Sex in Games Conference Announced

An anonymous reader writes "1UP has a story on the announcement of the first ever Sex in Games Conference. According to the group putting it on, the conference is to 'focus on the design, development, and technology of sex in video games from a national as well as international perspective.' It's a two-day event taking place this June in San Francisco. Some of the lectures are: 'Sex in Games: Where are We Now?', 'The Future of Sex and Technology,' and 'The Making of the SeXbox: Applied Hardware'."

Comments

Refreshingly not anti-game.

[Belgand]

I have to admit I was a bit suprised when I heard about this. Given the recent political climate of blaming everything on games and harping about sex in games in particular we get a conference devoted to putting more sex into games, not worryied hand-wringing about what to do to minimize it.

While I'm of the opinion that not much sounds likely to come out of this it could be a good opportunity to develop reasonable, mature games that involve sexuality or sexual themes and how to make that work properly. Sure it's just as likely to focus on bottom-feeding crap, porn, and schlock (I mean, at least Softporn and the other early Leisure Suit Larry games were clever and funny), but the fact that maybe, just maybe, someone will be able to work on implementing sex as a valid part of gaming makes it all worth it.

All kidding aside

[SmallFurryCreature]

This is a serious enough subject. No I don't give a damn that some politicians will do a nutter, vote them out or at least restrict them to the american continent.

Sex in games is nothing new. Most games have an objective and a reward and it is very easy to make the objective be to uncover a naked girl and that is also your reward. Cue the sextetris clones. Those generally are boring. There are some intresting variants like a scrolling shooter where you got to shoot the clothing off a girl.

Then there are the games like Leisure suit larry or the japanese story H-games where instead of your goal being to defeat the evil overlord your goal is to get laid.

Again nothing special. Some succeed in being funny or even arrousing and at least it is a welcome change from the usual save the world storyline.

Then of course there are the games that have a lot of vibes that some girls seem to enjoy playing. Women are a large gaming audience and well there might be a market where you have two dual shock controllers and the better you are at the game well the better it is. Women are far more perverted then /. geeks believe. But strictly speaking that doesn't have to be an erotic game itself. Sure a hardcore gore shooter will probably ruin the mood (you never know with some women) but the game action itself does not have to be erotic.

But what about a game that combines it all. A story line with an erotic angle, some erotic imagery and feedback for those of the gaming population for whom a simple rumblepack is enough. Well it would be insanely difficult to produce.

Currently you can have jarring gameplay where your following a story plot only to be suddenly forced to do 20 minutes of leaping and climbing and shooting and getting killed. Worse imagine your almost there and all of sudden you take a wrong turn and your lost and left hanging while trying to figure out where the game wants you to go next. Frustration city!

All kidding aside I do believe there is room for adult games, where adult doesn't have to mean endless sex but where the designer can well go where he couldn't go before. MMO land has plenty of people engaging in cyber sex. Now imagine a MMO game that had instead of the usual airguitar emotes emotes like "kiss" "stroke" and the avatars actually interacted with each other. Would that "sell"?

Yes and no. I don't think it would sell to well if that is all there is but imagine a mature MMORPG (no kiddies allowed) with mature plots, real dead, and adult players that could do more then just exchange rings and blow kisses. I think there is a market for it.

The only problem would be of A keeping the kids out and B that it would have to be a good game on its own.

Because just pure sex games where the gameplay is ruined in favor of the porn just don't sell except to teenage boys. A good erotic game needs to appeal to both sexes. It can be done but not by current companies.