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Could you imagine a Nintendo title being advertised like this today? (Conker's Bad Fur Day, N64)
(lemmy.world)
This was printed in Playboy magazine in April 2001.
It's hard to explain to people who weren't around back then how loose the "rules" were for making games. Conker's Bad Fur Day was definitely trying to market itself as edgy, but aside from some faith-based groups who would be upset, nobody really cared.
I was around back then and if you think post 9/11 US wasn't a conservative hellscape of intolerance and jingoism I don't know what to tell you?
The reason you don't see advertisements like this is because the kind of investment entities that control game companies big enough to buy ads in playboy don't consider it a profitable venture vs marketing on violence which is considered more family friendly than even the mere presence of a naked body in western globalized societies.
This has been true for a long time and as with anything there are exceptions... and conker is one of them... but it was an exception then as it is now.
If you want to talk about the diversity of topics and tones around sexuality that have been explored in modern indie gaming vs what was acceptable in the past well yeah... nowadays indie artists are able to do waaaaay more without being silenced by christian rightwing fundamentalism and its claw like grip on our society. I don't think that was your point though.