Sep 19
Damn Gamers!
Mass Effect, the sci-fi RPG from BioWare that’s due out on November 20th, is starting to see a lot more press coverage as the big day approaches. I’ve really appreciated most of it, as I’m very much looking forward to the game. For the most considered approach to the new information, this 1up/Gamevideos piece is probably the best you’ll get.
However, along with new videos and text information there’s been a lot of tittering. Why? Because gamers are fucking four years old! The following story has garnered it’s own news post on dozens of websites:
Mass Effect To Include Sex Scene
Mass Effect has earned itself a 12 rating from the BBFC for containing moderate violence and some steamy hanky-panky … The scene is the sort of thing you’re likely to see in most films at the cinema, with a brief flash of a breast and some jazz saxophone wailing in the background. You can tell those involved really like each other and will probably pursue the relationship further, for example. Developer BioWare has even given players the chance to see a lesbian encounter, depending on the the sex of your character and the choices you make throughout the game
GAAH. HOW IS THIS NEWS? News would be if you butt-fuck a kangaroo in the game while singing the national anthem! News would be if you kill a bunch of kids and then do an irish jig on their corpses. There has been sex in lots of games now … why is this news?
Oh, of course, because they’re LESBIANS! And two chicks doing it is TOTALLY HOT!
Fucking hell. This is why we can’t have nice things, guys. As long as shit like this is ‘news’, no one is going to take gamers, game reporting, or the games themselves seriously.
Even fricking television is over this crap now. Prime time TV has lesbian characters if not ‘all the time’ then frequent enough so as not to be all that notable. Sci-fi shows have been over this crap since Buffy.
If games are ever to be respected as an art form, gamers are going to have to get over it. People have sex. Relationships are formed, broken, etc. Not every interaction with a game world should be done via a gun or sword. I keep joking to my friends when we play EQ2, upon seeing a really nice monster model, “It’s beautiful! Let’s kill it!” The reason, of course, is that we have no other way of interacting with the game world.
In the real world, sometimes you just talk. Sometimes you have sex. Sometimes it’s with someone of the same gender. In a movie, tv show, or book, that interaction would be completely non-notable. If you have problems with graphic sex or non-hetero sex maybe you’d raise an eyebrow, but it wouldn’t be anything out of the ordinary. Here, the very fact that two characters knock boots gets a whole fricking story.
GROW UP!
Update: For a tasteful appraisal of this topic, please reference Penny Arcade’s treatment of this development.
9 comments9 Comments so far
I think the “growing up” will have to wait until this sort of thing becomes more common in games. We’ll probably have to go through at least two more “OMG sexz0rz in a videogame!!!1!11!!” media blitzes before the inclusion of tame, relatively tasteful sexual content in a videogame becomes as passe as the side-boob in an R-rated flick.
Matt’s right. This is news precisely because it IS news, and that’s the problem. We don’t have scenes like this in games. We don’t “do” any exploration of relationships beyond some heterosexual flirting and some pointed innuendo.
It’s a catch-22. People won’t shut up about it until it’s common enough that it’s not worth talking about (See: HBO), and most companies won’t want to touch the topic as long as there’s media buzz, controversy, and concerned parents.
We’re all guilty of the same behavior, though. Guys will be guys…
From Jennifer Aniston kissing Winona Ryder on ‘Friends’ to Calista Flockhart and Lucy Liu on ‘Ally McBeal’ lesbian kissing, implied lesbian sex between hot babes, or just plain sex in general will always boost ratings when guys watch. There’s a reason the automotive magazines are chock full of scantily-clad women in all the photo shoots and advertisements. Sex sells.
Look at fantasy art – same there, the women are always clad in the equivalent of a chain mail G-string.
It’s also true of our videogames, with Lara Croft leading the way.
Age of Conan is hyping the whole ‘M’ rating, which… sure, it’s keeping to the barbaric and sexist lore of the books, but the bottom line is the ‘M’ isn’t going to sell to “mature†adults, it’s going to be a bunch of WoW thirteen year-olds screaming “ZOMG BL00DZ AND B00BZ†and we all know it.
Bioware aren’t fools, they can easily take advantage of the “modern gamer demographics†and put a bit more risque content in their new RPG, because in the end, sex sells, and they’re in the business of selling games.
I get irritated about this from time to time as well. I’m trying to be patient, anticipating the days when the industry grows up. :)
You crack me up Michael. Zonkeroo. Zonktastic. Zonkalicious.
It’s too bad you’re married to a hot wife, or I’d snatch you up.
I completely agree with the people calling it news, they are justly right to do so. The vast majority of gamers are under the age of 17, what rights do game developers have to expose immature minds to the birds and bees? And why encourage the few addicted elder gamers to stay locked up in their unhealthy dungeon for 36 hour gameing marathons with the promise of a fantasy they cannot achieve in real life? It is completely immoral for game developers to to include any form of sex or violence in games.
Games are the prime reason for the decline of society today, if only more of the atrocities made news we could see this satan spawned industry closed down, or at least tightly controlled by God fearing government.
People like you folks on these “websites†are what is wrong in the world today.
WRONG!
The average gamer is in his/her 30’s. More than half of online gamers are women. sorry unbeliever, the industry is not corrupting the youth – the youth isn’t the core of the market. I think you are trolling though, and you know this.
This is news. Just as lesbians on TV is news. Yes, I’m a man and two naked chicks coated in oil doing sign language with their tongues works for me. That said, if I want to see that I’ll get an adult DVD. It won’t make me buy a game.
Plus it’s creepy. Like those ‘video game hotties’ in Playboy. It does more harm than good because it fails to cross the uncanny valley.
Edited by Michael.
Comments closed.
Hey Unbeliever! On your site, you’re funny. Here, on my site? You’re a dick.
Don’t comment here again, please.