Thank you to all who are continuing to spread ‘SHOW ME YOURE BOBIES’ around the Internet. I couldn’t be more proud that THAT is the phrase attached to my name.Speaking of bobies, I finally feel like quasi-addressing and undressing something that I’ve avoided for a while: BOOBS AND SEX IN VIDEO GAMES! YAY! WOO! SPRING BREAK!
When men ask me how I feel about female nudity in games, I usually tell them I care less than a Taco Bell cashier, and when women ask me if I’m concerned about it as a serious problem, I suggest they calm down and remove the sand from their vaginas.
But to be perfectly honest, AS A FEMALE, MEANING I REALIZE GAMES ARE NOT MARKETED TOWARD ME, AND I ALSO REALIZE I *DO NOT* SPEAK FOR THE REST OF THE FEMALE GAMING COMMUNITY, the recent increase in female nudity and sex in mainstream video games has made me tilt my head slightly to the left and utter a contemplative, “Hm.”
(Trufax about Lisa Foiles include that she’s extremely laid back, rarely offended, and occasionally refers to herself in third person on Tuesdays after her morning scotch. That being acknowledged, you can rest assured that I’m not just whining to be heard without a legitimate point here.)
Let’s face it: 8-bit boobs are one thing. But today’s video game graphics look real. Therefore, we are basically staring at REAL breasts, not to mention video game bobies are larger and nicer than your average IRL bobies.
YES, this is why these games have the Mature rating - I’m not at ALL saying this content is evil and inappropriate and should be banned and yadda yadda blah blah. The thing that bothers me, as a female who is still trying to retain an ounce of moral fiber and not go to Hell, is the fact that naked boobs and sex is becoming standard in mainstream video games. It’s the norm now.
Just because I don’t see anything wrong with a Mature-rated game having these elements doesn’t mean I still want to see them in every M-rated game I play. That’s my main point here. To name a few recent games… Mass Effect 2: Sex. No More Heroes 2: LOTS of boobs and sex. God of War 3: Boobs and sex (as we all expected). Dante’s Inferno: Duh, boobs. Heavy Rain: Yes, we all know about the boobs and the strip tease. The list goes on.
…But how far are we going to push the envelope? In a year, will full-on, shameless boobs, cooch, and gross sex acts be the norm in games? Where do we draw the line? As a video game enthusiast, I just want to make sure we’re keeping things classy, folks.
Tear me apart all you want; this is just my opinion as a chick. Fine, put the giant boobs in my face and shake them around if you must, game studios, but can you maybe hold off on doing it for every title? Please? OH maybe you should give me an option in the menu! “BOBIES OR NO BOBIES.” Yeah. That’d be hawt.
You talk about this like you think it's a bad thing...
ReplyDeleteAt the risk of you vowing never in this lifetime to let me see yours I suggest you're over reacting a bit.
Make a list of all the games that DON'T have boobies in them.
I'm sure you'll be able to find some to play; Hannah Montana The Movie, High School Musical 3: Senior Year DANCE!, Ashes Cricket 2009 to name but a few.
Would it help if we had more male nudity in mature games?
HAHAHA. I don't know... I heard Hannah Montana the Movie has LOTS AND LOTS AND LOTS of boobs. Like insane amounts. The whole game is one giant boob shot, so I've heard.
ReplyDeleteDang... I missed that one.
ReplyDeleteI see your point though, (as opposed to seeing your points) but I feel you've explained yourself away, as a wise game goddess once said "...AS A FEMALE, MEANING I REALIZE GAMES ARE NOT MARKETED TOWARD ME..." Well, there's your problem right there. As long as publishers keep marketing their games to the likes of me THERE WILL BE BOBIES!
PS: In England we often call policeman with a traditional rounded helmet (oh,please. I am rolling my eyes and waiting for you to stop sniggering...) we often call them bobbies... their rounded helmets often give them the nickname of "tits".
I'm glad to report there are no Bobies in Alien vs Predator... although I do remember Danny Glover telling the Predator in "Predator 2" he was a "p***y face". But I don't think that counts.
ReplyDeletelol. AWW I'm sad we don't get Alien and Predator boobs. =(
ReplyDeleteIt's only a matter of time before one of the bullets in the back of game boxes is ・BOBIES!
ReplyDeleteI think that's part of the problem. Hollywood discovered that sex sells a long time ago and now that video game developers get to put them in shamelessly it's becoming generally widespread. I also don't really have a problem with sex and nudity in games but please make it count. I was glad to see the report on the sex scene in GoW3 nearly removed to save it from just being some token sex scene.
@Emilio - Agreed. Very, very well stated.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree. I'm not playing video games to see breasts. I have no issue with GoW having some nudity, whatever it's Greece, and they were laid back. The problem I have is when I'm playing something like Mass Effect or Dragon Age, a cutscene starts, and my wife looks at the screen. Awkward. Using sex to sell video games kind of undersells all the other aspects of that game. I hope few M titles have nudity going forward, but I know I'm the minority opinion.
ReplyDeleteWait'll they make a Sterling Archer game. Yowch.
ReplyDelete@Ponderus - That is EXACTLY right. That's the one other point I didn't get into. My gaming aside, it's awkward to be watching my man play a game full of naked women. Look, I know the girls are fake, but again, these days they LOOK real. So to glance over and see him watching giant naked boobs is a little...awkward. And weird. And kinda uncool, haha.
ReplyDelete@Ponderous Funny thing there. That happened to my friend. He was playing Dragon Age and his wife happened to look at the screen. She kind of freaked, and the rest of (we were hanging out at their house) were just laughing hysterically. It was one of the funniest things I've been witness to in a LONG time.
ReplyDeleteBut yeah, I do have to agree that it does seem to have reached the "overdone gimmick" phase. God of War I understand (because that's been a "feature" since #1), but sometimes it just seems like the devs were like "We have a crappy game, no one will play it. Oh I know! We'll put in some nudity!" When they put in Disney's Magical Kart Racing, I knew it was a bit to far.
The only time its really made me say "Come on.. really?!" was when I played the Dantes Inferno Demo. His gfriend was topless for no apparent reason near the end of the demo as she is kidnapped by death or something..
ReplyDeleteIt was kind of distracting to the emotional aspect of the game to have her titties shoved in my face while Dante is having an emotional crisis watching his wife or gfriend taken from him by skeletor..
It kind ofcheapens the story for me since shes being whored out by the developers during a pivotal emotional point of the story but hey im not a pubescent ronery teenage kid haha
At least in Dead or Alive or Bayonetta you kind of already know what to expect from the game.
It just didnt seem like it fit. People need to learn where to appropriately shove jubblies in video games :P
Sometimes it can come across as the developer doesnt stand behind their product and will shove sex in to distract you from the meh of the overall game...
Well, everyone knows the only reason Metroid sold so well for the NES was the great Samus boob shots.
ReplyDeleteDid someone ITT seriously just complain about titties shoved in their face? I'm officially giving up on the human race.
ReplyDeleteI think game companies putting gratuitous bobs in games, is like game companies putting gratuitous multiplayer in them as well. Some games call for them, while others you can see it was a cheap attempt for you to keep it longer, when all you really wanted to do in the first place was play with yourself.
ReplyDeleteBut really, Id be more insulted with Devs thinking we really wanted to play Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen online. Or offline for that matter.
Optimus would look great with a nice, pert rack though.
I don't like nudity in games; it is kinda silly point to use nudity to sell games. Sexy stuff is cool, but nudity is a bit too much. I'm a Tomb Raider enthusiast & like the protagonist very much still, I do not like the patches which make Lara nude. Action is action, when a girl does it, it's super sexy. But nudity will not help boost the adrenaline.
ReplyDeleteYeah... after a while, all the constant bobies just get kind of boring. I mean, I dunno, maybe we ladies get bored of them quicker since, you know, we see 'em every damn time we step in the shower and it's kinda like, "yeah, okay, breastesses, YAAWWNNN." But still. I would think that even dudes, once they reach a certain level of saturation, have GOT to be like "ugh, MORE of this shit? Couldn't they have used those pixels on a cool robot instead?" In fact, I KNOW dudes get this way, even if they're too cool for school to admit it. Even nips are just plain not exciting enough to overcome the human need for variety.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I am disturbed by the lack of male nudity, which is not a problem limited to games. Conversely, we should just make female toplessness legal everywhere so bobies will stop being a big deal and won't be real "nudity." Yeah, it'll probably take a generation or two of dudes who think "ZOMG BOBIES" to die out but at least our granddaughters won't think of it as nudity?
As you can tell from my disjointed comment, I could use myself a scotching over here.
Hooray for you, Lisa! Seriously, I'm making a game right now and it seems every chance the concepters get to throw boobs on stuff, they do! Not just perky ones, but nasty gramma boobs, too. I've joked about putting gramma boobs on the chicken. It's definitely getting harder to work at a AAA studio without being an a "M" game, which as you've mentioned is getting more and more about the bobies. Lame...
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with your blog post. Love games, love M games, just give us ladies a little slack with the boobs from time to time. They're not Dead or Alive games, yo!
ReplyDeleteWhile I *mostly* agree with your point here, something occurs to me. It seems only fair to the industry to point out that you cherry-picked games that had teh bobies from a long list of games that have absolutely none. Now "wait!" I hear you cry - "those are the most popular games of the year!". Exactly. Maybe the finger needs to be pointed slightly less at the devs, than at the consumers when you're trying to figure out why there is sex. In fact, since there seems to be such a high correlation between sexualization of the game and the success (financial and critical), why the heck aren't more devs adding this stuff.
ReplyDeleteI dunno. It's maybe a bit of a stretch, but it's no worse an argument than "every game out there has sex in it!", methinks.
I honestly think that nudity in video games will never feel like a natural thing to have or something that ever feels anything other than cheaply tacked on to give a game a more "adult" (read: porn) feel.
ReplyDeleteMy personal belief is that sex and sharing nude bodies with one another is something meant to take place only in a the most committed, personal and private of relationships. Everything else cheapens rather than enhances that, and that can be seen blatantly in video game sex and nudity.
Placing a nude game body on the screen (with very VERY rare exceptions for actual art or authenticity of powerful expression) serves no real purpose other than to erotically titillate the viewer/player on some level or another, but never in a manner that equates to actually respecting the woman at all. She's fantasy and she remains that. Rather than appreciate her as a person, she's jerk-off material. How is that in any way a healthy reflection of reality?
Most gamers would argue "It doesn't matter, it's not real", and they're right about the second part. But as you've expressed, it's both frustrating and disheartening for a woman to have to realize that her man is exposed to these virtually flawless people...and worries about comparison are inevitable.
When it's video game nudity, it's absolutely nothing but tacked-on to titillate (or perhaps disgust in the case of "Dante's Inferno") but obviously, given the absolutely unavoidable and undeniable prevalence that pornography has taken in our society, that doesn't seem to be something that anyone is willing to discuss. Or at least, not without the immediate "free speech" card being thrown and the person initiating the discussion being immediately labeled a "prude".
My personal feeling in all of this is that guys have an infinite supply of jerk-off material if they have internet access. It's inevitable, but I really feel that it is not at ALL necessary for this stuff to spill over into gaming and it does cheapen the experience for me.
Yes, I want to be this character and go through the emotions and experiences and actions they do. That doesn't mean that I should be able to have virtual R-rated (or x-rated) sex with their love interest. To me, that's unhealthy. A "love scene" (a la Mass Effect) is permissable and doesn't really detract as it shows the growth and progression of the relationship.
But sex and nudity in games does not "enhance" the experience on any level.
Our society's obsession, glorification and carelessness toward sex is so totally headed the way of the Greek and Roman empires...or Idiocracy.
@Kyle Hendrickson - I agree with you completely. Sexuality is important, and it should be explored, but there's more to sexuality - a LOT more - than just boobs and humpin'.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I'm waiting to see a video game with an actual relationship in it between two characters who slowly get closer together and explore physical intimacy one step at a time. Mass Effect came close, but while they did exchange romantic dialogue, IIRC, they didn't even kiss until the love scene. I'm not saying that games should start having video game characters making out all the time, but even that could be a step up from all the meaningless sex in games nowadays.