TL;DR: Video game actors being told to mo-cap sex scenes without being told beforehand
A summary of the story, scene breakdown and scripts should be distributed to all cast members in advance.
performers should be able to request a closed set where access is kept to a minimum.
A competent intimacy coordinator should be engaged.
These are not big asks.
In one recording for a major game she first learned it was explicit only when she turned up for work.
“This was actually a full-on sex scene,” she said.
"I had to [vocally] match the scene and through the glass in the booth was the entire team, all male, watching me.
“It was excruciating… at that stage I had been in the games industry a while, and I had never felt so shaken”.
Not unreasonable to say that this situation should not be repeated.
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.
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
And on the other side we have the Baldur’s Gate actors praising Larian for hiring intimacy coordinators and not requiring themselves to mocap the sex scenes.
Edit: Ah, just saw that this is addressed at the end of the article.
Actor here. Doing intimacy scenes is surprisingly difficult, arguably more so than combat, because usually people train and get certified in sword and dagger, rapier, firearms etc to get cast
When working a job, putting your mouth on another person’s mouth is a very unusual act, and you want your actors - regardless of gender - to feel safe, comfortable, professional and not exploited - not to mention you might spend 2x 14 hours days on this sequence from multiple angles getting it the same every time
That’s someone whose job is to liaise and advocate for actors to the production crew for intimate scenes, especially nude and sex scenes.
intimacy coordinators
Yes, quite. I’m a regular practitioner of touch-stimulated emotional relief aided by intimacy content distributors on the digital nexus of information.
What game is motion-capping realistic rape scenes? Jesus Christ.
There’s a lot of straight up porn games out there so who knows what kind of shit these actors end up in when they show up for a generic “motion/voice capture for video game” gig.
I don’t think many adult games can afford mocap though. Typically the adult content is purely animated models.
Next we need to mocap him beating your head in with a hammer. It will hurt at first but you won’t feel much afterwards.
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?
Mass Effect, The Witcher, San Andreas Hot Coffee Mod, Sega Bass Fishing 2, Cyberpunk 2077.
It’s pretty common.
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.”
If I’m not mistaken the Hot Coffee mod restores content made by Rockstar that was cut last minute.
Mass Effect Andromeda had one or two fairly graphic sex scenes. Nothing more than what you’d typically see in an R rated Hollywood movie.
Unfortunately the scenes were with the most human characters. Imagine my disappointment when it just did fade to black with the Turian girl…
One of the new Wolfenstein games too.
I don’t think you can count hot coffee, though. That was cut before release.
What was the first video game with a sex scene? Custer’s Revenge?
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.
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.
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.
