The same founding law that gives me the right to write and publish creative works of all sorts, also gives others the right to freely assemble (aka ESRB), and have opinions. So I see the cultural aspect as largely irrelevant. You can’t have freedom without disagreement.
There’s also a growing trend among self-censors (Microsoft and Sony) to look the other way if a product is going to prove profitable. And with competitive forces (Steam, GoG, Itch, EGS, etc) offering alternatives, there is outside pressure as well.
I definitely don’t recommend it. Its a very complex web. All I can say is it is NOT a monolithic paradigm. And Deacon is incorrectly characterizing the whole of our population or at least a generation of it. He speaks off parents of the 90s making complaints. Well even then not all of them did. But that was also over 30 years ago.
The parents of today have a bit better handle on what they want their kids to engage with and don’t really have much complaint, and well speaking from my own anecdote, my friends who happen to be parents really enjoy games with sex, violence, and other creative ‘taboos’.
I don’t normally try to assert my opinion into a debate or argument, but in this case I do heavily believe that no creative work depicting fictional characters should have any sort of restriction that doesn’t cause direct harm to real people. While the culture may not be 100% behind that, the law does. And I would love to see the rest of the world put in protections for creators and artists to the same degree.
I have methods to work on changing the culture within my own home country. I don’t have much sway to the laws of foreign governments. That’s up for the individuals to do. All I can do is encourage them to push for those changes.
I really can’t see how. When someone asks “why have a toggle for nudity in a gory, violent game” and someone answers “because Americans”, the American cultural stance towards nudity is very relevant.
I wholeheartedly agree. It’s a fascinating, complicated tangle, but there’s little to gain from discussing it here.
Yeah, 30 years is a long time, enough for the mores to shift and become more progressive. Sadly, it’s also enough to get to the point where we’re seeing the same kind of people from 30 years ago trying to manipulate things the same way as 30 years ago to undo those 30 years of progress, and being more successful at it than I would like them to be.
Anyway, I’ll shut up now, because this is veering from cultural to political.
This pretty much sums up my opinion on the matter, too. Making people explode in a game that is supposed to epict extreme violence is okay by me. Making the people explode when stabbed with a dagger is just silly.
The “fatalities” presented in the latest dev stream would be a step in the right direction if they weren’t so difficult to perform. At least Andy’s performance made it look like you need to first stop whatever you’re doing, then do a little tap dance in front of your victim while waiting for the stars to align, and then hit the Attack button and hope you timed it right before the target dies of boredom while waiting for you to finish your ritual.
Until the nature of mutilation and dismemberment makes sense in the situation, I’d prefer the enemies to just keel over and bleed, rather than send bits and pieces flying all over the map square when stabbed in the gut.
But the 90’s video game scare was politics, not parents.
My experience in the rural midwest says other wise.
My friends consider me a bit of a prude, I’m in my 60s.
Had to double check to make sure who was posting
Not really the time or place to argue the point. But I am reasonably sure there is a type of CG art that will get you a “possession of” charge. I’m fairly sure it will end you internet experience.
But let me tell ya a story. Years a go I did CG art, really enjoyed it because I have been a frustrated artiest since I could pick up a crayola. After spending months setting, posing, staging, light… a scene of a nurse defending her self from zombies I posted it to a galley, got pulled for gore because the nurses uniform had blood on it. My fault, did not post to the adult section and mark it as gore.
So some people even in an artist community put gore in the same category as nudity. And in Conan gore, like nudity is option I’m sure others would like to be able to turn off.
So, just saw a video on the new Fatality Animations… I mean, I get it it, its Conan, the animations make sense… But since launch Ive waited for a gore toggle (since we were told we were getting one) but instead of that, we are actually getting even MORE default untoggleable gore because now theres new blood effects and squelching sounds, etc…
Not a prude, not saying the violence has no place and no one should play it, etc… Just that I dont care for or even play games with “gore prn” for lack of a better phrase, no shade on anyone who does like it, I just wanted a toggle to choose to see it. It’s not my thing. Especially seeing it over and over again on a game Ive played daily for years.
Sucks, I may stop playing after all these years. SUCKS man… Love this game. I dont think the request was unreasonable since we have toggles for nudity, which is something I have no problem with, but understand others do. Im glad they, at least, got their preference respected… sigh, maybe ill just keep refreshing on my official in the meantime and just work on improving my base interiors or something. Again, sucks, because PVP combat is what Im best at and enjoy doing the most…
It would make more sense to me if games had a gore rather than a nudity toggle generally speaking… but it’s not the world we live in. Although that actually varies greatly from country to country (and games with a gore toggle do exist too! Funcom’s previous game has one, but it was still a fully European company back then, no American employees or Chinese overlords).
Not that I’m someone who would ever turn either slider off, but I am in fact forced all the time to turn nudity off if I want to stream or upload a video and that’s silly.
All this say I do support your request, especially with how cartoony and nonsensical the gore is in current iteration (as others explained above).
Isn’t this the real issue though? This is a rhetorical question, as I agree that its silly that we have to flip sliders on or off because of ‘sensitive’ content.
For some odd reason society associated Nudity with Sexual Content. It didn’t used to be this way, even in the US. Like for example there is nudity in Superman, Beastmaster, and The Last Unicorn. Yet all three movies have a PG rating with the last one having a G rating.
But there was a time (and somewhat still applies now) where non-sexual nudity wasn’t seen as taboo. I don’t even think the nudity in Conan Exiles is sexualized (sans mods). And therefor shouldn’t have any stigma on platforms. They already make exceptions for educational purposes on most platforms.
Oddly enough erotica (written sexuality) has nearly no restrictions among retailers and absolutely no regulations whatsoever in most countries. Its only those of pornographic (visual media) nature. Canada is pretty well known (at least in memes) for one such work having the Governer-General’s award (God bless my northern neighbors)
But at the end of the day this world’s various societies are all backwards in some way in how creative freedoms are handled. Its a bit of a mess. It should be handled on the individual level. And while I don’t mind sliders for those who want to use them for whatever reason. I’d like to live in a world where such sliders are not required for anything except for personal preference.
I just make my personal chanel 18+ by default and YouTube doesn’t bother me. That way I don’t have to worry about it.
But I agree with everything you said, @Taemien .
We live in a strange world.
Absolutely agree. The fact that nudity in itself is always entwined with sexuality (in most countries) is criminal.
Extremely Gory images should be considered more offensive than a naked body in a non sexual context (such as in Conan). Which is why it irritates me that nudity gets a toggle and not gore.
If you want gore, cool, it fits in Conan.
I am completely against censorship, but I am equally for personal preference if it doesnt effect anyone else.
For me, and plenty others, Id rather have a gore slider along side the nudity toggle. As long as it effects no one else, obviously.
Thank you for your reply. At the end of the day, all we can really ask for is that it is at least seriously considered. So thank you for passing it along. o7
I’m a bit baffled that someone still thinks “nudity” is less than a problem in the US than gore when that country basically went all in because of a shown nipple on television.
I don’t remember many tv shows from the US were you see nude people - even when they have sex.
That’s hillarious when you realise that nudity is the most normal thing of human society - while Gore/Violence is something that most civilizations try to avoid in their societies and especially guard their children from.
Yeah. I’m a bit baffled that they can have sex scenes in a prime time TV show, as long as the actors are wearing underwear. I’m hardly what one might consider conservative, but I’d be wary about letting kids watch all that writhing, licking, bouncing and feats of acrobatic prowess - the lack of visible nipples does not make it okay.
Nudity is dumb in a game. Yet companies will do what it takes to draw in young boys to play. I know a lot of female players, not one has nudity on.
The Mrs says the same thing about gore. Just give me an off switch.
Ive been playing games since the 90s, mostly MMOs. When trees were a brown stick with a green triangle on them.
There was not even skimpy armor, let alone nudity.
Its taken some MMOs a years to even give their players avatars.
Well, nudity is a question of views and so on.
Gore, on the other hand, is a known issue with some people.
If I had to choose one thing to be “point of contention” in a game it would be gore, not nudity. There is no known “natural triggered” reaction to nudity. Gore on the other hand does have a not uncommon condition to be triggering physiological responses.
It would be above “ideological issues” to regulate the show of gore more than nudity. On top of that, it is hard to search what GDC video the guys are talking about it, but there was 3 or 4 panels talking about how nudity is different in each place. So guys had to cover butts on one place, butts were fine but boobs not in another, then anything but genitals can be shown in another, then you “should not cover” in another. It is weird. But gore is gore.
However, myself ? I welcome both very much. Just wondered why does most NPCs showing up in my tavern, and spawning around Sepermeru are so nude. Seriously, it is not a problem with nudity, but it is strange that you put up a bar in the middle of the snowy peaks of the north, and most NPCs are showing up almost naked.
I don’t find it dumb in the slightest. Why can’t adults have the possibility to undress their characters? Is there anything inherently wrong with the human body?
What I find dumb is the exact opposite. Adult games should have adult content.
People who aren’t mature enough to deal with nudity or have some issue with it, can always choose to keep their characters and npcs dressed or play games without adult content.
Obviously, @Deamo . Because they will be judged by people who find “nudity dumb”.
Pathetic. There’s nothing wrong with adults doing what adults naturally do. Admiring human beauty is not something worthy of any sort of criticism. We are wired to do it. The alternative would be going extinct.
(God bless my northern neighbors)
