Are detailed sex scenes a bad thing for the story? .

I really don't care about sex scenes. I'm a much bigger fan of lots of dialogue and certain lines that are "colored up" that makes the romance apparent.

I would like us to consider five things.


1. Quality.

2. Time and resources spent.

3. Overall impact of the scenes themselves.

4. Presentation vs Alternative options such as fade to black.

5. Does it get in the way of story telling and can be a distraction.

So basically is the story/the game overall, better, or worse off for having detailed sex scenes.

Keeping in mind most people will not romance more than 1-2 LI's (No, not you specifically MOST PEOPLE.) I think the fade to black after a brief scene is the way to go.

It allows the story to continue without the romance becoming the cinematic focus towards the final moments.

Also frees up time and resources.

A mix of both.

If explicit scenes are available for every love interest and every romance has the option for a non-explicit alternative then I would say they I'm fine with them. Just don't arbitrarily give explicit scenes to some love interest while others cut to black, or force explicit scenes on some romances while others can be avoided.


Imbalance is the kind worst offense a developer can make here.

First of all, this post is pretty much all there needs to be said about the resource angle.

But I also want to point out something different here: It's a question of style and genre, whether you want detailed sex scenes or not. In the case of ME, I think just hinting at things is the most genre appropriate way to handle it. ME1 for example did a good job with e.g. the Liara romance. We see enough to know what's going on but therre is no explicit scene there and we fade out quickly, to only get the infamous "You were incredible" line.
That's the kind of thing you'd expect to happen in any SciFi movie or show.

On the other hand, the fairly explicit scene with Jaal got me cringing, and not just because of Jaals body but mainly because I felt that this was just there for the alleged gamer demographic. People cry pandering when they get a throw away line from a trans-sexual character in a side quest but IMO, this is much more inapropriate pandering by far as it breaks the genre quite a bit.

Sure, I could have picked the "no sex" option but that's not how I wanted to roleplay that specific Ryder character (and to be completely fair, I did want to see how they handled it this time around). The point is not that we can opt out, the point is that even the sex scenes adhere to the general fault of this game where different aspects feel like they were included more for their own sake, rather than in concert with an overall design theme or vision for the game in its entirety.

That's what bothers me most about the sex scenes, much more than any implications on resources or how much flesh is shown or whatever.