Alpha Protocol has sex in it. I get it.

[Cloaker]

I've just read a bunch of recent previews. I don't know, maybe I'm in a minority here, but I find these kinds of previews to be pathetic and I wish they'd stop. I really enjoyed the old developer walkthrough videos, now all I see is "Mass Effect had one sex scene, we have FOUR. AND an achievement. We also have an interactive sex scene." I couldn't beleive the kotaku article I read. Is this really the only way to keep the game on people's radars? To me it's starting to come off as borderline desperate.

[mkreku]

You do know it's not Obsidian writing all these previews, right?

[Anarchosyn]

I've just read a bunch of recent previews. I don't know, maybe I'm in a minority here, but I find these kinds of previews to be pathetic and I wish they'd stop. I really enjoyed the old developer walkthrough videos, now all I see is "Mass Effect had one sex scene, we have FOUR. AND an achievement. We also have an interactive sex scene." I couldn't beleive the kotaku article I read. Is this really the only way to keep the game on people's radars? To me it's starting to come off as borderline desperate.

 

Umm.. Never mind the excellent point preceding my post, Mass Effect had three sex scenes, at least (Ashley, Kaiden and Liara if memory serves).

 

I heard, if you played a male Shepard and you hung around Citadel station's various bars long enough, you could induce a sex scene with Wrex.. but try as I might I've never been able to pull it off..

 

Edited September 3, 2009 by Anarchosyn

[Pop]

You do know it's not Obsidian writing all these previews, right?

It seems pretty clear by this point that emphasizing the sex was at the least one of a few different things that Obsidz emphasized about their games, and even with my rudimentary knowledge of how PR works I'd bet there was a one-sheet sent out to game journalists telling them what was interesting about Alpha Protocol, and what to focus on in previews. The presentation of Sie in particular seemed to lean on the possibility of sex with that character, to an extent. The romance aspect was probably on that sheet. As it is on the lists of most WRPGs made post-BG2, I imagine.

Edited September 3, 2009 by Pop

[Cl_Flushentityhero]

The game is on peoples' radars!?

[Humodour]

They need to do way instain mother>

[DannyBoy2k]

They need to do way instain mother>

 

Wha-huh? Do what now?

[Humodour]

who kill thier babbys. becuse these babby cant frigth back

[Mojito]

Sex sells. Show a pubescent boy a picture of breasts and he'll buy the game for sure.

[WILL THE ALMIGHTY]

Now that's just way too pessimistic. Showing them breasts won't do a thing. Promising them a sex scene AND the free excuse of ''it's a mature romance''... now they'll buy it.

[Purkake]

Sex sells. Show a pubescent boy a picture of breasts and he'll buy the game for sure.

 

The game is rated M, so the American stores shouldn't actually sell them to minors.

 

No one really cares in Europe.

[kirottu]

We also have an interactive sex scene.

 

 

Avellone has been practicing for his high school hentai dating simulator.

[Cl_Flushentityhero]

You know what else would sell?

 

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/launch-g...-i-maed-a/54971

[GreasyDogMeat]

ONLY four? What is with these lying writers? First they said you could have sex with anything including inanimate objects in Mass Effect, then they say you can have sex with EVERY woman in Alpha Protocol. Unless there are only four women in the game.

 

I eagerly await the game that allows you to just go at a wall... or a mound of dirt. Then have a group of spectators wonder over and comment on how ridiculous you are.

 

Kind of like the guards in Assassin's Creed apparently...

Edited September 3, 2009 by GreasyDogMeat

[Nepenthe]

Sex sells. Show a pubescent boy a picture of breasts and he'll buy the game for sure.

 

The game is rated M, so the American stores shouldn't actually sell them to minors.

 

No one really cares in Europe.

 

Depends, if the PEGI hits 18+ (like I think it did), buyers should get 'carded'. I think they do, around here, of course I'm way too old to have ever run into the phenomenon myself.

 

This is one of those situations where I'd be really wary of talking of Europe as a whole.

[Purkake]

Yeah, that was speaking from my experience. I have never EVER seen anyone asked for a document when buying a game, not here, not in the Netherlands and some other parts of Europe.

 

I've heard that they are pretty strict in the USA, but that might be totally false.

[Nepenthe]

Yeah, that was speaking from my experience. I have never EVER seen anyone asked for a document when buying a game, not here, not in the Netherlands and some other parts of Europe.

 

I've heard that they are pretty strict in the USA, but that might be totally false.

 

I dunno, the amount of American kids on the Mass Effect forums, for example, is pretty outrageous.

[Purkake]

I'm not saying that they can't get the games, I'm saying that they can't go and buy them by themselves.

[kreese12]

I'm always shocked at what a big deal sex is made out of in games. First off, it strikes me as really juvenile and 13-year-old-male for so many game previews of the game making such a big deal about the sex elements about the game. I think it comes from the mistaken believe that most gamers are young teens --when in fact, the average age of a gamer is more around 30.

 

The whole Hot Coffee thing is the epitome of how unhealthy of a relationship many in the U.S (primarily) have with sex. Here we have a game, GTA III, where you run over people, light people on fire, kill prostitutes, steal cars, beat grannies, slaughter cops, break into army bases, and do drugs, yet the thing that causes the company to get sued and half the games media to freak out is a hidden mini-game that shows un-detailed 3d models having sex. It's really mind boggling.

 

So many of us gamers are far, far far more likely to have seen breasts and have sex than we are to have had murdered people indiscriminately (which you do in most games), so I'm still trying to wrap my head around why a pair of mammaries are a huge deal but mass murder doesn't even warrant a moment's consideration.

 

I think the gaming media playing up the sex-aspect of AP doesn't do the game any favors. IMHO it makes the game appear that is trying to appeal to people with a cheap gimmick, and not with more substantive reasons, like good gameplay. I don't blame the folks at Obsidian -- they don't seem to be unnecessarily hyping the sex aspects; its the more the gaming journalists who are playing it up.

 

I just don't get the big deal...

Edited September 3, 2009 by kreese12

[PizzasRgooD]

Sex sells. Show a pubescent boy a picture of breasts and he'll buy the game for sure.

 

The game is rated M, so the American stores shouldn't actually sell them to minors.

 

No one really cares in Europe.

 

Depends, if the PEGI hits 18+ (like I think it did), buyers should get 'carded'. I think they do, around here, of course I'm way too old to have ever run into the phenomenon myself.

 

This is one of those situations where I'd be really wary of talking of Europe as a whole.

 

I'm sure it has to be hardcore porn before it hits 18+. Fahrenheit with its 2 sex scenes that did not fade to black and had full nudity, one of which you had to do the mouse movements to 'perform', and the other that had them doing different positions, that was rated 16+

So yeah 18+ is never gonna happen.

[Matthew Rorie]

I don't know that we've ever promoted the sex/romance in the game as an explicit selling point. We've talked about when asked about it, sure, but we're not exactly going around yelling "LIVE NUDE GIRLS" or anything. If press wants to talk about it, I'm sure they will - it creates good traffic. But I would take issue with the characterization that Obsidian is pushing our game as some kind of journey of erotic discovery. When we deal with the press, we almost exclusively talk about our RPG systems and our story as the selling points and why people should get excited about Alpha Protocol.

[kreese12]

Yeah that's what I've also thought -- you've never really unduly played up the romance/sex aspect very much, from what I've seen.

 

It's more a matter of a few game journalists trying to make some of their A.P reports a bit more, uh.....titillating.

[Nepenthe]

I'm sure it has to be hardcore porn before it hits 18+. Fahrenheit with its 2 sex scenes that did not fade to black and had full nudity, one of which you had to do the mouse movements to 'perform', and the other that had them doing different positions, that was rated 16+

So yeah 18+ is never gonna happen.

 

Mass Effect, Fallout 3, Hitman: Blood Money and Bioshock are rated 18+ by PEGI. And that was just the ones I could see from here, without getting up.

[H]

Mass Effect, Fallout 3, Hitman: Blood Money and Bioshock are rated 18+ by PEGI.

Because of violence, not sex.

[Pop]

I don't know that we've ever promoted the sex/romance in the game as an explicit selling point. We've talked about when asked about it, sure, but we're not exactly going around yelling "LIVE NUDE GIRLS" or anything. If press wants to talk about it, I'm sure they will - it creates good traffic. But I would take issue with the characterization that Obsidian is pushing our game as some kind of journey of erotic discovery. When we deal with the press, we almost exclusively talk about our RPG systems and our story as the selling points and why people should get excited about Alpha Protocol.

I ain't saying AP is being rolled out like a Leisure Suit Larry game, but for example, Sie is really the only major NPC we've been shown thus far. Seeing as how she's being highlighted in countless previews and interviews it seemed like there had to be a good go-to distillation of the character, for sound bit purposes at least. To be sure, the dynamics and consequences of how you interact with the Sie character are emphasized, but Sie as a character in the narrative is basically summed up as a "mercenary cougar", a term with a definition that begins and ends with the type of relationship she can have with the PC. I'm guessing that Sie is going to turn out to be a subtly drawn character, but in the previews she's essentially a Bond character defined by her sexuality. Obsidz is at least complicit in that.