What video game sex scenes? Hell isn’t sexual content basically just not allowed in video games anymore because of the “Wider moral audience” that executives keep insisting exists but clearly doesn’t given how thirsty people get anytime a woman or man in a video game looks even remotely attractive?
Edit: Misleading title, in actuality a video game actress did a sex scene without being told it was a sex scene then a bunch of male brodudes saw a digital recreation of her getting railed by a fictional character. Situation completely misread, when I saw the title I thought outraged soccer moms were complaining about seeing Chun Li’s legs again.
I’m completely on the side of the actors, that straight up sounds like it could (and should) legally count as a form of sexual assault and the studio owes her both an apology and a heavy paycheck
It’s not just a digital recreation, it’s physical acting. This article quotes a motion-capture performer:
Ms Jefferies told the BBC she was once asked to act out a scene with a male performer involving a sexual assault with no prior warning.
“I turned up and was told what I would be filming would be a graphic rape scene,” she said.
"This act could be watched for as long or as little time as the player wanted through a window, and then a player would be able to shoot this character in the head.
“It was just purely gratuitous in my opinion.”
She refused to act out the “disgusting” scene - which was made worse as she was the only female on set.
“There’s no nudity involved, but its still an act and there’s an intimacy in that act and also a violence in this situation,” she said.
“So yes there may be a layer of Lycra between us, but you are still there and still having to truly immerse yourself in this scene.”
In the end her concerns were listened to and the scene was not recorded.
Jesus fucking Christ, glad the scene was cut. I’m definitely in the “Modern Games are too tame, stop cutting shit out of re-releases and remasters” crowd, but… Fuck, the scene itself sounds just as tasteless as trying to force it on this poor woman.
“I turned up and was told what I would be filming would be a graphic rape scene,” she said. "This act could be watched for as long or as little time as the player wanted through a window, and then a player would be able to shoot this character in the head. “It was just purely gratuitous in my opinion.” She refused to act out the “disgusting” scene - which was made worse as she was the only female on set.
What do they mean sex scenes are common? None of the games I have played in the last couple years haves had those kinds of scenes. Some minor flirting and romance, but no sex.
Hot take but I wish sex scenes were just eliminated from games entirely. A nice fade to black is a million times better than awkwardly watching some 3D models gyrating along with weird exaggerated “this is what sex sounds like” acting.
“I turned up and was told what I would be filming would be a graphic rape scene,” she said.
"This act could be watched for as long or as little time as the player wanted through a window, and then a player would be able to shoot this character in the head.
What game is this even? I mean, why would any game need a graphic rape scene? Who is this going to sell to?
Don’t video games outside of Japan try to avoid getting AO rated any more?
What game is this even? I mean, why would any game need a graphic rape scene? Who is this going to sell to?
Don’t video games outside of Japan try to avoid getting AO rated any more?
Sounds like some typical David Cage bullshit. Wouldn’t be surprised at all if it was one of his games.
Edit: Considering the content of the games, and looking over her IMDb credits, it was very likely one of The Dark Pictures Anthology games, which was actually my second guess after David Cage (well, those or Until Dawn; same developers) due to some of the weird shit Supermassive Games add in for “shock value” because “horror”.
No surprise that she suddenly stopped working with them after House of Ashes, so that was probably the game in question, if I had to guess by context here.
There are only a handful of studios that’ll throw that kind of shit in their games. Quantic Dream and Supermassive are always the most likely culprits.
I mean, that’s not cruelty free. Someone’s still gotta animate that. And most good animators either act scenes out beforehand and/or use reference footage.
Sure they are, however if you come to the conclusion (if you decided to read the article) that voice actors being told with no preparation that they were going to be performing scenes involving SA are whiny babies you’ll be told you’re not being nice which is what we expect on our instance
Just in case you skip to the comments: the complaint is that actors are not being told anything about what game they are working on or what kind of scenes they will be doing. Then, they show up to the studio and they are asked to do explicit sex scenes or sexual assault scenes day-of with little warning or time to consider whether they are comfortable with that.
What a shitty title to the article. It should be "Actors demand action over unanticipated video game sex (and rape) scenes". Especially if the actor may be a rape survivor, asking them to act that out without any warning is idiotic at best and harmful at worst.
There are absolutely actors who are down to do that stuff but you can’t hire people with a script sight-unseen and just drop stuff on them that might straight up give some people a panic attack to even think about, let alone re-enact.
Title makes you think there are actors who don’t want games in general to contain explicit adult content, but this is 100% reasonable, and yet another reason voice actors and game industry workers need to unionize.
I bet your ass the same shit is happening with asset creators and animators.
I think they actually are unionized. At least in the UK. That’s what some of the Baldur’s Gate 3 actors said when asked about the anti AI strikes. They can’t participate because of the rules of their union.
If I recall correctly there is even a sentence in the article about the British union starting to tackle this issue.
In some countries, some people, in some parts of the industry, are unionized. It’s not even close to being the norm. It’s only slowly starting to happen.
Yeah, what they’re asking for is pretty standard stuff in other media. A friend of mine is an actor who played a scene where he had to shoot a masturbation scene. He was alone in a room with like 3-4 people: sound guy, camera guy, director, and I think the intimacy coach was there too.
Having a whole team watch you pretend to have sex is not okay, what the hell.
I mean, most of the team should be watching because they’re trying to do their jobs, not because they’re ogling the actors. And this is even more removed from sex than movies’ simulated sex, because I assume they’re in full mocap suits and everything.
Hell, you don’t even need both people doing motion at the same time, as long as you have the poses roughly correct. You can edit the motion curves to make the rhythm match.
I wonder if that would be a genuine use case for “AI”. If the voice actor consents to have his voice represented in such a scene but doesn’t want to play it out in a studio, the computer model could take over that part.
I don’t believe you’re wrong here in saying that. These don’t seem like unreasonable asks at all, and something I’d expect to be normal standards for the industry.
They are the bare minimum that should be expected. Honestly, the studios who did this should be named and shamed. The actors shouldn’t ever have to deal with this, and I’m sure the studio would lose far more money than they could wish to gain by being deceptive. It’s capitalism. They’re after profit. Make honesty the most profitable option or you’ll get dishonesty.
Yes, these precipts seem to be common in the TV industry
Ms Jefferies stresses the guidelines are not trying to put boundaries on storytelling … She says - and “these guidelines are just to bring it even more in line with the best practices in the film and TV industry”.
And I can’t think of news stories that show this is a problem in terms of leaking a story.
So, why not have the same degree of safety and protocols in game development?
With THIS context added, yeah I see why people are mad. I thought this was the usual “Video games are too sexy!” nonsense we’ve had ever since we saw Princess Toadstool’s ankles for the first time back in 1964… But uhh, wow… This
This is just outright fucked, I would even argue this could legally count as a form of sexual assault. IANAL though
ok so like, is video game acting like the worst field on earth, could you not just, refuse to do this? Seems like a fully reasonable thing to do to me.
I am an adult. Im not prudish. I watch porn. And whenever I see a sex scene in movies/tv shows/games I cringe.
They are usually most unnecessary to the story, and IMO a good movie makes you know it happened without showing it happening (without at least wiping the cock afterwards of course).
This made me hate Game of Thrones for example. I simply referred to it as midget porn. I even hated on it in front of my friends, they put it on to prove me wrong and lo and behold a midget is fucking a whore on screen.
Yeah, I know where to find porn and they even show genitalia there, thank you very much.
What do you think these movies or shows are doing when they let people know without showing the sex scene? You think the narrator is just saying “then they had sex” and describing the sex while the screen is blacked out?
I agree. I typically skip sex scenes in movies. Those scenes very seldom add anything to the story imo.
Unless it makes sense. In “What Women Want” with Mel Gibson, I believe that is a great example of a sex scene adding to the movie. The whole premise is him reading women’s minds, so him having sex with Marisa Tomei and hearing their thoughts while in the act added to the premise.
So when I see a movie that is just like “hey these people are hot and we should film them go at it” is just boring imo.
Meh, some of my favorite shows and movies have a lot sex scenes. Sometimes, they just add realism or contribute to aesthetics. Other times they show personality, relationship dynamics, are symbolic of other things, or are important to the plot.
I don’t see sex scenes as any different than other potentially “unnecessary” scenes, like a long shot of a dripping faucet, for instance.
But, yeah, most sex scenes in games make me cringe.
I feel like some nudity and sex scenes when it’s appropriate are better than not. Really ruins my sense of immersion when there’s a naked person with a random potted plant conveniently blocking your view of their bits. Either commit to them being naked or don’t have them naked at all is my take
Sex scenes are common in modern games - and are often made by filming human actors who are then digitised into game characters.
Is “common” referring to cringey low budget Steam games? I don’t think I’ve seen any sort of on screen simulated sex in a game, ever. Granted I tend to only play well publicized indie games and larger releases. But how common is this? Am I out of the loop?
I only played partially through the first and the most graphic sexual thing I remember there were the little cards you'd get, which don't require any actors.
I don’t recommend it, but going bass-to-mouth was a very popular and hyped feature addition for SEGA Bass Fishing. I’m surprised this is the first you are hearing of it
The Witcher and Cyberpunk I’ll give you, but Mass Effect definitely fades to black before getting to actual sex, the other two are mods. I wasn’t saying sex in games doesn’t exist, but if we’ve gotta go back several decades for a handful examples, that doesn’t feel like something that’s “common.”
Yeah, there was a whole kerfuffle about it because all the files were still on the disc, therefore some jurisdictions re-rated the game to some version of adults only. Rockstar definitely did all the development work to get that sex in the game, they just decided not to show it in normal gameplay.
I think “common” here would refer to having to produce them, over the actual explicitness of the scene. Whether Mass Effect fades to black or not isn’t really the point when the voice actors still have to record the lines that play while the screen is dark.
ME is like cuddles that fade to black, The Witcher is funny little drawn cards you get after a fade to black, San Andreas was a mod as the actual function was never part of the released game - and those animations definitely were not mo-capped, no idea wtf a fishing game has, CP2077 kinda the same as ME but a bit more raunchy I guess. But even those very non explicit examples are a tiny fraction in the grand scheme of things, even among "adult" games.
Witcher 3 and cp2077 definitely had what i’d consider full sex scenes. Like, you don’t have full on piv, but it’s about as close as, say, TV typically gets.
Witcher 3 it is more explicit if you buy the services on offer in the brothel. But it’s still far less than one romp in Wicked Whims, which of course is all mods so no motion capture there
Actual sex scenes are incredibly rare. In most cases, which are still rare, it is implied with some cuddly scenes that fade to black. I think the most "explicit" sex scene I've seen in a regular game was in TLoU Part 2.
I have no idea what game has a realistic rape scene in it. All I could find for her credits in video games was this:
– Unknown9: Awakening (Video Game)/ Casting Director – full performance capture cast & all additional voices./ Dir. Damien Goodwin.
– Peaky Blinders (VR video game)/ Casting Director – full performance capture cast. / Dir. Kate Saxon.
– Warhammer 40K: Battlesisters (VR video game) / Casting Director – full performance capture cast. /Dir. James Horn.
– The Witcher Series 2 (TV) / Casting Associate for VFX & SFX with Sophie Holland Casting.
– Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League (video game) / Casting Director – motion capture cast. /Rocksteady Games.
– Little Hope (video game) / Casting Director – motion capture cast. / Dir. Nick Bowen.
Her credits are not where a game she wasn’t in would be listed, smartass. That’s just the list I was able to find of her work. People like you are so eager to prove everyone wrong on the Internet that you can’t use your brain.
Sometimes I forget how unprofessional the game industry still is or how little respect people have for well being of others. I’d like to say I’m surprised but that would require having some expectations towards those companies.
I hope more VAs speak up about stuff like this so we can have some real changes.
I’d say that isn’t the game industry, but it’s basically every company and employer everywhere. Nobody matters. Nobody is important. We’re all expendable seems to be the world.
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