Some of Dead Space 2 and Bulletstorm's marketing makes these games look exploitative, with more than just a passing similarity to the way exploitation films are promoted. Wikipedia's article describes them as follows:
Exploitation film is a type of film that is promoted by "exploiting" often lurid subject matter. The term "exploitation" is common in film marketing, used for all types of films to mean promotion or advertising. These films then need something to exploit, such as a big star, special effects, sex, violence, romance, etc. An exploitation film, however, relies heavily on sensationalist advertising and broad and lurid overstatement of the issues depicted, regardless of the intrinsic quality of the film.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploitation_film (It's notable that the page has neutrality & citation issues).
The inherent problem with applying this definition to games is that, since Doom, games have been overtly gory or violent, to the point of celebrating them like exploitation movies. Postal or Splatterhouse are probably the poster boys for this kind of game. There are also multiple cases of sexploitation (BMX XXX, Guy Game etc.) or exploiting big stars (Apocalypse feat. Bruce Willis). I'm guessing if you talk to Megyn Kelly, she would classify nearly every game as exploitative.
So yes, if we make this page - there will be headaches in defining it but I think, it would be a good resource. Initially I thought of making this a piddly little list but then, it seemed like a big enough issue to be an actual concept page.
Thoughts?
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