Sex and nudity in video games


The inclusion of sex and nudity in video games has been controversial since the early days of the video game industry. While many video games have used scantily clad images or characters to sell or enhance games, some go further, using sex acts or nudity as a character motivation, in-game reward, or simply as a gameplay element. These games originate worldwide, on most platforms and can be of any video game genre. While releases in Europe and North America have been sporadic and often unlicensed, Japan has seen the emergence of a pornographic video game subgenre—eroge, first appearing on the NEC PC-88 computer platform in the 1980s. In the 1990s NEC and Sega were the only companies who officially allowed sexual content on their consoles in Japan, but eroge was more prevalent on the NEC PC-98 and FM Towns computer platforms.

History

1980s

One of the earliest video games to feature sexual themes was the 1981 text-based Softporn Adventure, published by On-Line Systems for the Apple II. Despite heavy piracy the game still sold 25,000 copies, roughly equivalent to 25% of the number of Apple II's sold at the time. In a 1981 article in Time Magazine, On-Line reported that they were making a version of the game for straight women, though this never materialized.
In 1982, Japan's Koei, founded by husband-and-wife team Yoichi and Keiko Erikawa, released the first erotic computer game with sexually explicit graphics, Night Life, an early graphic adventure game for the NEC PC-8801. That same year, Koei released another erotic title, Danchi Tsuma no Yuwaku, which was an early role-playing adventure game with colour graphics, owing to the eight-color palette of the NEC PC-8001 computer. It became a hit, helping Koei become a major software company.
Also in 1982, the video game company Mystique released three unlicensed games for the Atari 2600; Beat 'Em & Eat 'Em, Custer's Revenge, and Bachelor Party. The games were noted for their negative reception, particularly Custer's Revenge for its depiction of General Custer raping a Native American woman. Despite the increased sales, Mystique went out of business after only releasing these three games. A company named Playaround began distributing these games packaged in 2-in-1 "double-ender" cartridges. These games also included re-worked versions with female protagonists, Philly Flasher, Bachelorette Party, and General Retreat. The re-released version of Custer's Revenge was titled Westward Ho!, and featured slight modifications, such as the Native American woman beckoning to indicate that she welcomed Custer's advances. They released four new titles, Burning Desire/Jungle Fever and Cathouse Blues/Gigolo. 1983 saw the release of another Atari 2600 game, X-Man. X-man features the player as a nude man working through a maze toward a pink door in the center, past antagonistic crabs, teeth and scissors. Players that reached the pink door were rewarded with a controllable sex scene.
Like with Koei, several other now-famous Japanese companies such as Enix, Square and Nihon Falcom also released erotic adult games for the PC-8801 computer in the early 1980s before they became mainstream. Early eroge usually had simplistic stories and extreme sexual content, such as rape and types Yuri, hentai, and Lolicon. These factors often led to widespread condemnation from the Japanese media. In some of the early erotic games, the erotic content is meaningfully integrated into a thoughtful and mature storyline, though others often used it as simply an excuse for pornography. Erotic games made the PC-8801 popular, but customers quickly tired of paying 8800 yen for such simple games. Soon, new genres were invented. ASCII's Chaos Angels, a role-playing eroge, inspired titles such as Dragon Knight by Elf and Rance by AliceSoft.
In 1983, a company called Entertainment Enterprises, Ltd., released an arcade game called Swinging Singles which was mostly meant for bars, adult stores and sex clubs. The game requires the player to drive through the city maze gathering dots like Pac-Man before reaching a brothel where the player is required to fight off a venereal disease and collect keys to unlock sex scenes. Once the scenes are unlocked the top door is open where the player can go and engage in a controllable sex scene, letting the player have intercourse with a woman until the player reaches orgasm and the game is over.
Also released in 1983 was Strip Poker: A Sizzling Game of Chance for the Commodore 64 and other 8-bit platforms which was created by Artworx Software.
In 1986, Martech released a Strip Poker game featuring digitized pictures of Samantha Fox, on the Spectrum, C64 and Amstrad. The same company would later release the controversial Vixen, featuring another page 3 model Corinne Russell.
Also in 1986 On-line Systems asked game designer Al Lowe to create an adult game in the graphical adventure style made popular by their King's Quest series. Lowe took the basic elements of Softporn Adventure, greatly expanded it, and released it as the 1987 game Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards. Sierra didn't advertise the game and retailers were loath to carry it, so initial sales were low. However word-of-mouth spread and soon the Leisure Suit Larry series was a success, spawning two sequels before the end of the decade, 1988's Leisure Suit Larry Goes Looking for Love , and 1989's .

1990s

With CD-ROM and multimedia based games in the 1990s, most adult games featured video clips with limited interactivity. Both pre-rendered and real-time 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.
1990 saw the release of the first game in the Gals Panic series. The game derived gameplay elements off an older title called Qix, which didn't have sexual images. The object of the games is to slowly remove pieces of the playing field while avoiding an enemy or groups of enemies. Removing the playing field slowly reveals pictures of models in escalating states of undress. The game had nine sequels throughout the 1990s.
In 1992, Elf released Dōkyūsei. In it, before any eroticism, the user has to first win the affection of one of a number of female characters, making the story into an interactive romance novel. Thus, the love simulation genre was invented. Soon afterwards, the video game Otogirisou on the Super Famicom attracted the attention of many Japanese gamers. Otogirisou was a standard adventure game but had multiple endings. This concept was called a "sound novel."
In 1996, the new software publisher Leaf expanded on this idea, calling it a visual novel and releasing their first successful game, Shizuku, a horror story starring a rapist-turned-high-school-student, with very highly reviewed writing and music. Their next game, Kizuato, was almost as dark. However, in 1997, they released To Heart, a sweetly sentimental story of high school love.
In the West, Voyeur by Philips came out in 1996 for their CD-i console. While the game does not show any explicit nudity, it allows the player to spy on several characters in lingerie, foreplay, and explores taboos such as BDSM and incest.
After a similar game by Tactics, , became a hit in 1998, Visual Art's scouted main creative staff of One to form a new brand under them, which became Key. In 1999, Key released Kanon. It contains about 7 brief erotic scenes in a sentimental story the size of a long novel. Kanon sold over 300,000 copies. In 2002 a 13-episode anime series was produced, as well as another 24-episode anime series in 2006. Although many eroge still market themselves primarily on sex, eroge that focus on story are now a major established part of Japanese otaku culture.
In response to increasing pressure from Japanese lobby groups, in mid-1996 Sega of Japan announced that they would no longer permit Sega Saturn games to include nudity.

2000s

Modern console publishers often have policies against depictions of nudity and explicit sexuality, particularly Sony Computer Entertainment with its PlayStation brand of consoles. BMX XXX for the PlayStation 2 was censored in the American release, while versions on the Xbox and Nintendo GameCube were not and featured nudity. However, Sony allowed nudity in the title God of War, also developed by Sony, a game based on Greek mythology set in Ancient Greece, where nudity was perceived differently. Nudity was subsequently featured in the game's sequels, God of War II, ', God of War III, ', and ', which were also based on Greek mythology.
Sex scenes and nudity have also appeared in Quantic Dream's Fahrenheit and Heavy Rain, released for the PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 3 respectively.
A new generation of adult social games has emerged that bring multiple users together in sexual environments. Examples include Red Light Center, and '. While it is not explicitly intended for purely adult-oriented entertainment, the virtual world of Second Life, which is made up almost entirely of player-made content, has an array of very exotic adult entertainment including nudity and full-on sexual activities.
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 the Tomb Raider video games, the ' Hot Coffee mod, ' and
',, Half-Life 2s FakeFactory Cinematic Mod 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. It has also allowed amateurs to create and distribute adult text adventure games, known as "Adult Interactive Fiction" or AIF.
Modern consumer virtual reality headsets, such as the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, allow users to engage in virtual sex through simulated environments. An example is VR Kanojo''.

2010s

's 2016 game Overwatch has inspired a notable amount of fan-made porn. Short porn videos featuring official characters have been animated via Source Filmmaker and are popular on porn sites such as Pornhub and YouPorn. Despite its popularity, Blizzard has issued cease-and-desist orders to some of the creators.
Many fanservice video games with sexual content have some brief nudity. The "M" rated series Senran Kagura has some nudity in both gameplay and cutscenes but genitals aren't displayed. Fanservice games rated "T" such as Hyperdimension Neptunia offer similar content but less than what Senran Kagura has. Howerver, since 2018, Sony has now issued new regulations for PlayStation 4 games with both fanservice and sexual content. For the localized release of ', "Intimacy Mode", a mode where the player can play with the characters' bodies was removed, but by comparison, this mode is still available in the series' previous titles ' and . The PC release of Burst Re:Newal was not changed. Many other recent PS4 games with sexual content are facing the same problem from Sony, including Neptunia, Date a Live: Rio Reincarnation, Death end re;Quest and the Nekopara series, although Sony did allow nudity and a sex scene in The Last of Us Part II. This controversy had become a problem for the development of Senran Kagura 7even, in which publishers Marvelous are now reconsidering the game and series producer Kenichiro Takaki is now leaving Marvelous. Idea Factory International posted on Twitter that they have no plans for a PS4 Western release of Mary Skelter 2 most likely due to this controversy.
Indie games have expanded the reach of adult games, and Steam now allows adult games onto its storefront. Patreon provides direct funding to adult developers, allowing games like Hardcoded to appeal to niche markets that previously would not have been created.

Lists of related games