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Computer and video games have been the subject of frequent controversy and censorship, due to the depiction of graphic violence, sexual themes, racism, advertising, eavesdropping, consumption of illegal drugs, consumption of alcohol or tobacco, propaganda or profanity in some games. Among others, critics of video games sometimes include parents' groups, politicians, organized religion groups, and other special interest groups, and may become a part of new laws and legislation in the United States and other countries. In recent years, controversy has skyrocketed with the discovery of a downloadable modification that unlocked a sex driven minigame in the highly popular Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Video game censorship is defined as use of state or group power to control the playing, distribution, purchase, or sale of video games or computer games. Video game controversy comes in many forms, and censorship is a controversial subject, as well as a popular topic of debate. Proponents and opponents of censorship are often very passionate about their individual views.

Historically, this type of controversy and criticism is not unique to video games. The same situation has been applied to comic books, music (particularly jazz, rock and roll, metal music, and hip hop and rap music), and films. Moreover, it appears to be a question of age. Since these art forms have been around longer, the backlash against them occurred farther in the past, beyond the remembrance of today's youth. In previous cases, the attempts at censorship in the United States were struck down as a violation of First Amendment rights, and they have gone on to become fully integrated facets of society.

Criticism of sexuality and nudity in video games

Western video game publishers have not explored sexuality in video games to nearly the degree seen in movies, books, or even TV shows. Almost no American video games display full frontal nudity. However, sexual themes are somewhat common in Japanese video games although companies such as Nintendo and Sony do not publish these games. The following is a list of the few American games containing sexual elements.

God of War featured several scenes of topless women, including a particular scene where the character could have offscreen sex with two large breasted women in order to gain red orbs.

Custer's Revenge was a game for the Atari 2600, released by Mystique under the brand "Swedish Erotica" that featured a naked General Custer advancing across the screen, dodging arrows, until he could reach a rather busty naked Native American woman who was apparently tied to a pole, and then rape her. The game was controversial for its racism as well as its sexuality, and, while television news coverage on the subject featured game animation, parts of the screen were concealed with black rectangles in order to avoid showing nudity.

Sierra's Leisure Suit Larry computer games were popular tongue-in-cheek adventure games for adults in which the protagonist constantly attempted, usually without success, to convince women to have sex with him. The games did not excite much controversy despite showing partial nudity with increasing graphical quality over the years.

Eidos's Tomb Raider series were action-adventure games which featured a female protagonist named Lara Croft with very large breasts. The series did not explore sexual themes at all, but Lara was featured in video game magazines as a sex symbol, and it is generally believed that the success of the series over the years was partly due to the prominence of her appearance in the game's advertising and packaging (the game's appeal also inspired two movies based on it). Acclaim released a BMX game called BMX XXX in 2002 which included a topless woman as the game character riding a bicycle, and rewarded players with video footage of topless strippers. The game was originally intended to be a Dave Mirra title without nudity, but it is generally believed in the industry that the game was of low quality - its average review in the gaming media was about 55%, while in most gaming publications a 60% score is considered poor -- and that Acclaim decided late in the game's development to attempt to create a controversy and hopefully prop up sales by including some nudity. The attempt at publicity was rather successful, although the publicity achieved was of the wrong sort for Acclaim; with television reports that Wal-Mart, Toys R Us, and a few other major retail chains in the United States declined to carry the game in their stores due to the nudity. Consequently, sales were poor: under 100,000 copies were sold. The game was not greeted with controversy or with much sales interest in Europe, while it was sold with the sexual content removed in Australia. In June 2005, an entire portion of unused code for an interactive sex mini-game was found within the main script of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. The game could be accessed in the PC version via a modification, and through Action Replay codes in the PS2 and Xbox versions. The fact that the scene was left on the disc and could be accessed by altering a few bytes of the game's code via a hex editor prompted the ESRB to change the rating of San Andreas to "Adults Only" on July 20, 2005. The game was pulled from many stores; Rockstar Games posted a loss of $280.8 million that quarter. (see hot coffee mod) The US version of the game Fahrenheit (re-named as Indigo Prophecy for American audiences), published in September 2005; had scenes depicting sex and other "adult content" removed in order for it to be classified as a "Mature" title, as opposed to an "Adult Only" rating. This was probably done in light of "hot coffee" scandal (above).

The US version of Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion was re-rated from "Teen" to "Mature" after it was discovered that a topless female character could be made through a "mod" usable only on the PC version of the game.

Response to controversies over sexuality is generally in the form of indignation that video games are singled out where movies, books, and television shows are not (despite the fact that Hollywood exercised the Hays code to ban any movie which violated its strict moral sense in the early half of the 20th century). Retailers have sold "R" and "NC-17"-rated (and in some cases "PG-13" and older "PG") movies showing nudity for the past several decades without generating an equivalent level of moral panic in doing so, and the moral problem they claim to have over video games with nudity is seen as hypocritical by some. Because video games have a rating system roughly equivalent to the movie rating system, the two are analogous.