Romance/sixual subplots are included in most action movies, why is it suddenly weird and icky for a game?

They romance a main character, not every random person that walks down the street. Again you can have a few tightly scripted romances, or just open romance to about everyone and be loose about it so people can role-play them as they seem fit.

I doubt there are many people who would want the system from Skyrim. Many posters seem to be opposed to the idea of having romance included in any way shape or form. For me, if they included 1 male and 1 female romance option from amongst your companions or NPCs who are major characters in the story I'd be happy.

Couldn't care less about romance in Fallout. The last thing I want in a post-apocalypse is worry about buying flowers.

Yeah, good question. Get an answer for that and maybe you can find out why shredding another human being to bits is ok but seeing a nipble is not.

Bingo! lol

The problem with that is if Bethesda decides what woman I can romance I'm going to really wish it was someone else in the game. Yeah mods can fix that. Just like they fixed it in Skyrim by adding more in-depth romances/companions. But in the mean time I'd rather fish from a larger pond.

I'm ok with both Skyrim type "romance" (several NPCs that you can marry but not really any depth or story) and Bioware type romance (fewer NPCs, more depth to the romance) - but if they do it the Skyrim way they need to improve it somewhat, such as being able to hug your spouse, make any spouse your follower, re-marriage if your spouse dies, and being able to manage their inventory and outfit.

It also needs to be optional.

Because a lot of people regard the player-character as being an extension of themselves. They might be fine watching a couple of imaginary characters involved in a romance on screen, but feel uncomfortable getting involved themselves.

I don't exactly get it myself - especially if my player-character is the opposite gender to myself. I was fine with my fem-Shep in ME2 romancing Garrus. But that's because I see myself more as choosing a role for a character, rather than playing that role. There's no denying, however, that a lot of people invest emotionally in their character, and prefer to use them to do things they'd never be able or willing to do in real life, like slaughter homicidal maniacs, blow up cities and battle giant green mutants. Getting involved with a romance, I guess, just feels wrong to them, and the idea that it's just a bunch of pixels doesn't seem to work except when justifying grotesque violence .

They could always do it both ways. A wide range of NPC characters who'd be willing to settle for a likely prospect in a hard world with no timewasting lovey-dovey stuff, and a few helpless romantic NPCs who want to woo or be wooed.

[edit] Although 'wooing' might not be the appropriate word for when a hard-as-nails raider decides she likes the look of your strange, exotic character from a forgotten world, and risks abandoning her clan to travel with them and see what makes them tick

Raider chicks are hot ... and oh so hard to hold. I've already said many times on this forum that I would love a raider chick companion and I'd gladly welcome a romance option.

Romance options seemed to make me actually care about my companions in ME, so maybe it'd make me be less inclined to use my companions as meat shields. Never had a problem leaving Sarah to die in my F3 evil playthroughs, but never could favor the geth in ME3 and watch Tali die.

Only issue I'd have is if it was a couple super simple obvious discussion options to develop a romance, we'd need several hardcoe quests against odds to make it meaningful.

As cool as romance options would be, this would open up a whole new can of worms if Bioware, I meant Bethedsa, implemented in depth romance options.

Honestly one of the benefits of this would be a greater experience in character design for the developers but of course they could stuff it up. Its a risk I want them to take.

I said way back in the start of Fallout 3 how fun it would be to combine Fallout 3 game play with Sims 2 building and marriage system but only after the main quest was over.

Lol, you can always pick them for free or better yet, steal some chocolates from the Super Mart.

In due time, I suppose. In depth characters are not Bethesda's bread and butter. They're already taking a leap of faith with having a voiced protagonist, let alone mature romance like in Mass Effect. Not Skyrim marriages or Super Mario Bros type romance where the curtain falls after they kiss.