It would seem Wired Magazine is obsessed with the topic of sex in videogames. Why this is the case is anyone’s guess? SPOnG suspects that it is because it is mainly written by elderly American liberals (read: hippies) who previously - somewhat mistakenly - thought that sex was the path to all human liberation.
Anyways, in the wake of last year's ridiculous Grand Theft Auto/Hot Coffee debacle, and what with E3 being sex-free this year (well, scantily-clad booth-babe free at least) we thought it was time to give a bit of our fractured, ADD-addled attention to the subject of sex and how it is handled by videogame designers and marketers. Sex, as any male human with a pulse will tell you, is something that we think of a lot. So it makes sense that some games will incorporate it in one way or another: some potentially good, some cringeworthily bad.
Wired spoke to Brenda Brathwaite, lead designer on Playboy: The Mansion, and a vociferous campaigner for sex in videogames. Brathwaite leads the sex task force at the International Game Developers Association (yes, there is such a group!) and gives talks at numerous conferences. Many refer to her simply as 'The Sex in Games Lady'. Braithwaite has just penned a book, simply titled ‘Sex in Video Games’ (out later this year) and is set to chair the first Sex in Games Conference in June.
Without further ado, here is an edited extract of the most interesting bits from the Wired interview:
Well, while that was actually far less sexy than we’d hoped, we think you’ll admit that Ms Brathwaite does raise some fair and interesting points for discussion. Perhaps we will go to the Sex in Games conference after all. We are sure that the post-conference parties would be something to write home about (or not, as the case may be for some of our happily married readers!).
For a much funnier, less American liberal po-faced take on the current status of sex in vidoegames, SPOnG urges you to download the latest episode of our favourite Glaswegian videogames TV show, Consolevania. Consolevania XXX is perhaps their finest work to date, and is available to download from www.consolevania.com
Anyways, in the wake of last year's ridiculous Grand Theft Auto/Hot Coffee debacle, and what with E3 being sex-free this year (well, scantily-clad booth-babe free at least) we thought it was time to give a bit of our fractured, ADD-addled attention to the subject of sex and how it is handled by videogame designers and marketers. Sex, as any male human with a pulse will tell you, is something that we think of a lot. So it makes sense that some games will incorporate it in one way or another: some potentially good, some cringeworthily bad.
Wired spoke to Brenda Brathwaite, lead designer on Playboy: The Mansion, and a vociferous campaigner for sex in videogames. Brathwaite leads the sex task force at the International Game Developers Association (yes, there is such a group!) and gives talks at numerous conferences. Many refer to her simply as 'The Sex in Games Lady'. Braithwaite has just penned a book, simply titled ‘Sex in Video Games’ (out later this year) and is set to chair the first Sex in Games Conference in June.
Without further ado, here is an edited extract of the most interesting bits from the Wired interview:
Wired News: So what's it like to be the sex in games lady?
Brenda Brathwaite: I am the sex in games lady -- how'd that happen? I'm very passionate about it, I love it, and it's also very weird. Somebody has got to speak about adult content.... It's a real industry and I'm ever aware that saying something tasteless could immediately send it 10 years back.
I believe it's not fair to be forced to have a Disneyesque palette for your games. If somebody said to an artist you couldn't have any nudes in a museum, you have to take them all down because kids might see them, then artists would be in an uproar. If that happened to the movie industry? Actors would walk. Everybody would. But when that specter is raised in games it doesn't make the news.
It's also kind of personal -- things happen that you'd never expect. I regularly get people coming up to me who have a particular fetish and want to know where they can find a game for it. I never expected that people would tell me about their sex experiences. But when we moved -- I have an overwhelming amount of research material, porno games, etc. -- the movers assumed it was my husband's. When they found out it was mine, the look on their faces was worth everything.
WN: Why have a Sex in Videogames Conference?
Brathwaite: Because it's never happened. This is the stuff I sit in my office and wonder about. Every one of the panels was put together because I'd like an answer. One is on the moral issues we face in these type of games -- and the ethics when people can be anything they want. It's also an opportunity for people interested in networking, and for people interested in investing, hoping to meet with developers. There's so much as an industry that we need to discuss in depth.
WN: How does the industry respond to you?
Brathwaite: I'm out there saying that games aren't just for kids, they're for the average 29-year-old male -- and he has a healthy sex drive. So far it's all been supportive. People might be thinking, "What's she doing?" But they haven't said it.
There are many companies and individuals working on adult content and afraid of being blackballed. Yet we're seeing more mature themes integrated into regular games. People don't have to like sexual content, and not every game should line up and have it. But don't tell me or any other developer we can't have it. It's about censorship.
WN: Do you have any games that you'd like to mention?
Brathwaite: Second Life is just the granddaddy of them all. It's really incredibly supportive of all the cultures that have arisen in it. Everything from people hooking up and going on dates, to Furrys, BDSM, emergent family structures, emergent sex businesses -- if you can think of it, it's there. LoveChess: Age of Egypt (NSFW) changes the way you think about chess strategy. When you take a square, basically, the pieces mate. You end up thinking, "How do I engineer that without losing the game?" Naughty America is a massively multiplayer online erotic game that will be really cool to see (when it's released).
WN: What do you see for the future of sex in video games?
Brathwaite: Probably in the not-too-distant future there will be games that could improve peoples' sex lives, therapy for couples. Sex is completely normal and natural. Humans have sex drive and interest and it's not an abnormal thing.
Brenda Brathwaite: I am the sex in games lady -- how'd that happen? I'm very passionate about it, I love it, and it's also very weird. Somebody has got to speak about adult content.... It's a real industry and I'm ever aware that saying something tasteless could immediately send it 10 years back.
I believe it's not fair to be forced to have a Disneyesque palette for your games. If somebody said to an artist you couldn't have any nudes in a museum, you have to take them all down because kids might see them, then artists would be in an uproar. If that happened to the movie industry? Actors would walk. Everybody would. But when that specter is raised in games it doesn't make the news.
It's also kind of personal -- things happen that you'd never expect. I regularly get people coming up to me who have a particular fetish and want to know where they can find a game for it. I never expected that people would tell me about their sex experiences. But when we moved -- I have an overwhelming amount of research material, porno games, etc. -- the movers assumed it was my husband's. When they found out it was mine, the look on their faces was worth everything.
WN: Why have a Sex in Videogames Conference?
Brathwaite: Because it's never happened. This is the stuff I sit in my office and wonder about. Every one of the panels was put together because I'd like an answer. One is on the moral issues we face in these type of games -- and the ethics when people can be anything they want. It's also an opportunity for people interested in networking, and for people interested in investing, hoping to meet with developers. There's so much as an industry that we need to discuss in depth.
WN: How does the industry respond to you?
Brathwaite: I'm out there saying that games aren't just for kids, they're for the average 29-year-old male -- and he has a healthy sex drive. So far it's all been supportive. People might be thinking, "What's she doing?" But they haven't said it.
There are many companies and individuals working on adult content and afraid of being blackballed. Yet we're seeing more mature themes integrated into regular games. People don't have to like sexual content, and not every game should line up and have it. But don't tell me or any other developer we can't have it. It's about censorship.
WN: Do you have any games that you'd like to mention?
Brathwaite: Second Life is just the granddaddy of them all. It's really incredibly supportive of all the cultures that have arisen in it. Everything from people hooking up and going on dates, to Furrys, BDSM, emergent family structures, emergent sex businesses -- if you can think of it, it's there. LoveChess: Age of Egypt (NSFW) changes the way you think about chess strategy. When you take a square, basically, the pieces mate. You end up thinking, "How do I engineer that without losing the game?" Naughty America is a massively multiplayer online erotic game that will be really cool to see (when it's released).
WN: What do you see for the future of sex in video games?
Brathwaite: Probably in the not-too-distant future there will be games that could improve peoples' sex lives, therapy for couples. Sex is completely normal and natural. Humans have sex drive and interest and it's not an abnormal thing.
Well, while that was actually far less sexy than we’d hoped, we think you’ll admit that Ms Brathwaite does raise some fair and interesting points for discussion. Perhaps we will go to the Sex in Games conference after all. We are sure that the post-conference parties would be something to write home about (or not, as the case may be for some of our happily married readers!).
For a much funnier, less American liberal po-faced take on the current status of sex in vidoegames, SPOnG urges you to download the latest episode of our favourite Glaswegian videogames TV show, Consolevania. Consolevania XXX is perhaps their finest work to date, and is available to download from www.consolevania.com
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Comments
thane_jaw 3 May 2006 17:02
1/2
I've enjoyed having virtual sex. Namely the interactive bit in farenheit where you gotta move the stick quicker and quicker.
I don't think we should exclude sex from our games but I'm not sure that we should go the whole hog into virtual jenna territory. The main problem with sex specific games is that they're generally crap, filled with stereotypes (the bad kind, not the gta kind... if you can take that seriously), have awful controls and not very much gameplay. See rub rabbits for one that breaks the mold, game about sex, but quirky controls, distinctive art style and strange mini-games and tastefully done. If we see more games that treat the subject matter with the same degree of respect then I don't see why there can't be more of it.
The "sex in games" industry seems content to flog highly explicit substandard games to the soft-porn market. We are not the ones who need to change, they need to do a better job of presenting virtual sex in a more humane and less in your face manner and with an actualy game premise behind it, because there's definately a market out there.
I don't think we should exclude sex from our games but I'm not sure that we should go the whole hog into virtual jenna territory. The main problem with sex specific games is that they're generally crap, filled with stereotypes (the bad kind, not the gta kind... if you can take that seriously), have awful controls and not very much gameplay. See rub rabbits for one that breaks the mold, game about sex, but quirky controls, distinctive art style and strange mini-games and tastefully done. If we see more games that treat the subject matter with the same degree of respect then I don't see why there can't be more of it.
The "sex in games" industry seems content to flog highly explicit substandard games to the soft-porn market. We are not the ones who need to change, they need to do a better job of presenting virtual sex in a more humane and less in your face manner and with an actualy game premise behind it, because there's definately a market out there.
Joji 3 May 2006 22:02
2/2
Really bad idea this is. We are all about getting to the pleasure peak with games but the only way you should doing that is with a proper real female (or male if that's your thing).
Jeez, I can understand having Dead or Alive Xtreme Volleyball as a titilator, or Rumble Roses for more of the same, but putting the real stuff in games will never really work unless one( you do it like GTA did) or 2 (you do it like the japanese do with their games, but without the stuff that'd be illegal here). Neither is going to happen anytime soon.
Jeez, I can understand having Dead or Alive Xtreme Volleyball as a titilator, or Rumble Roses for more of the same, but putting the real stuff in games will never really work unless one( you do it like GTA did) or 2 (you do it like the japanese do with their games, but without the stuff that'd be illegal here). Neither is going to happen anytime soon.