Sex should be treated as another 'vice' in video games. Are you okay with violence in video games?? Then what's wrong with sex? How is sex any different from violence? The big difference is that it's socially less acceptable. But that doesn't make it less able to sell.

"If we continue to follow this trend of adolescent soft-core porn and refuse to grow up, then it will be of no surprise when we look back on games and ask why the media doesn't support us as a relevant art-form."

I disagree. That's like asking to take extreme violence out of games. A good question to ask is which of the games do you feel as acceptable? Rockstar's Manhunt? How about Dead or Alive Beach Volleyball? Whichever you deem acceptable doesn't really matter. Consumer spending shows- Sex sells.

Games should be a relevant art form, I agree, but at the same time it should also be able to choose NOT to be an art form. There's plenty of story devoid, non-artistic games that do not deserve the merit of art.

You can go with the "if I want porn, I'll watch porn" argument all you want. That opinion is reserved for those that feel uncomfortable seeing bikini clad soldiers. The people who ENJOY seeing bikini clad soldiers suddenly have to play elsewhere for you? When you marry two concepts of video game and porn, you get something much more personal and gratifying than porn could ever be by itself.

Michael, there have been hentai games that have been doing that for a long time, and I don't see how it's more gratifying at all. Ganguro Girl is an example of one that I remember people playing back in High School. If you were to try and then argue that "they're just cartoons", I don't believe that is any more valid than arguing that polygons are more gratifying than flesh.

This all becomes a religous debate. If you believe that "all things are exceptable becasue I feel like it" or "stuff like this causes a decline in the moral spectrum of our society that eventually leads to ruination." I believe in the latter because I see pornography as a destructive force but most people won't think twice about it.

Isn't there a sex mini game in each GOW?

Not to sound like a prude =). Note that I am not apposed to sex and nudity in video games. I am apposed to tasteless and thoughtless use of it. It IS all about what is socially acceptable and where the line of morality lies. If our "line" says that it's okay to walk around naked all day, in our jobs, while we shop for groceries, while we take our morning jogs, then I'd be okay with random senseless nudity. Until then, I feel that it's out of place to see rampant use of nudity and awkward prolonged focus shots in a game.

Just because Hell and sin are topics in the discussion of Dante doesn't give enough merit to just throw nudity in there to make it more "x-treme", it needs purpose, relevance. I think that it may have taken away from my experience of the game and effectively pushed me away instead of drawing me in. It struck me as trying too hard to be Visceral, half-pun intended.

I just personally felt (from the demo) that Dante missed the mark on what made GoW such a fun game. The action was close, even if the animations were a little rough around the edges, but the content missed the mark for me. The sex game in GoW was such a small part of the whole, and the harpies and other characters were tiny sprites on the screen. Perhaps my issues are less with the physical assets and more with the cinematography that was used in Dante's Inferno. Nevertheless, something about it just felt unfavorable and ultimately did more harm than good to my desire to continue playing the game.

Eh well disregarding the possibility that a tasteless use of it "can" be thoughtful (for instance strip clubs are often tasteless but to go into a skimpy bar in a game and not see nudity is somewhat off putting and might shunt affect character development or immersion), I agree with the sentiments here.

There are larger forces at play though, many use it as a seller (saboteur), others use it simply to be "wild and dangerous" so to speak. Very few adult topics are dealt with well in video games, for instance, sex scenes are often without the buildup of tension that exists within cinema, then they also disregard the cinematic techniques that go with.

@Andre
Well my lizard brain says that sex in a game could lead to some interesting gameplay for sure, hell without it even necessarily being pornographic in nature. Besides by working with your logic why do guns belong in video games, they clearly do not push gameplay to another level. Hell everything should be grey blocks and we should just push buttons as the screen tells us to....

Also gameplay doesn't have to challenge, or their wouldn't be a terribly large casual game market (though this is a somewhat broad and sweeping statement).

As an addendum to my previous reply, another big problem is that sex in a video game has to overcome some sever hurdles to appear realistic. Actors in film can do intimacy because they're human, and those sorts of interaction come naturally to us, but if an animator is in control (ignoring motion capture) some of those actions are hard to do. Simple things also get forgotten, if it's intimacy your after (as opposed to brash rough sex), you need tenderness, and touch doesn't look tender without the deformation of skin, eye contact is required, accurate facial animation etc etc. Lose one of these things and to a real human being it comes across as false, just take a look at, well any sex scene in a current game, Dragon age probably being the worst offender.

First, let me correct an apparent misunderstanding about the term "hentai." Adult games in Japan (and elsewhere, of course) are not classified as "hentai" in their native market because the term doesn't mean "adult" or "sexually explicit." The actual meaning of the term is akin to "socially twisted" in English. Games and other media in Japanese culture that happen to feature explicit sexual content exist because Japanese life philosophy does not consider sex sinful, unlike certain other cultures such as America. For that matter, specific elements that are considered sexual in one culture are not considered sexual elsewhere, or not with the same meaning. For example, American culture focuses on female breasts as sexual objects, but that is not the case in many other cultures where female breasts are considered functional, not sexual, while other body parts such as the nape of the neck in Japanese culture are considered very sexual.

One other point that must be addressed is this: if we are going to consider the question of explicit sex in games or other popular entertainment, we must do so without any sexist bias, at least as much as possible. Specifically, I notice that there is an automatic assumption about portrayals of female sexuality but a general neglect of considering the enormous quantity and popularity of yaoi and shounen ai explicit sexual content created by and targeted for female audiences (and yes, that includes sexually violent and abusive content of many kinds against male characters). One big difference in this area is that there are many females creating the works featuring female sexuality and targeted for heterosexual and bisexual male audiences, but this is not true for the yaoi and shounen ai works containing explicit sexual content and targeted for female audiences.

With respect to "realistic" portrayals of sex, I'd point out that there is no need, and in fact people are creating their own virtual interactions that cannot exist in reality (at least as far as we know, anyway). As some replies have pointed out, all we have to do is considered a different type of content such as violence. The violence we see in games (and other media) is not at all realistic, in most cases. There is no real attempt to make it realistic, either, and in fact there are many examples where it is specifically presented as purely gratuitous. In certain markets, the same exact thing happens with sexually explicit content. However, in some markets, such content actually runs through an entire spectrum from being totally gratuitous and fantastic to being very realistic (including the building of relationships, problems of various kinds - even physical problems - in consumating the relationships, etc).

Scenes such as some of the sexual content in D.O's Kana ~Imouto~ (Little Sister Kana) or the various scenes in D.O.'s Crescendo, or certain scenes in NekoNeko Soft's Giniro (Silvery, or Silver-colored) are very emotional, touching, and many players have cried over them. The same thing can be said for examples that have no sexually explicit content such as Konami's Tokimeki Memorial. I can't think of a Western developed game of the top of my head that can make similar claims, although there may be some, with or without the explicit sexual content.

Ultimately, it really isn't a question of what is "socially acceptable" unless you want others to make your decisions for you. That's not freedom, though - it's just censorship. Of course, that's exactly what we see today, too, and not only for sexual content. Look at the treatment of attempted realistic combat content in "Six Days in Fallujah" while much less realistic war content sells easily in games such as "Call of Duty." We should be free to make our own choice with no interference, but that's not what we have.

Remembering the topic is about nudity, and nudity != sex.

Nudity can affect gameplay. I remember a naked Raiden in MSG2 who can't kick butts as he normally could, affecting the player's experience and making him adapt to his new situation.

It all boils down to how its brought to the table. Nudity can be used to bring many emotions/elements to a story, sex being one of them, but in no way the one and only purpose. To each their own I say!

My 2 honest cents.