“Sexually explicit” Duke Nukem game ad banned

An ad for the Duke Nukem computer game that showed a near naked woman pole dancing has been banned by the ASA for showing “overly explicit” sexual scenes.

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The animated ad also featured images of young women dressed in school uniform about to kiss as well as violence including a character being punched and aircraft firing weapons.

The ASA received 34 complaints that the ad was offensive and irresponsible for portraying sexist, violent and overly explicit images likely to “cause children and vulnerable people harm”.

2K Games, which owns the game franchise says the ad for Duke Nukem Forever was a “cartoonish, over the top, humourus” take on shooter games that deliberately distanced itself from “ultra realistic” war games.

The company added that it believed the imagery, which was created from game footage, was common in mass-market entertainment and it pixilated any images that are “sexually suggestive”.

The ASA ruled that while it did not consider that the violence shown would cause distress, or that the ad was overtly sexist, the strip club scenes were irresponsible and likely to cause wide-spread offence.

The ad, which was only aired after 9pm, was found to be in breach of advertising regulations and can only be shown again on TV after 11pm.

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