Performers working in the games industry have spoken of their distress at being asked to work on explicit content without notice, including a scene featuring a sexual assault.

Sex scenes are common in modern games - and are often made by filming human actors who are then digitised into game characters.

But performers have told the BBC a culture of secrecy around projects - where scripts are often not shared until the last moment - means they frequently do not know in advance that scenes may involve intimate acts.

They describe feeling “shaken” and “upset” after acting them out.

Performing arts union Equity is demanding action from the industry - it has published guides on minimum pay, and working conditions in games, including on intimate or explicit scenes.

  • Jin
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    3 months ago

    Not okay, not letting them know what they are signing up for… it’s like having them do stunts.

    What game does sex scenes? Usually it just fades to black

      • @count_dongulus@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        They had a dedicated intimacy coordinator for those scenes who worked with the actors to make sure they were comfortable with it

    • @Sterile_Technique@lemmy.world
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      163 months ago

      What game does sex scenes? Usually it just fades to black

      Witcher III is the only one I can think of off the top of my head. I vaguely recall Fable 1 doing the fade-to-black thing, but then staying black and playing out some cliche moaning, which is kind of the same thing from the voice actors’s perspective.

      Whole category of dating sims and basically soft-core-porn games, which I’m sure have a high demand for acting out these kinda of scenes.

      • @Blackmist@feddit.uk
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        43 months ago

        Fable was very much played for laughs. I can remember some guy going “ooh I like that” in a camp voice.

        Heavy Rain and The Last of Us 2 had very awkward sex scenes though.

      • @Kaiserschmarrn@feddit.org
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        3 months ago

        Jup… One of the endings involves the protagonist having sex with a cult leader and then >!getting sacrificed as soon as he cums inside her!<.