Sexual content in video games

Adult video games, like adult movies or other media, are intended for an adult audience. There exists a wide variety of adult games, though many lack mainstream appeal and represent a niche category. The object of an adult game may differ from a mainstream video game or computer game, in that the reward can be a visual representation of nudity, partial nudity, or sexual activity rather than points, etc. Some games may focus on humor or drama rather than arousal, or simply have normal gameplay accompanied by nudity.

PC and console

In console gaming, the genre can be seen as early as the Atari 2600, such as Custer's Revenge. In PCs, the genre can be first seen in adult text adventures, and later with graphical adventures, including one of the most recognized and mainstream adult adventure game series, Leisure Suit Larry. Arcade games have received few adult entries in North America.

With CD-ROM and multimedia based games in the 1990s, most adult games featured video clips with limited interactivity. Both pre-rendered and realtime 3D graphics were also used. While most games could be considered nothing more than pornography, some attempted to include actual story and plot. This can be seen in some games with less explicit content, equal to an R or PG-13 rated movie.

Modern console publishers often have policies against depictions of nudity and explicit sexuality, particularly Sony with its PlayStation brand of consoles. Some titles featuring nudity, such as BMX XXX and Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude for the PlayStation 2 were censored, while versions on the Xbox were not.

Modern PC games have attempted to resemble The Sims, a popular life simulation franchise. Examples include Singles: Flirt Up Your Life and Playboy: The Mansion.

Adult games may take the form of bootlegs, circumventing mainstream publishers who may have policies against such games. Patches or hacks to mainstream non-adult games may add sexual and pornographic themes, mostly for humor, especially when sexuality was never intended in the original game. Examples include Tomb Raider for the PC, and ROM hacks for console emulators.

The Internet has allowed adult games to receive wider availability and recognition, including amateur games in Flash or Java. Some multiplayer online games are planned, including the MMORPG genre.

Japan

In Japan, adult games have received greater popularity and appeal, similar to the adult manga and doujinshi market. Games are often heavy on CG artwork or 3D graphics, and all manner of sexual niches have been represented in both mainstream and amateur markets. Many of these titles are in the form of dating sims, and are available for the PC and as DVD games. Some of these titles have been localized by companies such as J-list; not all have been successful, such as Megatech, which went bankrupt in the 90's. A few titles have been unofficially translated

Console games in Japan have often included partial nudity, or have adult games ported to console systems with nudity and sexual situations removed. These games are popular on console systems known for their graphical capability, including the Sega Saturn and PC-FX, as well as the Sony PlayStation. In arcades, adult games are also more prevalent, especially strip Mahjong.

See also: H-game

The popularity of adult "video games"

Due to the minuscule fan base of games rated Adults Only per ESRB, there are very few adult video games available. Racy developers keep the size of this fan base in mind, knowing that if they want to sell video games, they are going to have to raise the bar and achieve a Mature (ESRB) rating rather than go over the aforementioned bar. Of the thousands of video games created across all consoles, these account for less than 1% of the market share. Understandably, even fewer Adults Only attain notoriety. This can be attributed to the fact that video game players look to do just that, and unless nudity or violent swearing can enhance their gaming experience, they are merely distractions. Because the fan base of Internet pornography has spiked, adult video games seem to sell far better when marketed for personal computers (where such content is the norm) than for consoles (where video games are played.) Some may say that adult video games can be constituted as oxymorons, as adult content has nothing to do with the conventional act of playing video games.

The future of adult video games

Very recently, a popular video game known as Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas was given the dreaded (see "the popularity of adult games, above) AO rating by ESRB before being marketed for the XBOX system. Because this game had been previously released on the PlayStation 2, with a Mature rating, the existing PlayStation 2copies of the game were recalled from store shelves in order to unify the game under one rating (as both contained the same content, save some minor upgrades in gameplay.) This is a good indication of the direction in which ESRB will be headed, as all previous titles in the Grand Theft Auto Series were marked with Mature ratings (containing similar content to that of San Andreas.) The future of adult video games may still be dreary, yet more games seem destined to share this fate.

Adult games in North America

Arcade

Atari 2600

PlayStation 2

GameCube

BMX XXX

Xbox

PC

External links