Just a little quick blog today. I picked up a copy of Far Cry 3 off Amazon and was looking forward to playing it. I remember someone telling me the game had some nude scenes, along with some stripper scenes as well (amongst all the normal man slaughter that FPS games bring of course). That got me thinking about how my girlfriend gets pretty uncomfortable when nudity is shown in games, and who can blame her, since it is often done simply for pleasing a man’s fantasy.

I wouldn’t say that she cares that I play games with nudity, sex, violence, or other inappropriate scenarios - because we are adults after all - but she definitely doesn’t like it when games do things like that. If I am playing some game like God of War where things are gratuitously violent, she’s just kind of like “Really.... do they really need to go that far?” For every stupidly over sexualized female character wearing some bikini into the throes of battle, she just says “That is so dumb...”. Should there be nudity in a game and the tits come out, she’s just like “Wow, men...” In fact, this reminded me of playing through Ar Tonelico Qoga about 2 years ago. Here we have a game that was all about sexual innuendo, awkward scenarios, and other inappropriate dialogue and situations. She cringed as I played through the game, but I got to admit, even I was disturbed quite a bit by that game. LOL.

But it got me thinking... I can’t blame her! My girlfriend is not a feminist by any means, and she also loves gaming. She’s not just some casual gamer either, she plays hardcore and casual games alike. Right now she is going through Dragon Age and enjoying it, (just wait till she gets to the sex scenes though!) To get to my point though, putting tits in a game is solely an act of service for men. We as men enjoy that, it’s how we are wired in the brain. It’s not there to really sell the atmosphere or game story, but just to tickle the overwhelmingly male audience’s fancy. I mean, imagine if all the games where women’s breasts were shown, that instead they showed some man’s penis. Imagine that for every bikini clad female warrior I got a male character in nothing but a g-string. Imagine that for every ridiculously violent scene, we got an overly cutesy scene of our character cuddling an enemy to make him wander away peacefully in love and hearts floating above his head. I would be a bit turned off too if that was the case. But I am a man, and the game industry is servicing me with things that really aren’t necessary to make a great game. It’s just thrown in there to be like “Yeahhhh. boobs!”

But I’m not going to go ramble off on this topic. What I am curious about is, how does your significant other feel when you play games with over the top violence, sex, or nudity. If you are female, do these things turn you off from games? Trying to put myself in my girlfriend’s shoes, I can totally see why it’s very frustrating to be a girl gamer. The industry is obsessed with selling fantasies to men, sometimes even in lieu of a foremost making a good game... Some might argue it’s just the natural advancement of technology, but I definitely think games have way more sex, violence, nudity, and other unmoral scenarios then they ever did in the past, and all in “stunning and realistic HD!” I wonder what will happen when I have kids, as surely I do not want my kids even taking a single peek at some of the “triple A” games coming out these days because of their content. Will need something like a dedicated gaming room with lock and key at this rate once I start a family. :P

So thanks for reading, and I am looking forward to hearing what everyone thinks about the topic, and how your significant other reacts to the games you play. Very interested in the discussion!