we don't even attempt mature concepts, how is the medium supposed to evolve? Sure the first attempts might not be great, but the point is we will learn from them.
Gaming shouldn't limit its scope, and obviously has to learn to develop. So I'm not saying they shouldn't try so much as expressing reservations at this stage.
It's also a question of the reason for implementation and what it will add to games, and whether the inclusion of sex equates necessarily to maturity, or is the best way to work towards more mature gaming.
^ This.
The sex scenes and relationship system found in ME are just baby steps. Given the current technology and the scope of the game, I can't think of a better way BioWare could have handled it.
The ME thing was only overblown by people who are still foolish enough to believe that video games are merely a kid's toy.
Unfortunately a lot of games propogate the immaturity.
Bioware recently said that video games need to push teh artistic boundray -- eventually making violence unnecessary for a game to be fun. I think they're right. If games ever want the full recognition as an artistic medium shared by literature or cinema, they need to start growing up and move beyond the merely visceral.
The number on the front of the box is sufficient defence.
I don't think the inclusion of sex should men an automatic 18 either.
It would be if there were punishments for irresponsible parents and irresponsible retailers but the fact is most publishers probably are fine with selling any game to any child because the video games business model is actually flawed.
This industry has an awful history with sex and nudity. I think sex can and should be in games but games need to grow up and it needs to put effort in ensuring adult titles are played by adults so we have a better defence against the religious / parental nuts
You do realize that Mass Effect's "sex scenes" were very much PG-13 (if you compare them movie scenes), about 30 seconds long, and had a fairly lengthy build up of the character relationships (i.e. it wasn't an instant gratification after telling an NPC "Lets fuck")? If Mass Effect isn't an example of an "adult game" (RPGs of this depth in gameplay and dialog are not really favorites of the kiddies, they're more interested in the more violent games in the shooter and open world genres) which did relationships/sex in a fairly mature way, I'm not sure what is.
I'm not sure if you know, but the Fox News segment in question (with "SEX-box" being in the graphic appear during the segment) was pretty much the hosts and some author trying to sell her parenting book making up things that were not in the game, with Geoff Keighly from Game Trailers TV getting cut off every time he tried to bring actual facts about Mass Effect into the "discussion". There's no defense against an exploitive/sensationalist TV channel trying to get viewers via stupidity and willing ignorance.
I never said the sex scenes in Mass Effect were anything more. In fact when I posted that, the game wasn't even in my mind.
Just as some companies do violence tastefully, a lot of them don't and if the industry takes on a "sex is ok" attitude (actually sex is ok) then I think we'll find we'll, for the most part, get sex that appeals to 13 year olds and not adults.
The reason people treat games as a kids only thing rather than as a legit form of entertainment is because it's primarily dominated by immature attitudes and yes actually they do market towards teens and kids *a lot* more than adults. So why shouldn't people think it's a kid's activity?