Videogames And Sex

So who is playing these types of games? What sort of market truly exists for Virtually Jenna and Singles: Flirt Up Your Life? If the sheer amount of user-created sexual content bursting from the seams of Second Life is any indication, Red Light Center and BoneTown might just be on to something. “I’m not one to kiss and tell,” says Baptist, “but we’ve sold games to just about every country in the world. If you are between the age of 18 and 95 and a horny guy, our game will amuse you to no end. We even sell a fair amount of games to girls.”

Shuster is more forthcoming with his company’s success: “RedLightCenter.com has registered more than 5.5 million users since it launched in 2006, and the trend is always upwards. The most interesting trend, that began late in 2009, is the number of businesses that are entering the virtual world space. When Red Light Center was launched, we promoted the world to the adult industry, and very few companies were interested in creating content for the world. In the past six months, however, companies and studios ranging from Digital Playground to BoneTown to FUBAR have opened for business in Red Light Center. In fact, since September, almost 25,000 virtual worlds that are attached to Red Light Center have been opened. This explosion in adult-friendly business and content is probably the most significant trend in the adult entertainment industry since the creation of the internet itself.”

Both Shuster and Baptist expect the demand for adult games to continue to rise, having obviously staked the ongoing existence of their respective companies on the notion. “If we project technology far enough out into the future, there is no question that adult games will eclipse the adult film industry,” says Shuster. “Anyone who has ever watched Star Trek will admit that the first thing they thought of using the ‘holodeck’ for was . . . adult games. The only real question is when the technology will be good enough for that tipping point to occur, and in reality it’s not very far off. New developments in 3D films are leading to breakthrough display technology that will put the user ‘inside’ the game world, so that they will be fully immersed in the 3D game. Teletouch technology breakthroughs are already happening that allow the remote transmission of the sense of touch. Gloves, shirts and dildonic devices are all already available which allow one user to touch and pleasure another user remotely.

“As these devices become more widely sold and the prices come down,” Shuster continues, “and the technology inevitably improves, the sex game market will explode. Again, though, I would condition this all by saying that there is a very real difference between what will work as a sex game and what works as a standard game. Sex games will be most successful if they focus less on the core game elements, and focus more on allowing people to meet or otherwise be social, with sex as one possible feature of the social interaction. Sex is an activity in and of itself, and for most people, putting too much emphasis on gameplay is a distraction. But as far as adult games versus adult films goes, there is no question that the adult film industry is in decline; content is cheap to produce and easy to copy, whereas adult games require real people in real time, and there is no substitute for that.”

Ultimately, Shuster’s vision of adult gaming is very different from Baptist’s, and several era more sophisticated. Whereas the ethos behind BoneTown brings to mind the fumbling antics of Porkys and Leisure Suit Larry, Red Light Center isn’t a sex game as such, but a virtual world that accomodates a specific kind of adult interaction – if the demand didn’t exist, neither would that capability. The important point is that it also facilitates every other aspect of a mature, social relationship, and isn’t all that different from more socially acceptable online communities. Indeed, if the areas of Second Life that receive little or no user traffic were closed tomorrow, it would start to look very similar to Red Light Center.

Of course, expecting Electronic Arts to launch a virtual society geared around sex would be naïve, but as social networking becomes a more important part of the future of videogames, the medium will have to acknowledge sex as integral to what social interaction means for adults. According to Richard Garriott, when Ultima Online went live in 1997, the first recorded emergent behaviour was prostitution. The game didn’t allow for that outcome, but humans, to paraphrase Jeff Goldblum, will always find a way.

“There’s simply something missing here,” RockPaperShotgun’s Quintin Smith concluded. “I actually feel slightly childish writing this, as if the moment it goes live the comments thread is going to fill with people pointing out the error in my logic. But no, something’s definitely up… I cannot have been the only person watching Lionhead’s presentation of Milo and thinking to myself that while it was a blinding – albeit utterly scripted – vision of the future, in any self-respecting sci-fi novel we’d be flirting with some fawning glittergirl, not playing football with a nine-year-old boy.”

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