New E3-Shown Games Push Sexual Envelope

Thanks to CNN Money for its article discussing the seamier side of E3's videogame selection, as it notes: "It's one thing to see Lara Croft's hot-shorts clad posterior while you play 'Tomb Raider.' It's another thing entirely to see the sagging, slightly lumpy and entirely unclothed buttocks of Larry Lovage streak across your screen." The article also discusses Singles, the Eidos U.S.-published title "best described as a naughty version of 'The Sims.'...[which] doesn't shy away from male or female full frontal nudity", noting that "the ESRB slapped 'Singles' with an AO rating", which is "essentially, an NC-17 or worse... Most retailers will not sell a game with that rating." Tom Marx of Eidos expresses his distress with this rating, arguing for an M rating instead, and noting as part of his argument: "I don't really think someone is going to get the same feeling of attraction in seeing a full frontal digital game character as they would from seeing that in an actor or actress."

Comments

Guys looking at Porn

[Uma Thurman]

The only reason anyone is upset is that it's going to be a bunch of guys looking at naked girls on the computer.

The real outrage is the free ride that women get. I was showing my wife a copy of Playboy magazine. Her reaction was "that's it"? She was expecting some nasty funky stuff or something, based on how bent out of shape people get when you say "Playboy Magazine".

Then, she showed me her Cosmo. The very same Cosmo that is stocked at the eye-level height of an 8 year old. WOW! She convinced me, and I am not a faithful subscriber.

So, the story of the future is this: moral outrage about Leisure Suit Larry, extending into perpetuity. But nobody is going to notice the racy programs that will be marketed to girls in the future.

NAKED PEOPLE!

[EnglishTim]

Funny, isn't it.

We've had murder, torture, maiming and genocide in games for ages, but throw in a naked person and suddenly it's a big thing...

Article author is an idiot...

[Mitleid]

Please tell me how it is not sexist to compare a completely unrealistically proportioned female in sexy ass-pants to a middle-aged scumbag trying to get some action, and declaring the latter as beginning to "cross the line"?

This is a lot like all the hubbub people made about the fucking superbowl "scandal". You have sports institutions like the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders or whatever dressed as clad as legally possible for national TV, and then some "racy" pop star busts out her breast for all of America to see and it's an outrage? Come on!

Nudity and sex is all about context, and being an American it seems that too many people get bent out of shape about someone being naked, and it's seriously going to warp the minds of our youth. Nudity is declared as innapropriate, but it's completely OK for every other (if not all) female character on TV to be sporting some sort of cleavage or ass-revealing outfit? Leisure Suit Larry is an ADULT-ORIENTED and sexually themed game, thus I hope we get to see some guys nuts and maybe a rediculously-sized breast getting thrown across our screens here and there. That's the appeal of games like that, right? (I don't play them; someone help me out here...) What I don't understand is why do I happen to turn on some tripe like CSI and see a woman clad in the most "professionally-appropriate" revealing outfit and that's "OK"?

Personally, I think sex is overused in all aspects of American pop culture. But at the same time, the media portrays it as controversial and extreme, and that's why it sells. People always talk about the sexual revolution, blah blah blah, but all the "progress" made in America that ever seems to happen is just allowing women to be able to show more and more of their bodies, and the twisted fools that read magazines like Maxim to oggle over them and continue objectifying, and I think this article only illustrates what kind of a double standard these "journalists" help to create.

I've been waiting for this for a long time

[arhar]

Yes!!! Leisure Suit Larry with full nudity! I've been waiting for this since 1988, when I was 7.

HERE! HERE!

[filmsmith]

We need a better rating system in games AND in movies. Roger Ebert makes this case very well in one of his Movie Answer Man columns

Q. I just returned from seeing "The Passion of the Christ." Had I been able to wrench my attention away from all of the horrified children gasping in the audience, I might have appreciated it more.

I can understand parents showing up at this film with their children expecting something different, but after a few minutes of the tremendous violence shown onscreen, I would have thought more parents would have spared their children further horror. Shouldn't ticket sellers offer some kind of warning to parents showing up with good intentions and young children?

Carson Utz, Novato, Calif.

A. I'll go further than that: No responsible parent would allow a child to see the film. "The Passion of the Christ," the most violent film I have ever seen, received an R rating from the MPAA because the group, which exists in part to quell the fears of churchgoing America, lacked the nerve to give it the NC-17 rating it clearly deserves.

This becomes an unanswerable argument for my recommendation of an A (for adults only) rating between the R (which allows parents to take in children of any age) and the NC-17, which is irretrievably associated with pornography.

Because many theaters refuse to book NC-17 films, and many media outlets will not advertise them, imagine the irony if their own policies had forced them to boycott "The Passion of the Christ"!

Let the MPAA bring back the X, which everyone understands, for porno and establish a useful adults-only rating for films that are not pornography but are simply unsuitable for children.

fs

Re:For the religious right:

[Tezkah]

"The actions taken by the game industry are an affront to Christians everywhere," declared Mrs. Betty Bowers, America's Best Christian. "I am just thankful that the church's founder, Henry VIII, and his wife Catherine of Aragon, his wife Anne Boleyn, his wife Jane Seymour, his wife Anne of Cleves, his wife Katherine Howard, and his wife Catherine Parr are no longer here to suffer through this assault on our 'traditional Christian marriage.'"

>.>

This sort of thing cracks me up...

[leland242]

So I just started playing the latest (?) Rockstar offering: Manhunt. By far, this is the most violent game I have ever played. It deserves no less than an AO rating, yet it recieves an M because it is just violence and swearing (but no sex). Last night I (virtually) killed someone by ripping out their throat and then punching a hole in thier head - all with a crowbar. Another death involved beating someone with a baseball bat. When they eventually fell to the ground and begged for thier life, I popping thier head with my boot (and hearing brains et al squish across the floor and onto the far wall). Somehow, I think that deserves a stronger rating than an M. Now we have a game with digital (and more than likely, not highly detailed) boobs, butts, and crotches and it's the beginning of the downfall of man. What a sad commentary on our society. Although not surprising in the days of Bush's FCC.