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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'."
thats a great way to add even more stereotypes to gamers.
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.
Funny as it sounds, sex is one area that doesn't stand out on its own in video gaming. Think of the prime gaming demographic of males age 10-30. The nerds have RPGs, the jocks have sports games, the antisocials have violent games, but where are the games specifically marketed to the horndogs? Yeah, hot girls are abundant in video games, but they're the character as part of a larger story, and not primarily the main focus. History has shown us how games built solely around T&A (BMXXX, DOA beach volleyball) don't sell very well, even though all logic says they should. This conference could go a long way into exploring one of the uncracked parts of the teenage psyche. Teenagers want hot girls with large boobies, so why aren't they buying those games?
1. Because if you just need some masturbation material, games offer piss-poor value for the money. For the price of one game, you could get a month's membership at a premium sex site, and the site will have more... ahem... "replay value". And that's already assuming that you're desperate enough to pay for that. There are plenty of sites that can fill your need for porn for no more than your ISP bill. I'd even give you a few links, but I'm sure you can google on your own.
Let me say that I'm not even anti-pornography or anything. But I wouldn't waste my money on a porn game anyway. Unless you're talking the small niche of hentai- or furry-fetishists, there's just nothing in a crude 3D model that doesn't look better on a real woman. And again, you can stare at a photo or movie of the latter for a lot less money, or no money at all.
So, seriously, the mind boggles when I see yet another idiot publisher betting it all on sex appeal, sometimes even at the risk of alienating their core market demographic. WTF is the rationale there? "You know, old chap, I bet noone knows how to find porn on the internet. I bet they're just starving to pay 50$ to see the heroine's pixelated polygonal ass in a thong, because otherwise they wouldn't find any." Stupid.
2. Because you're targetting the wrong demographic. If you want to sell smut to teenagers, you're gonna have to slip it past their parents. Plus, past the government and youth protection organizations and whatever, who _will_ slap it with an Adult Only rating and require some ID.
And past those teenagers themselves who might figure out that smuggling a porn magazine into their room is safer than playing "Mario's Anal Adventures: Peach Takes A Reaming" on the family TV in the living room. Or that quickly going to a web site while mom is out shopping, is safer than having to find a good answer to "oh, you're back from the game shop. Did you buy anything interesting?" or "uh, what's this Bukkake Fantasy 7 entry in the Start menu?"
So it's going for the entirely wrong age segment. The age where they're dumb enough and think with their gonads is the age where they don't also have all that freedom. And later some get a life, and some start at least being able to do the maths I've described at point 1, because it's their money they're blowing for a change.
3. Because appealing to a minority is no longer enough to cover a major game's development. You may still be able to pay for a cheap 2D hentai game out of it, but not for Quake 4.
There's a reason why you keep hearing about trying to appeal to female gamers and casual gamers and even retired senior-citizen gamers nowadays. Because the industry increasingly needs their money to survive.
Back in the days of Pong it didn't really matter. If you sold 1000 copies of a game you've made in a month, you could proclaim it a huge success and had actually made a tidy profit. So an industry which started with a 50-50 gender distribution among gamers, and they knew it, could easily afford to discard half the market, and focus on making whatever the horny immature lonely programmers wanted to code. It turned into an industry by lonely nerds for lonely nerds, but there was no loss in that anyway, since you still easily got the 1000 or even 10,000 buyers you needed in that niche.
But nowadays with game development costs being what they are, that's no longer enough. That's why everyone from Microsoft to Sony to EA suddenly proclaims their undying love and dedication to female gamers and casual gamers. Because having a game like The Sims which sold to a helluva lot of women (and to a helluva lot of casual gamer dads too) is what makes a profit, while being pegged into the hole of games _only_ for horny 16 year olds might as well make you a loss. (Most games nowadays make a loss, and the publisher uses the games who sell well to basically subsidize those who didn't.)
Of course, after a whole generation of "chicks don't play games" mentality and focusing only on horny 16 year old males, noone really knows how to even start about making a game for anyone else. But that's another story for another time.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Those games have a tiny little problem, thought: someone has to draw (or photograph or 3D-model) the content for them.
A typical hentai game is basically a choose-your-own-adventure thing, which shows text and some pictures about what is happening. Since someone needs to draw all those pictures, and since the amount needed goes up exponentially as the amount of choices increases, they tend to be extremly linear. Because the gameplay consists of simply choosing the correct menu option, there is no replay value; such a game is, for all intents and purposes, a poor cousin for a hentai film.
There is exceptions to the rule, games like Brave Soul that have some actual gameplay, but they tend to have the sex scenes glued to the top and completely irrelevant to either gameplay or plot.
The best effort to make sex an integral part of the game I've ever seen is in Kunoichi 2, a Neverwinter Nights module where sex is simply another tool in the (female) ninjas arsenal. Of course the main character having sex with three samurais in order to distract them so she can slip poison to their tea is not likely to help the reputation of sex in games any ;)...
Oh, and here's the link to Kunoichi 1, since they have a continuous plot.
In short, I think that trying to make an interactive graphic sex scene that will not come out as unintentionally funny simply isn't doable with todays technology, nor even tomorrows; maybe the day after that ? On the other hand, using sex as a plot device is certainly possible, as are non-graphic scenes or graphic non-interactive cutscenes (made with game engine or prerendered). Limited interaction is also certainly possible (like choosing between "Try to move the diamond necklace on the nightstand to your bag while the countess is distracted" and "Don't risk it" while doing the nasty with said countess).
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
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.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
taking place June 8-9, 2006 at the Nob Hill Masonic Center in San Fransico, Califronia.
Hahahah!
That's brilliant. I hope they picked that on purpose.