This thread is full of some interesting choice comments.
In this thread:
A puritanical world view combined with a failure to respect the ESRB rating results in a kid learning about the birds and the bees.
You're not concerned with people arbitrarily killing children, casual profanity, and ritualistic BDSM, but you draw the line at physical intimacy?
This post should be pinned for posterity. This is hilarious.
Almost everyone maintains contradictory world views, even if its not this particular one. I could give plenty of examples to highlight this point, but I think the moderators would be upset if I turned this thread into a discussion of real world politics, so I will not do so. Suffice to say, I wouldn't laugh so hard if I were you, because the chances are upon close examination, you do as well. I know I do, even if the ones I maintain aren't the ones on discussion within this thread.
As soon as you go to the steam page this shows up:
THIS GAME MAY CONTAIN CONTENT NOT APPROPRIATE FOR ALL AGES,
OR MAY NOT BE APPROPRIATE FOR VIEWING AT WORK.
You have to accept that message to enter the store page and on the bottom:
MATURE CONTENT DESCRIPTION
The developers describe the content like this:
This Game may contain content not appropriate for all ages. It contains General Mature Content, and may include Nudity or Sexual Content.
You getting on the forums and complaining IS YOUR OWN FAULT!!!! BE A RESPONSIBLE ADULT and NOT half *** it if you really want to sensor what they see. This was in your face right at the door, GROW UP and take responsibility for your own actions or lack there of.
I will agree that this is more or less how the mature rating is used in real world applications. I will also agree that, if a person does not read the labels, it is entirely their own fault. I do however dislike the use of the word, "mature," for this particular rating, because in my opinion that is not what mature means (to be clear, this is not an issue with the rating itself, rather the word they used to rate it). To me mature would be a game that makes you think about difficult, hard to discuss situations. An easy example is if there was a scene in a game where you were in a room with a sadist who gives you an option between him torturing your mother or torturing your father, where a failure to respond means both get tortured. Then, regardless of which outcome you pick, it throws the long term repercussions of this at you as you continue playing the game. Its facing you the protagonist with a difficult situation where there is no right answer and its also a lot more, "mature" (in my opinion) than anything which is thrown at you in BG 3. Papers please is to me a good example of a mature game.
In my opinion pixel sex is probably fine being lowered to 16 or even below, there isn't really anything mature about it.
Fade to dark is the only tactful solution to romances.
Showing nudity is just a substitute for good writing, as always. I never felt like I needed a graphic sex-scene with Visas, Bastila and the Handmaiden because they were decetly written.
However keep in mind that in BG3, none of the companions are delicate people who are in it for a deep connection, or love, they are in it for the sex (with the possible exception of Shadowheart so far).
Astarion even bluntly tells you that he just considers this to be fun. Laezel acts like a dog in heat, basically treating sex like an itch to be scratched. Not sure about Wyll, didn't see his romance yet, but afaik he has potential for something more. Also Gale is creepy, I don't see why you'd romance that guy, ew...
Anyway, the romances we've seen so far are very low quality, they seem formulaic and out of nowhere. I like Shadowheart's the best because it seems to be nice and slow (as it should be), giving more room for development and letting the characters warm up to each other. As for sex-scenes, I would vastly prefer to just remove them alltogether, not because I hate sex, but because it's always better to leave that for the imagination.
This raises an interesting point about the fact that sometimes, leaving something up to the imagination of the player is better than shoving it in your face. Writers have the well known mantra of, "show, don't tell," and I guess you could say this is kind of like that. Whether or not sex scenes are an example of a situation where this rule is applicable is something I am undecided on, but there are plenty of cases where I think games could do this better, for example, lore. Don't tell me about the world through NPC info-dumps, show me it through the way people dress, the way they talk, their mannerisms, the local architecture, etc. Don't tell me an NPC is angry with me in a dialogue, show it to me through their posture. This is something I think most games fail at, which I think could dramatically enhance the quality of storytelling in games. With that being said, DOS 2 probably had the worst written romances in any RPG I have played and if it is a choice between DOS 2 written romances and cutscenes I think the cutscenes are probably better done.
As for the OP, there will probably be a streamer option when the game is finally ready which disables this stuff, because streamers are one of the big forms of advertising for this game. Whilst I think its good that you are drawing lines and trying to be a good parent (even if I am sure the definition of good parent will differ wildly from person to person in this thread), you should probably have read the ratings a bit more carefully, or looked at some of the press coverage about the game before hand. Swen (the lead developer) has been very open about how there will be sex scenes in the game from the very beginning, I think it is probably one of the games main marketing points.
