Gotta wonder why explicitly graphic violence is less taboo than sex in a video game. I’d imagine it might be due to Christian influence on American culture.
To be fair, there was a lot of pushback from religious communities against violence in video games as well (i.e. “video games cause school shootings”), so I wouldn’t say Christian influence would favor one but not the other. Mainstream games like GTA V also show that sexual themes can be present in video games and still be immensely popular.
I think it’s more so a matter of mainstream high-budget video games portraying (and relying upon) graphic violence more often than sex. There’s countless video games with graphic violence, ranging from Doom to CoD, and the similarity I see is that the graphic violence is integral to the gameplay itself. Removing the violence from these games would be tantamount to removing the game entirely.
With sex in video games, Witcher 3, Baldur’s Gate 3, and the aforementioned GTA come to mind- all of which took off and became very successful, with the former two afaik being praised by many for the sexual content available. A lot of games that “rely” on sexual themes though, from what I’ve seen, tend to be porn games (not intended to be an insult), which at least from what I’ve seen, tend to not have as enthralling gameplay as other popular games. There’s good ones, no doubt, but far fewer in number than the Dooms and CoDs as mentioned before.
At least that’s my take on it, as lengthy as that might be lmao
You raise a very good point about relation to gameplay. I made the comment because I was curious about other people’s perspective on the matter. Thanks for your contribution!
Gotta wonder why explicitly graphic violence is less taboo than sex in a video game. I’d imagine it might be due to Christian influence on American culture.
To be fair, there was a lot of pushback from religious communities against violence in video games as well (i.e. “video games cause school shootings”), so I wouldn’t say Christian influence would favor one but not the other. Mainstream games like GTA V also show that sexual themes can be present in video games and still be immensely popular.
I think it’s more so a matter of mainstream high-budget video games portraying (and relying upon) graphic violence more often than sex. There’s countless video games with graphic violence, ranging from Doom to CoD, and the similarity I see is that the graphic violence is integral to the gameplay itself. Removing the violence from these games would be tantamount to removing the game entirely.
With sex in video games, Witcher 3, Baldur’s Gate 3, and the aforementioned GTA come to mind- all of which took off and became very successful, with the former two afaik being praised by many for the sexual content available. A lot of games that “rely” on sexual themes though, from what I’ve seen, tend to be porn games (not intended to be an insult), which at least from what I’ve seen, tend to not have as enthralling gameplay as other popular games. There’s good ones, no doubt, but far fewer in number than the Dooms and CoDs as mentioned before.
At least that’s my take on it, as lengthy as that might be lmao
You raise a very good point about relation to gameplay. I made the comment because I was curious about other people’s perspective on the matter. Thanks for your contribution!