Have porn/adult games ruined "regular" gaming for you? (ramble)

[baloneysammich]

Regular RPGs ruined regular RPGs for me. The complete lack of sexual content is more disturbing to me than practically anything sexual that could be included.

Sexuality and romance is an important and intrinsic part of life. When such a large dimension is wilfully ignored, particularly in an open-world RPG setting, that means the developers are bowing to moralistic pressure from self-righteous prudes.

The shadow of Rapelay still looms large, and somehow "marketing" concerns are allowed to stifle any creativity in matters that are likely to draw negative attention from prudish old-fashioned people with political power.

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is a useful term for this.

IMO lack of sex in games comes down to simple economics moreso than any kind of moralistic pressure. I'd wager that those who are largely indifferent to the idea of sexual content in mainstream games far outweigh the combined total of those who actively want it plus those who actively oppose it. The only certainties involved with catering to those who want it are more work and financial risk.

 

[83wulf]

I respectfully disagree. The financial risk is real, true, but not because of lack of demand. Sex sells. Always has and always will.

The big game producers self-censor a great deal in order not to get into trouble. If you take the time to study the origins of ESA, you will find that the industry “voluntarily” conforms to these standards in order not to be crushed by the moral panic of out-of-touch political busybodies like Joe Lieberman and Hillary Clinton, both of whom made real and credible threats back in the day.

 

[obibobi]

IMO lack of sex in games comes down to simple economics moreso than any kind of moralistic pressure. I'd wager that those who are largely indifferent to the idea of sexual content in mainstream games far outweigh the combined total of those who actively want it plus those who actively oppose it. The only certainties involved with catering to those who want it are more work and financial risk.

This an awful, awful argument.

This is like saying that even though there's a market, I'm not going to make a game with a sexy female because feminists will actively try to ruin me financially. Pressure has nothing to with it.

Outside pressure and the economics are clearly related.

 

[baloneysammich]

This an awful, awful argument.

This is like saying that even though there's a market, I'm not going to make a game with a sexy female because feminists will actively try to ruin me financially. Pressure has nothing to with it.

I wasn't making an argument, merely offering a different point of view. Though if I was on the board of directors of a game studio I would certainly make an argument of it.

Like any other feature, adding sexual content to a game would require dev time. That means either additional investment or more likely IMO*, sacrificing dev time that would otherwise be applied to "traditional" gameplay mechanics. Though in a sense they're the same thing. My observation is simply that there's not enough demand to warrant the basic economic risks involved. The potential of backlash from pressure groups is a completely separate source of risk.

Outside pressure alone may explain why no one is willing to take a chance. And without a few people taking the chance, we can't really know if there's a market for it. All I'm really saying is that I wouldn't bet on it.

* Consider how buggy many games are at release, open world RPGs in particular.

I respectfully disagree. The financial risk is real, true, but not because of lack of demand. Sex sells. Always has and always will.

And that's why sex games exist. It doesn't follow that there's a great demand for Skyrim: Porno Edition.

 

[83wulf]

Just look at how many kinds of porn there are today that are readily available and commercially lucrative. Today is such a good time to be a pervert! Many currently flourishing niches would have been unthinkable in the 80’s or 90’s.
This change happened mostly because of two things. a) The internet and b) how decentralised porn production is.

These two reasons are why bigger porn producers are in the situation of trying to determine what the consumer demand is, and then creating (or making available) material to supply it. They are not trend-setters, but trend-observers. Not as much dictating as adapting.

This is in stark contrast to the mainstream big game companies under ESA, which are a centralised, self-policing monopolistic cartel, in a similar situation as the film industry was in during the “Production Code” era. A lot of genres and subject matters are proscribed and censored by the prudes in power, and the consumer is being steered towards what they think is acceptable to play without being labeled a pervert or a sicko.

Any material that doesn’t conform to that is consigned to small, niche, indie devs (hello, F95-ers!). As soon as the ESA is broken (and in my opinion it is a very sick and disgusting anti-consumer organisation), we can discuss mainstream gaming as being a matter of simple supply and demand.

As it is now, the situation with the ESA and its corporate censorship means the market is skewed and Disneyfied. For my part, I would bet my bottom dollar that there is enough demand to warrant a considerable degree of mainstream adult game production under healthy, free-market conditions.
It would probably be a bit vanilla. But that is why modders and indie developers would still exist.

 

[lurkathon]

Now when I see an open world rpg, I often wonder about possible nsfw mods or search for them.
It doesn't diminish 'normal' rpgs for me, I see them as different games with different objectives.

I reckon the mainstream devs will always be targetting the childrens' $ and therefore won't want to be associated with anything 'NSFW'. Which apparently means sex is morally abhorrent, while killing for fun is something all kids should know about.

 

[whippetmaster]

It's not ruined it. It's enhanced the immersion when you selectively add adult mods or images. For example, My Summer Car. It's a game where you play a 19 year old Finn who has to rebuild a car and survive in 1990s Finland. So I found some nice images from penthouse and playboy mags and put those in the game as the player's posters in his room and even a large portrait of a pinup model called Jenny McCarthy in the garage as his Flag.
Then for Skyrim and Oblivion, it makes sense to follow the medieval theme and the similarities to the cultures it's based on. So in one, there were mods for women in both for bordellos and prostitution. And for a while I did have the defeat/submission mods in Skyrim too. I never really added to Fallout except New Vegas makes perfect sense.
So, in my view, selectively adding porn or adult mods to certain games can really, really help the immersion value of the game and add hours and hours of gameplay in some cases. Or even prevent burnout by rotating mods.

 

[baloneysammich]

ESA, which are a centralised, self-policing monopolistic cartel...

Right, like all the other monopolies and cartels throughout history that were primarily about pushing an ideological agenda.

I don't understand why it's so difficult for some people to even entertain the idea that the primary motivation for this kind of thing is financial. I guess it's more comfortable to believe that the fulfillment of one's desires is being actively repressed than accept that said desires are just too fringe to be broadly marketable.

 

[83wulf]

Right, like all the other monopolies and cartels throughout history that were primarily about pushing an ideological agenda.

Didn't say that. This is a strawman.
Cartels are about collusion and dominating a market. I went on to mention the Production Code era in filmmaking. Are you saying this was not done by a cartel (MPA)? Content restrictions is how both these cartels have presented themselves as palatable and indispensable to political power, while exercising (and thus consolidating) power over their members. Classic Macchiavelli.

The ESA (then called IDSA) came to be as a joint defensive effort to save the industry from the moral panic of prudish boomer politicians (because of Mortal Kombat). Then, as time passed, it became a lobby group, mostly for bs copyright stuff. Nowadays, they are schmoozing with and sucking up to Washington, and working against indie developers and consumers, all the while acting like they represent the video game industry.

I don't understand why it's so difficult for some people to even entertain the idea that the primary motivation for this kind of thing is financial. I guess it's more comfortable to believe that the fulfillment of one's desires is being actively repressed than accept that said desires are just too fringe to be broadly marketable.

What I don't understand is how difficult it is for some people to refrain from strawmanning.
I have (at length) been pointing out that the market is not free, and that the industry has good reason to fear people who like bible-thumping and day-time television. That fear is obviously primarily, but not exclusively, of financial consequences.

Your position seems to be (and please correct me if I'm wrong, unfair or misrepresenting you) that people are just not interested in sexual content.

If this seriously is your opinion, you have a hell of an argument to make. Yet to make, I must point out.
My starting position, that sex is kinda important to people, and sex sells, is in my opinion more grounded in reality.

 

[Lobbly]

So first off, my name on this forum says it all. I love nude mods. I've loved them from the first "nude cheat codes" I can remember on some wrestling game back on Playstation, to the infamous "Hot Coffee" cheat that let you rail your girlfriend on GTA: SA, to nude Zoey re-skins on Left 4 Dead, to countless years on sex sims in Secondlife, and everything in between. I've found myself looking for adult mods to nearly every game I've played since I was in my teens into adulthood.

But when things REALLY changed was when I first started adding sex mods to my Fallout 3/New Vegas, and subsequently, Skyrim. That's when gaming was forever changed for me. Perhaps the easy answer as to "why?", stems back to a long term porn addiction paired with a long term gaming addiction. Two addictions merging into one perhaps? But that just feels like an easy answer to me. I think ultimately what I really want out of my games is that freedom of choice. Playing Skyrim, with all of its quests and lore and NPC interaction is already quite immersive. But when you add in the ability to prostitute yourself, or have sex with the person your character marries, or you're able to walk in on 2 NPCs fucking in their bed when you try to rob them late at night...It just adds a certain level of realism and player freedom that I now crave in all my games.

That being said, I have a hard time playing games that should have adult themes but don't because of societial norms. Games like Fallout seem wrong without sex or at least nudity in them to me. (Edit for clairty: Obviously driving games, or games like Minecraft don't need 'adult' mods or content. I'm talking more about games where it could feel natural in.) Even games I've looked forward to, I find my interest fading fast if I know there's no adult content to be found in the game. Such as The Outer Worlds, which is a game I looked forward to and I've enjoyed a lot...but it's completely sexless, and with no nudity to be found, even though the setting is perfect for it. The fact that it doesn't exist at all just makes the experience feel hollow to me.

In a real life world of sex-demonizing prudes, my gaming time is my escape time. And being an adult, I want adult experiences in my games. There's just such a lack of quality adult content in the mainstream, and so I'm super glad communities like this exist. It's a big reason why I often blast shitty devs in our community, as our little underbelly tribe here should be watching out for each other and wanting to produce quality content, not dragging it down lower with scammy business practices.

Anyways, I'm not really sure of the reason for my post here, other than hoping to hear that I'm not alone. Do you find it hard to immerse yourself into games without adult themes, as well? Does having the option to take adult routes in games matter to you? Just seeing the uproar of normies to the news that Cyberpunk 2077 will allow you to modify your genitalia says it all. When I read the news, I thought, "Great, that'll be like the Skyrim Customization mod!" I hope the game doesn't stop there with the adult themes, either. But the reality is that now people are boycotting the game already because it's being "sexualized". It's why I like the f95 community so much, and why I always push for it to be even better. Because sex and nudity in games shouldn't be such a taboo thing, and people coming together for their love of adult content is pretty cool, IMO.

I'm exactly in the same boat as you. For me it started with a nude mod in Tomb Raider, Wrestling games (I created my own topless ladies using multiple skin colored stickers on them), Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim, Fallout New Vegas, Fallout 4, Dragon Age Origins,... I'm also porn addicted and used to love normal videogames. Funnily I stop consuming them when I realize that my karma has reached zero and I feel gross. A bit later I forget about the addiction and end up falling back into it when I'm feeling shitty in real life.

I'll never play Skyrim again, as it fucked me up so badly. Combining violence and sex (shout out to loverslab) made me really uncomfortable with sex in real life. I also can't enjoy Skyrim or Fallout without skimpy outfits leading to sex mods anymore.

Now I have a beautiful, kinky girlfriend but I can't see her during this Corona time so I'm back in the addiction mode even though I swore to not play these games anymore.

A gamegenre to enjoy without sex still exists though: Racing games.

 

[ilovenudemods]

I'll never play Skyrim again, as it fucked me up so badly. Combining violence and sex (shout out to loverslab) made me really uncomfortable with sex in real life. I also can't enjoy Skyrim or Fallout without skimpy outfits leading to sex mods anymore.

Interesting. I never experienced anything like that at all, even with the "Defeat" and "Submission" mods. Granted, I always play a female character, so I would occasionally allow myself to lose just to see some action or roleplay a scenario, but I never really experienced any negative real life repercussions to sex games and mods. Especially the mods that allowed for weird things, giants and mammoths to fuck you, the most I got out of those were a laugh irl.

If anything, I enjoyed the game so much more because there was the 'possibility' of adult encounters, even though I rarely instigated anything on my own. I loved the NPC sex mods paired with the roaming NPC mod which made them fuck at random times, walking different routes than they normally would. I never laughed so hard as the time I walked in on Belethor getting his dick sucked behind the counter by Nazeem. I laughed for a good 20 minutes after that. And seeing Nazeem walking around with cum on his face for the following hours after that was just ridiculously goofy.

 

[Lobbly]

Interesting. I never experienced anything like that at all, even with the "Defeat" and "Submission" mods. Granted, I always play a female character, so I would occasionally allow myself to lose just to see some action or roleplay a scenario, but I never really experienced any negative real life repercussions to sex games and mods. Especially the mods that allowed for weird things, giants and mammoths to fuck you, the most I got out of those were a laugh irl.

If anything, I enjoyed the game so much more because there was the 'possibility' of adult encounters, even though I rarely instigated anything on my own. I loved the NPC sex mods paired with the roaming NPC mod which made them fuck at random times, walking different routes than they normally would. I never laughed so hard as the time I walked in on Belethor getting his dick sucked behind the counter by Nazeem. I laughed for a good 20 minutes after that. And seeing Nazeem walking around with cum on his face for the following hours after that was just ridiculously goofy.

I used to play with Sanguine's Debauchery, Get Stripped, Prison Overhaul, Defeat, Devious Devices,... So basically my girl ran around and got raped, groped, robbed, enslaved, tied up and humiliated. I loved to see her losing control. Nowadays I mostly play male characters, which feels much healthier too.

 

[ilovenudemods]

I used to play with Sanguine's Debauchery, Get Stripped, Prison Overhaul, Defeat, Devious Devices,... So basically my girl ran around and got raped, groped, robbed, enslaved, tied up and humiliated. I loved to see her losing control. Nowadays I mostly play male characters, which feels much healthier too.

I used many of those same mods, but it didn't really 'affect' my real life view point on sex at all. I don't find real life non-consensual sex hot in the slightest, and I don't get off on seeing it in games. However it's something that happens in real situations, and so I see the merit in the immersion factor of having it in an open world experience. Similar to how a movie may have a forced sex scene in it to convey how "bad" someone is, or to show the history of a character, I find having those possibilities available to happen in a game to be just another level in the realism I seek in certain gaming experiences.

I do find it interesting how different perception of the same content can be from person to person based on experience, age, upbringing, etc etc etc. Thanks for sharing your experience.

 

[baloneysammich]

Cartels are about collusion and dominating a market. I went on to mention the Production Code era in filmmaking. Are you saying this was not done by a cartel (MPA)? Content restrictions is how both these cartels have presented themselves as palatable and indispensable to political power, while exercising (and thus consolidating) power over their members. Classic Macchiavelli.

The ESA (then called IDSA) came to be as a joint defensive effort to save the industry from the moral panic of prudish boomer politicians (because of Mortal Kombat). Then, as time passed, it became a lobby group, mostly for bs copyright stuff. Nowadays, they are schmoozing with and sucking up to Washington, and working against indie developers and consumers, all the while acting like they represent the video game industry.

I have (at length) been pointing out that the market is not free, and that the industry has good reason to fear people who like bible-thumping and day-time television. That fear is obviously primarily, but not exclusively, of financial consequences.

As far as all this goes, it's clear now that I misunderstood the post of yours to which I first responded. I thought you were suggesting that the ESA was made up of prudes rather than reacting to pressure from prudes. Which is why I was perplexed when you called them a cartel in a subsequent post, because the concept of a prudish cartel just doesn't compute.

Anyway, I apologize for the confusion.

Your position seems to be (and please correct me if I'm wrong, unfair or misrepresenting you) that people are just not interested in sexual content.

If this seriously is your opinion, you have a hell of an argument to make. Yet to make, I must point out.
My starting position, that sex is kinda important to people, and sex sells, is in my opinion more grounded in reality.

I absolutely believe people are interested in sexual content in games. Where we seem to disagree is about the number of interested people, and exactly how interested everyone is. I mean, I'm interested, but not to the same degree as you seem to be based on what you said in post 19: "The complete lack of sexual content is more disturbing to me than practically anything sexual that could be included." To elaborate, I'd also like to see sexual content in an open-world RPG (my favorite genre) that is a good game in the "traditional sense," but I'm not bothered by the lack of such content and there are other "traditional mechanics" that are much higher on my list of priorities.

Before I go any further though, would you mind elaborating on what you mean by "mainstream adult game"? Based on your interest in open-world RPGs I'm imagining something like Skyrim with explicit (but vanilla) sexual content. If I'm as mistaken about that as I was the other thing we'd just be wasting our breath debating the issue.

 

[blackoni]

After playing Skyrim and fallout NV with sex mods, I can't play normal open-world games without feeling there's something missing.
Like lately I finished RDR2 and been playing a lot of the online.
And the game being a Rockstar(the 'badboys' of AAA) game, it goes deep into violence, and very soft in sexual themes.
You can call a girl to help you take a bath, and it's implied that she rub your dick once... yay.

And speaking of violence, don't even get me started in MK11 going full disgusting gore, but the sexy ladies being desexualized and grandma panties.

 

[JojotheLich]

I typically like my porn games and my non porn games to be separated. While it is fun to mod skimpy outfits or even out right nudity, I tend to enjoy a modded game when modded with gameplay changes.

 

[ilovenudemods]

After playing Skyrim and fallout NV with sex mods, I can't play normal open-world games without feeling there's something missing.
Like lately I finished RDR2 and been playing a lot of the online.
And the game being a Rockstar(the 'badboys' of AAA) game, it goes deep into violence, and very soft in sexual themes.
You can call a girl to help you take a bath, and it's implied that she rub your dick once... yay.

And speaking of violence, don't even get me started in MK11 going full disgusting gore, but the sexy ladies being desexualized and grandma panties.

Couldn't agree more, and this really gets at the core of the point of my original post. It's not about not being able to enjoy other games, it's more about how once you've tasted that freedom of choice in these open world titles, it's very hard to go back to games without them. I am still hoping games like Kingdom Come Deliverance and The Outer Worlds get some modding tools which will allow for some more adult options in the gameplay. Playing KCD and going into the bathhouses and not seeing you railing the maids, or brushing over the sex stuff you do see, just made me want so much more.

Adding nudes to my games is how it started for me, hence the "ilovenudemods" moniker...But that was just superficial stuff. When it changed was with the Fallout and Skyrim mods that added so much more freedom, and that's what I really crave.

 

[Lobbly]

I used many of those same mods, but it didn't really 'affect' my real life view point on sex at all. I don't find real life non-consensual sex hot in the slightest, and I don't get off on seeing it in games. However it's something that happens in real situations, and so I see the merit in the immersion factor of having it in an open world experience. Similar to how a movie may have a forced sex scene in it to convey how "bad" someone is, or to show the history of a character, I find having those possibilities available to happen in a game to be just another level in the realism I seek in certain gaming experiences.

I do find it interesting how different perception of the same content can be from person to person based on experience, age, upbringing, etc etc etc. Thanks for sharing your experience.

It also took me a while to find these rape mods hot. First they disgusted me. But honestly... The only reason I consider them hot now is because they're so far away from being realistic. Players would probably throw up if these modders would made it look realistic or like in the traumatizing rape scene from "Irreversible" starring Monica Bellucci. There are also no consequences... It's not like my beautiful swords woman needs a therapy afterwards. Or imagine you have a 30% chance of getting your save file deleted or you lose all your charisma for an ingame month if you're getting raped. Probably nobody would enjoy it anymore. I'm glad it's so far from being realistic.

 

[khumak]

IMO lack of sex in games comes down to simple economics moreso than any kind of moralistic pressure. I'd wager that those who are largely indifferent to the idea of sexual content in mainstream games far outweigh the combined total of those who actively want it plus those who actively oppose it. The only certainties involved with catering to those who want it are more work and financial risk.

I think the money issue is more complex than that. Look at the porn industry? There is no way we would have that much porn out there if there wasn't a big market for it. Companies are knowingly leaving tons of money on the table by excluding that sort of content from their games. Why would they do that? Because the "family friendly" market is even bigger and requires that exclusion either to directly prevent kids from seeing it or to prevent damaging their brand for people who are looking specifically for family friendly content.

There are plenty of games that I would see no value in adding sex related content to. If I'm playing something like Civilization for instance. I'm interested in a challenging strategy game, I'm not looking for a quick wank... For a game that is themed around something where adult content makes more sense though I definitely will add adult mods if I can find them. Games like Fallout and Skyrim are prime examples but there are other games like Vampire the Masquerade, etc that certainly fit the bill as well. Unfortunately most of the games that would truely benefit from it are harder to mod for than a Bethesda game or a RenPy game.

I think there are plenty of TV shows and movies that would potentially have a wider audience and higher revenue as well if they "upgraded" to an R or NC17 rating rather than the more common PG rating for shows that have adult themes. If you're going to make a show where it makes sense for there to be nudity, cursing, etc then that's what I want to see. I don't want the kids version and I'm less likely to pay for it if the only option is a kids version.

 

[anne O'nymous]

I think the money issue is more complex than that. Look at the porn industry? There is no way we would have that much porn out there if there wasn't a big market for it. Companies are knowingly leaving tons of money on the table by excluding that sort of content from their games. Why would they do that? Because the "family friendly" market is even bigger and requires that exclusion either to directly prevent kids from seeing it or to prevent damaging their brand for people who are looking specifically for family friendly content.

I think you're right, but for the wrong reason.
The problem isn't that the game industry want to be "family friendly", but more that they don't look their market from the same angle than the porn industry. Take the Mass Effect series. As lame and vanilla as can be the adult scenes, they exist and include homosexuality, and despite this making the game totally not "family friendly", the games sold well.

The difference is that the porn industry target individuals, while the game industry target peoples.
You'll never see a porn movie "for the 20/25 middle class junior workers". No, porn movies are for teens lovers, MILF worshipers, feet fetishists, and so on. It's games that are made this way, that target a part of the population not by their interest, but by their sociocultural situation. But by doing this, they also explicitly limit themselves to what will be the common interest of this part of the population.
That's why you've games that goes further than "family friendly", like the Leisure Suit Larry series, the already named Mass Effect series or the GTA series. None of them is family friendly but none of them are effectively adult games. The Leisure Suit Larry games were for adult only, but there's no sex, just innuendo. The hot coffee mod was just activating content that they decided to not release and forgot to remove. And, as said, the Mass Effect series are really vanilla. This simply because it's as far as the "common interest" of the targeted population goes.
And this difference come from the production cost. Sell few thousands porn movies and you start making benefits, but for games you need to sell millions of them for the same result ; and so you need a bigger target.

There are plenty of games that I would see no value in adding sex related content to. If I'm playing something like Civilization for instance. I'm interested in a challenging strategy game, I'm not looking for a quick wank...

Which doesn't mean that it can't have sex related content. Send spies in an enemy territory, and use them to loosen the morality of the inhabitants. They'll pass more times in brothels than at works, which will slow down their progress and give you an advantage. Or open state brothels in your own territory, as reward for those who works hard, and your progress will speed up, also giving you an advantage.
Sex related content don't necessarily imply that you'll see sex.

I think there are plenty of TV shows and movies that would potentially have a wider audience and higher revenue as well if they "upgraded" to an R or NC17 rating rather than the more common PG rating for shows that have adult themes. If you're going to make a show where it makes sense for there to be nudity, cursing, etc then that's what I want to see. I don't want the kids version and I'm less likely to pay for it if the only option is a kids version.

This is mostly an US thing. Not that it exist only in the USA, but in the rest of the western world there's more freedom. If it really make sense to have nudity at this time, or for a character to curse, then it will happen. By example, it's not unusual to have people sleeping naked in movies/TV shows ; they don't always awake fully clothed, especially when they are supposed to have had sex right before.
But the USA is the biggest audience, and so the limits are put according to its Law and population, either for movies/TV shows, than for games. The romance options of Mass Effect would have been more bold, I'm not sure that they would have included homosexuality in it.