Want more sex in your games? More violence? What's culturally acceptable here might not be kosher somewhere else. But that pendulum swings both ways.
I recently spoke with CD Projekt, the folks behind "The Witcher" about sex in their PC game.
As a follow-up, I've been talking to more game developers about their reasons for pushing for more extreme content or holding back.
Gearbox Software's Randy Pitchford proved the most outspoken of the bunch, and suggested a bigger issue was at play: territorial differences in their reactions to sex, violence and language.
This presents an interesting challenge to developers interested in having their games appreciated on a world stage, and one not very different from the obstacles CD Projekt faced in bringing their adult-targeted RPG to the United States.
"My experience has been that different audiences and territories seem to have very different tolerances for content that tests their standards of decency," Pitchford told me in an e-mail exchange covering everything from sex and violence to "Samba De Amigo" and monks playing "Counter-Strike."
Pitchford's company has been best known for the "Brothers in Arms" series of World War II-based shooters. While they don't feature much sexual content, there's violence and colorful language abound. That may fly in the US, but that doesn't mean the rest of the world necessarily comes running with open arms.
Every country has its own idea of what's acceptable, said Pitchford.