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.

next get drunk and play oblivion while listening to young scrolls

https://youngscrolls.bandcamp.com/

how about starting with Star by Adoring Fan?

https://youngscrolls.bandcamp.com/track/star

honestly I would prefer to drive a DIY custom built machine using a popular off the shelf gamepad, that way I could buy a handful of controllers and keep them in the cockpit as backups.