“Naughty America” game makes CNN
(Visited 12546 times) Game talk
Apr 072006
CNN.com – Video games get very, very naughty – Apr 7, 2006.
Yet another sign of virtual worlds mainstreaming. After all, it’s not like there hasn’t been kinky furry yiffing going on for years.
“We’ve got the cowboy room, the make-your-own-porn room … it doesn’t just have to be ‘Your place or mine?”‘ Courtney said.
To its credit, the article does admit that sex in online games is nothing new.
Between this, SeduCity, and Sociolotron, there does seem to be a boomlet going on, though.
7 Responses to ““Naughty America” game makes CNN”
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The biggest worlds to support sex are still either MU*s or Second Life, though. People seem happier when they can build their way to whatever it is they want, versus waiting for a content developer to do it for them. Whether that’ll change much as these games come out and take the whole time/knowledge ramp needed for that away is a good question.
I just had a thought: wouldn’t the "AO" rating make more sense if the rating were only bestowed upon interactive entertainment titles whose primary content (e.g., gameplay) concerned Adults Only? Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas was re-rated "AO" and yet the content of GTA:SA was not primarily concerned with Adults Only behavior. If GTA:SA is considered a sex-game, then Scarface should be considered a sex-film…
In the case of films, an R-rated film will remain R-rated (instead of being re-rated TV-MA) even if the film contains some Adults Only behavior. I wonder if the events surrounding GTA:SA is cause for concern in the film industry. If an independent spliced “adult” scenes into The Lion King, would the G-rating graduate to an “adult” rating? Or would those scenes have to be hidden somehow and then “unlocked” through malicious actions? On the other hand, I’ve seen plenty of comedy and horror films that depict raunchy sexual behavior, yet those films remain R-rated. Why? My guess: context.
The GTA thing was, in my mind, a political knee-jerk reaction to a rather unfortunate gaffe by Rockstar. At the same time, setting aside Hot Coffee for a second, I personally consider that game flirted with AO in terms of theming anyway.
But these games about sex? Yea, nothing new, but they’re also one trick ponies (ewwww). When the whole point of the experience is to drive a tee hee antiestablishment agenda, I generally find there’s no actual reason to bother playing it. Like that somewhat questionable-of-value Kama Sutra meets strategy Love Chess game PC Gamer had in the back of the catalog. There’s no point to it. It feels like bottom-feeding to me just to even advertise it.
I’m no prude. I just want a mature experience that is actually mature and not some teenagers comic book dream version of it.
Err, and when I say “mature”, I mean something that an adult could relate too. That does mean just higher-res pr0n 🙂
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So few? I thought it had at least ten times that many.
If you want a game where romance occurs, just don’t add combat to your game. With nothing to kill, people start having sex. Just like real life! But yeah, if the driving point (teehee) of your game is sex, it won’t be as strong.
Don’t forget Spend the Night.
I’m more surprised that there isn’t more erotic/adult oriented material in the gaming world. I’ve heard that porn is credited with the VCR boom, and that it certainly didn’t hurt the PC/internet boom either. It just seems like an opportunity where a company could make a real bucket load of cash, and wouldn’t need to have AAA production values either.
In a way, Raph, I think the “sex game” would probably be more compelling to at least a certain population than the healing game. Many of the things you laid out in the healing game post could be applied to the idea of a sex game, but I think it links into a primal ur-interest in a way that healing does not (I am assuming/asserting that violence is compelling on a basic, primal level yes — I do believe that).
Of course, a sex game has social costs that a healing game wouldn’t, but I do think it would also sell better, and the bad publicity the game got would probably translate into more sales.