video/computer games - sex vs violence

It stands out because it's a European game, and most games come from Japan/US, whose fucked-in-the-headness regarding sex vs violence is well documented re: cinema.

It makes sense that violence is immediately available in a point-and-click way, and sex (with the exception of a few really dodge games) is tricky - this is how it is in the real world!

I understand that Singles isn't a very good game, but not because it's "The Sims, except about sex", just because it's not very well followed through.

The ultimate computer game taboo would be one with sex and violence combined - a game where yr character goes round raping the computer generated avatars would almost certainly be banned immediately in every country where they attempted to sell it.

"Singles", that's the one, I recognise the box pic.

but i suppose the fundamental difference is that we'd all rather be having sex for real so any associated behaviour in a game feels a bit silly. violence on the other hand is not something most of us want to experience in real life, certainly not on a Half Life scale, so it's more logical to indluge in that virtually where the real thrill comes from knowing you can't really get hurt rather than the fact you're destroying textured polygons as people/mutants/demon creatures

sevem = so otm that this thread now = redundant.

I think that there are equal doses of sex and violence all over the video game industry. It largely depends on the cultural environment - American developers are much more likely to make a game involving massive amounts of gory violence, Japanese developers are much more likely to include sex, esp. apparently fetishistic pedophile rape fantasy type shit, which to my mind (as an American, natch) is a bit more horrifyingly offensive than any 50FPS cuban necktie murderbot game, which you almost NEVER see from Japan (it took Americans to make Mortal Kombat) - conversely I feel that if Tomb Raider originated in Japan Lara Croft would never have made it through the tomb without encountering at least five different cases of "naughty tentacles" or some shit.

Different cultures have different ideas about what kind of distance you can put between yourself and imaginary entertainments, depending on the topic.

a website like C0nsumpt10nJunct10n really hammers the point home, though, that the kind of people who seek out snuff films and the kind of people who seek out hardcore pornography are really one and the same. So I think it's not so much the consumers that are different, culturewise, but the developers and what they feel comfortable/profitable providing.

Arrgh I hate what this post says about me. Blame the Air Force.

so, presumably the grunts who got headshot are only asleep, to be incinerated when the entire Black Mesa compound gets nuked from orbit, presumably sometime after the game has ended.

I've been playing a lot of HL lately; i just wish that this used copy of _Opposing Force_ i picked up yesterday would install on my system...

ha, so the red goo which spurted out of the soldier's head when I hit him w/the crossbow is like red tranquiliser liquid?

I got "opposing force" to install OK on my computer, but "Blue Shift" fucked up. You get so far (the railway yard) and this door or gate is supposed to open or something (I looked at a walkthrough b/c I thought I was stuck) and it doesn't!!

Of course, I never thought of Japan, TomBot, argh, what was that thing, "trance vibrator"?

either that or somebody at Valve not taking the time to change the animation. we'll see if tranqs make it into HL2.

also, "swapping tartar sauce" is now the Euphemism of the Day.