Mature Games Prompt Debate as Sales Jump

Violence is a staple in the adolescent world of video games while sex traditionally has been taboo.

But a decade after Acclaim Entertainment Inc. rattled parents with the hyper-violent “Mortal Kombat” series, the publisher again is pushing the boundaries of taste and propriety--this time by spicing up its “BMX XXX” with topless female bicycle riders, a racy script and video clips of strippers.

As the popularity of video games grows beyond children and teenagers, publishers are beginning to saturate their games with more mature themes and images. More than half the players of Sony’s PlayStation 2 are older than 18, and the kids who grew up on squeaky-clean Mario want more-adult fare.

“The Mature-rated games category is far and away the fastest growing in terms of sales,” said Michael Pachter, analyst with Wedbush Morgan Securities in Los Angeles.

Pachter said sales of Mature, or M-rated, games in the U.S. are expected to double this year from 7% of overall sales to 14%, thanks to titles such as “BMX XXX,” “The Getaway,” and “Grand Theft Auto: Vice City,” the sequel to “Grand Theft Auto 3.” That game featured interactive prostitutes whose services players could buy to boost their so-called health points.

Scantily clad women of impossible proportions have populated games for years, but overt sexuality largely has been avoided. Crossing the frontier to sexier content turns off some in the industry.

BMX athlete Dave Mirra pulled his name from “BMX XXX” this summer. Redwood City-based Electronic Arts Inc., the world’s largest independent game publisher, attempts to steer clear of M-rated games altogether.

And game developers often go out of their way to tone down violent or suggestive themes to win the more commercially palatable Teen rating.

“We’re trying to be a leader for the industry and protect the industry from heat,” said Bing Gordon, a founder and chief creative officer of Electronic Arts. “With the strip-bar stuff, it’s just too easy to open up the industry to potshots.”

But Acclaim Chief Executive Greg Fischbach said he welcomed the controversy generated by “BMX XXX,” which prompted the game industry’s ratings board to introduce the descriptors “nudity” and “partial nudity” to warn parents of sexual content.

Fischbach--whose career has included stints as a manager of the Steve Miller Band, an assistant U.S. attorney and the president of RCA Records--said the debate would help expose what he considers a double standard for popular entertainment.

“If we were film producers, this wouldn’t be at all controversial,” he said. “It would just boil down to whether we’re creating a good film or a bad film. This should be no different. Our goal is to create an entertainment experience, a video game version of ‘American Pie’ and Howard Stern.”

The company likens “BMX XXX” to films such as “Airplane!” and “Austin Powers.” Glen Cove, N.Y.-based Acclaim hired Hollywood comedians to write a 400-page script filled with adolescent sexual innuendo, double- entendres and sight gags. In addition to the bare-chested characters and strip-club sequences, the game’s visuals include mating dogs and pimps.

Aside from that, “BMX XXX” is a standard dirt-bike racing game in which players perform stunts.

“It certainly pushes the limit, but it’s really just bathroom humor,” said Geoff Keighley, a writer for GameSpot, an industry news Web site.

“It’s no worse than ‘South Park.’ ”

Keighley noted that a handful of games in years past have toyed with sexual content, including “Leisure Suit Larry,” a series of adventure games published in the mid-1990s, and 1995’s “Phantasmagoria,” the first game to suggest sexual intercourse.

Games with overtly sexual themes and content have tended to sell poorly, but game developers have been pushing the boundaries for years. Powerful computers and game consoles permit more realistic graphics and physics, allowing characters in revealing costumes to look like more than cartoons.

The first blockbuster game to deal with sex outright was “Grand Theft Auto 3.” Even then, the sex was just implied. It consisted of inviting a prostitute into a car and watching the vehicle bounce.

“We are a puritan society, pure and simple,” said Henry Jenkins, professor of media studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

“Those are our roots. We have images of violence in our G-rated movies, and because it’s cartoony, it’s acceptable. But we have no way of representing sex in a way that’s acceptable for children. Pokemons fight, but they can’t mate.”