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Are questions related to adult-themed video games allowed on Arqade? I've posted a related question at here.

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    What about a game like dragon-age of fable where you can ...um... you know... NPC's
    – Ritwik Bose
    Commented Oct 16, 2010 at 20:31
  • In Ultima 7 you can visit the Baths. Interestingly, if you procure one of them then you cannot talk to the Unicorn later Dungeon Destard. All this leads us to believe this type of question is bad and wrong.
    – bobobobo
    Commented Aug 11, 2012 at 4:07

3 Answers 3

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See Jeff's answer to this question on the web applications meta:

No, I don't think we want this, as it would cause us to get globally banned from web filtering software.

So including adult links, or even mentioning adult sites by name, is explicitly not allowed.

Also Joel's answer to this other question (with the link changed to point to this site's content policy):

Our Content Policy reads:

Sexually Explicit Material. Accounts that use Stack Exchange to post sexually explicit or pornographic material, or links to it, will be suspended.

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    I'm not sure this would globally rule out questions like "In game XXX, how do I get 10000 points so I can make her do XXX". Links do seem to be banned by the above text, but not necessarily advice about content.
    – Jeffrey
    Commented Jul 20, 2010 at 17:17
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    @Jeffrey - It would all depend on what XXX was.
    – ChrisF
    Commented Jul 20, 2010 at 17:19
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    Simple: no is no, no matter how you phrase it
    – Ivo Flipse
    Commented Jul 20, 2010 at 19:31
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    There interesting dichotomy here is that the Gaming.SE's policy currently seems to forbid such based on context instead of content. So "How can I copulate with ...?" questions seem to be ok for "normal" games (examples: The Witcher, Mass Effect 2), while the same question for, say, Alice Tachibana of The Maid's Story would very likely be deleted.
    – Martin Sojka
    Commented Sep 23, 2011 at 10:31
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My first reaction was that these should be considered on-topic, within the scope of offensiveness and safe-for-work guidelines.

The more I typed, the more I realized that this just won't be possible. I just blew away three paragraphs and a list trying to come up with guidelines that would work for such topics, and it's primarily because:

  1. Many users will find the subject matter offensive no matter what. Sorry, but that's true. These are likely to garner offensive flags left and right.
  2. Regardless of that fact, can most gameplay questions about games of the "adult" nature (oh, how I hate that term; that's a rant for another day) really be answered in a work-safe, non-graphic way?
  3. Regarding the specific question, even my initial defense of the topic granted that that one should be closed, as a list-of-X question. I still maintain that, but now believe (having thought it through in great detail) that anything of "that" nature should simply be closed as off-topic.

Now this is liable to start a flame war. I am not personally opposed to anything; I do believe in freedom of speech and your right as a gamer to enjoy what you enjoy. I got in very heated debates with Stack Overflow's management over "curse" words, despite the fact that I rarely (if ever) use them on these sites.

I understand the oddity of having a site devoted to gaming (where there's plenty of violence to be found) try and set up guidelines about (or removing entirely) content of the "adult" (presumably sexual or pornographic) nature.

I get it.

But I'm being pragmatic here. The pragmatic response is that, while those questions will probably be very rare to begin with, they will likely create friction and problems for the community, the mods, the Stack Overflow staff itself, and ultimately the question poster (who, given enough flags, is subject to a -100 rep hit).

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  • Thanks for all the thought put into this. I apologize for the "List of X" question, but I wanted to start this discussion and didn't have any direct question for the site. While I do agree it's a dangerous path to go down in allowing these kinds of questions, it hits me as strange that we might have to say "This particular kind of gaming is not welcome here".
    – Jeffrey
    Commented Jul 20, 2010 at 17:16
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    @Jeffrey: To an extent, I would agree. However, this case is somewhat unique in that its very nature will be offensive to some (probably not most) of the audience, and that it specifically does violate a policy mentioned by Jeff Atwood (see ChrisF's answer). Ultimately, they become more trouble than they're worth.
    – John Rudy
    Commented Jul 20, 2010 at 20:56
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The thing is though, can we discuss games of that nature without links? At the very least being to ask for help on how to install it and get it working may be beneficial. Another thing to take into account, this is an internet site that doesn't cater directly the United States. There are many places where it isn't as "taboo" as it is in the US.

Are we going to deny this because a couple people could be upset?

Maybe there could be a special tag created for it, [adult], and you would be required to use that tag for anything of the type. There could also be an option for the user on whether to display questions tagged as [adult] so they wouldn't see them at all if it was off.

Sadly, though, it really does come down to "if it offends you, don't click the link". People need to understand that things aren't always going to be perfect for them.

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    If the site's servers are located in the U.S. though, the site is subject to U.S. law. It might also be subject to the laws of the state it's located in, I believe.
    – FAE
    Commented Jul 22, 2010 at 22:47
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    I don't like adult links and adult discussion to be done on Gaming SE. If the site is categorized "Mature" it will be blocked by many corporate firewalls.
    – user59
    Commented Jul 22, 2010 at 22:55
  • @marco.ragogna that's a good point, I didn't think of corporate firewalls. Though, I didn't really think of visiting this site from work either. :) Now, I don't actually have any adult games or questions on them I just wanted to help make an argument for them since they are a game and fall under the "gaming umbrella" per se.
    – Joshua
    Commented Jul 23, 2010 at 1:02
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    @FallenAngelEyes This is true, but there aren't any laws against explicit content (barring the usual disallowed content) so I wasn't really referring to laws that the servers are subject to. It's a fact that the U.S. allows horridly gory violence without any pause but will scream bloody murder at the slightest bit of skin (look at the 'Mass Effect' controversy...) yet at the same time, outside the U.S. it's the opposite (to some degree).
    – Joshua
    Commented Jul 23, 2010 at 1:04
  • @Joshua I visit the site often during my lunch time :)
    – user59
    Commented Jul 23, 2010 at 7:41
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    I think a major problem is that allowing Adult games but not allowing any content that links or describes their material would be awkward to the people who ask those questions. I don't know these games, or whether anyone who plays them would actually ask questions about in-game activity, but I think that saying "We allow only a small subset of questions, primarily installation, for adult games" is a lot more difficult to accept than "I'm sorry but we do not cover adult games". In order to get any support besides what we "might allow", they would need to visit another place anyway.
    – Grace Note StaffMod
    Commented Jul 23, 2010 at 10:36
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    I believe Jeff's major issue deals with the network as a whole. He doesn't want the entire Stack Exchange network blacklisted for hosting objectionable content.
    – Jesse Dorsey
    Commented Jul 23, 2010 at 16:19

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