ARE THERE RESTRICTIONS ON GAMES THAT CAN BE HOSTED HERE? SPECIFICALLY GAMES AIMED FOR MORE MATURE AUDIENCES.

Dungeoneer is basically the threshold. It probably needs a disclaimer because it's VERY close to riding that edge. If it weren't for the deeper meanings, competence, and intentions/nature of its intellectually-inclined creator, it could very well be denied. Context is everything.

Porn/smut is not allowed; we have people on this site who are under 18. Sex scenes should not show full nudity, should be acceptable in the context of the game, and should be brief - just like on TV.

I don't want to make this sort of line too well-defined, because context is everything and games should be treated on a case by case basis. An accurate portrayal of your game's content on your game page is essential; otherwise, you'll be more likely to shock and anger people and there will be more calls to get your game taken down due to being "offensive."

The mention of "network TV" is fairly logical. Dungeoneer is no worse than the more extreme episodes of 24. And it's cartoon violence. But network TV has legit disclaimers. We need that on our more extreme games, especially since our site is 13+ and not 18+.

Extreme violence should have a disclaimer as well as a logical reason for its inclusion. The violence works with Dungeoneer. It doesn't feel extreme to me. It's not really about the shock value; if it were, Calunio would've made it a LOT more graphic than it is.

Sure, I know - double standard between violence and sex and all that. That's society's fault; we just go with the zeitgeist. I can't start hosting porn games here, or games with gratuitous sex and nudity; that's just plain unacceptable given the zeitgeist.

Violence is sort of expected in games and is seen as somewhat acceptable for kids to witness in a video game (e.g. Call of Duty, etc.). Porn isn't, for better or for worse. Fanservice is usually the limit.

I think this double standard in society stems from the fact that sex feels good and is hard-wired in our brains; committing real violence doesn't feel good and isn't hard-wired in our brains (for most). Both have unwanted consequences, and on the sex end of things, there's a somewhat puritan but partially true slippery slope. Kids are more inclined to fuck than to shoot up people (thankfully). Sex is on the brain of most young people. And casual sex among clueless teens will be more likely to lead to unwanted pregnancies, STDs, drama, broken hearts when one person gets too attached, obsession with sex instead of trying to succeed in other aspects of life, etc. Sex addiction can lead to problems in adulthood. I see it far too often when people well into adulthood think with their loins and not their brains. (But personally, I don't think that's caused by porn.) And like with the whole violence thing, people are blaming porn for overstimuating young people and turning them into "hypersexuals" (though this is debatable). The bottom line seems to be this fear that teens will go out and try to get laid more if they are overstimulated sexually, but they are far less likely to be violent individuals if they are overstimulated with violence. Kind of a stretch, if you ask me, but that's the verdict of society and is really the only semi-logical explanation for this double standard that we're all kind of forced to uphold in society.

E.g. A game where you collect falling breasts is fine as long as the breasts are covered.

I wouldn't delve too deep into brain-based explanations for the double standard, especially considering most of the free world has the opposite opinion to the US (sex and nudity: OK; violence: NO). It's a very US-centric thing.

And, anyway, the rationale behind it matters a lot less than the risk of big trouble from violating it. There are many great venues for trying to change culture, but I don't think RMN is really one of them. (Nor should it have to be.)

author=alterego
@Sooz: I dunno. If you're going for 'humor', seeing somebody running around on their underwear seems to be enough. Or maybe trying to cover themselves with their hands -if they don't need to fight back or anything- ...that would be quite interesting to animate, actually.

It's not a humor thing; the mechanic involves someone with Kitty Pryde style "go through physical stuff" powers, just with an unfortunate side-effect that it's ALL the physical stuff. It's a horror game, so the main idea is an emphasis on inconvenience and helplessness.

If the check box would get around any legal issues, I definitely think that would be preferable to a blanket restriction on making games with more adult content.

I don't have any immediate plans for games with content that would garner an adult rating, but I'm also of the opinion that sexuality is a significant enough part of human experience that it should be able to be incorporated into stories naturally, without being gawked at or shoehorned in gratuitously, so I'd prefer it if the option to include that sort of content were left open to us.

Do the characters have to be married before they can have sex?

author=Rod_Wadd
Do the characters have to be married before they can have sex?

Yes, but they aren't allowed to be virgins.

Tone is such a huge componenet to whether something is considered pornographic /offensive or not that I think RMN should probably deal with questionable games on a case-by-case basis to avoid throwing away potentially good or idk "interesting" stuff in the name of rule-adherence (reminder again, that dungeoneer has a "rape tile" - "just like network TV" eh? sorry Deck it bares pointing out, and I don't think BE:D should be removed from the site, I just think that once RMN has allowed then it hasn't got much of a say in terms of being an arbiter of what constitutes "good taste").

So yeah my actual point is that games that are questionable should a) contain warnings where applicable (on the game page and in the game if needs be) and b) be checked on a case-by-case basis with consideration given to the context, tone and ostensible author intention. Also to be fair there could be a load of porn/sex in any number of the games on the site and the admin team might not know until it was flagged up by somebody who had actually played the game anyway, jez saiyan.

I'm sure we're all aware of cases where something was obviously intentionally misrepresented by a concerted effort to intellectually dishonestly ignore the intention/tone of a work in favor of attributing patently false intentions to the author that were never there, in the name of some higher (usualy moralistic) principle being violated and needing protecting from said these bad people etc etc. Let's not be stupid people.

Also, nobody has a right the right to not be offended. That is worth remembering.