Brilliant points. I'll consider tweaking the intro message to convey that more clearly. We actually do hope to do the very things you suggest ("But the Sex SIG doesn't seem legitimately interested in commercial videogames that hope to make forthright comments on the human condition'). Thanks for the feedback.

Thanks for the lightning fast comment Brenda. I understand that sex in particular is in the limelight lately (and not just because of Hot Coffee), but I'd definitely recommend rethinking the portrayal and goals of the SIG if you hope to help developers interrogate sexuality rather than just facilitate the sale of empty soft-core smut. I do wonder tho... how many SIGs would we need? One for anger, one for despair, one for ennui, ... how do we encourage the cross-fertilization of meaningful emotional representation in games? I think what you really want is meaningful sex, and that implies all sorts of additional business, design, and marketing challenges.

The need for the SIG really became apparent at last year's GDC. Developers of sexual content - from the relatively tame like Pl*yboy to the hardcore like VirtuallyJenna - needed a place to talk about the unique issues they face as developers: having porn or erotica in the office, integration of employees who aren't comfortable working on sexual content into the development while respecting their wishes, being refused middleware licenses, using strippers or porn stars for mocap, discussions of sexuality including how people are turned on, what turns them on and so forth, and getting distribution when mainstream stores won't carry your product.

While these are the more extreme examples, they highlighted that need for a unique place for discussion. At the same time, there are also developers simulating relationships in games, too (the lighter bishouju games come to mind as well as any games in the social simulation genre). Check today's Link of the Day for three articles by Ernest Adams which, I feel, really address many of those challenges.

One of the biggest reasons for the SIG, though? People needed a place where they could talk their development issues freely - without concern. At GDC this past year, there were split room roundtables. So, what we said could be heard by those on the other side. Now, the first two days, we had our own room. The last day, they gave us one of those split rooms. I told the other moderator about the topic and things that were likely to be discussed. Obviously, the people coming to talk about economies in MMORPGs didn't sign on to hear about emergent sex in video games, the things people do and how they do it. He ended up talking his group out in the hall.

Thanks again for your feedback. You'll notice that I've tweaked the site to reflect it. I really appreciate it.

Bonus info - to highlight my point, I am tying this paragraph here because I just received a "Content Submission Error." It says, "Your comment could not be submitted due to questionable content: Pl*yboy." I have altered the spelling in the hopes that it will let me post this time. This is what I mean when I say we need a place where we can talk about all kinds of "questionable content."

I think that setting up this SIG is a bad idea for the industry overall. It sends the message "look out world -- sex in games is coming!"

But is that really the case? is our explicit goal really more sex in games? Maybe so, maybe not. I think we definitely want to add more emotional depth into our craft, but equating emotional depth with sex is what teenage boys do.

And we're trying to get away from that image, right?

Ian, I think you're looking a little too closely at the SIG's mission statement, and not enough at what it would be accomplishing, even if it just held firmly to the mission statement.

As far as your comment on needing SIGs for video game ennui and the like, nobody freaks out when you throw anger or pathos into a game.

I see this as necessary for the game industry because the fact that games can't work in nudity right now just further cements the "for children" status in the minds of the people who are stupid enough to protest something as juvenile as "Hot Coffee". While I personally don't have a yearning to see nudity in any of my games, I do have a very, very strong yearning to never see games dragged through the mud like this again for no reason. (I have an even stronger yearning to see Jack Thompson's crusade end with him uselessly flailing on Moby Dick with his arm, moaning about his six figures as drowns in a sea of obscurity.)

Look at Rumble Roses. It's a wrestling game that involves scantily clad women wrestling, sometimes in mud. If you saw this recreated, even on public television you would expect there to be "accidental" nudity in the event. But Namco's basically hamstrung in this regard.

If they release the game with nudity, they're labelled AO and their game dies a quiet death next to Night Trap.

Releasing it without nudity puts the game in dengerous "tween" territory. It's far too raunchy for a parent to buy for a child. At the same time, without the nudity, an adult gamer is going to weigh their options and just spend the $40 on something else a bit more racy than those late night 900 ads.

By paving the way to make sure the public won't lose their heads over the "empty titillation through adult content" that you'll see from the mainstream, you open the way up for more creative developers to actually work it into a game with a more complex fashion.

I imagine the end result will be something like Hollywood. You'll see a few games that toss in breast shots and such to get a shot of cash, but then you'll also see the more skilled game writers and designers working it in, relationship dynamics and all. Market forces determine whether or not its a good or bad thing, and not a handful of the irrational unemployed.

By opening up ground for the sensationalist applications of sex, the more subtle and complex implementation of it comes along for the ride as well.

"Hot Coffee" showed us that the public is willing to freak out about blocky, clothes-on intercouse. Without trying to open up this dialogue, it's highly unlikely that games as a mainstream medium would ever progress much further beyond that point, and so I think this is by and large, a good thing.

I tend to agree with Ben: do we really just want more sex in games, as if there's a kind of T&A quota that must be fulfilled? Alkaiser, I have to admit that I'm befuddled at your example; what meaningful commentary on being human does Rumble Roses offer with OR without nudity? The market condition you describe is valid, but inaccurate: showing a breast doesn't automatically yield an ESRB rating of AO. In fact, Pl*yboy: The Mansion depicts many, many fully expose breasts and retains its M rating.

But moreso, I disagree both with Alkaiser and Brenda that there is a necessary and legitimate relation between sex as porn and sexuality. My admittedly silly point about ennui and anger was an attempt to demonstrate that sex and sexuality only matter in the context of broader and more subtle attempts to improve the representation of human experience in games. I'm an IGDA member and I support the organization, but forming a SIG for sex tells the industry and the public that more sex is what the industry needs. Can you imagine the film Director's Guild mounting an initiative to increase the amount of sex in movies? it's absurdist.

Brenda -- thanks for noting the adjustments to the SIG's mission. I can't seem to find them, can you post a link here so that our readers get to the right place?

In addition, I empathize with your comments on the HR issues related to producing games that engage sexual topics. I'm sure having nudie magazines around the office poses unique challenges. I'm just not confident that the industry or the IGDA's limited resources and often-fragile public face justifies a wholesale initiative on sex in games. The situation you describe with the GDC roundtables just seems like a conference organization problem, no matter the content. It probably had something to do with the SF venue as well. It seems like a detail, and I'm sure Jamil Moledina, who runs the conference, would happily assure it doesn't happen again. Room scheduling, HR issues, and this website's comment spam filtering software seem to me to require an initial vision about what videogames can bring to cultural discussions about sex.

Check the first post in the list, "Welcome," point #1.

Just to clarify, the Sex SIG in no way is advocating more sex in games.

Our main point - stronger than any other - is this. Imagine if you were making movies, and I told you that you couldn't have any sexual content at all in your films. How would you feel about that? That's what's facing game developers today.

It affects the hard core developers as much as it affects family-friendly games like the Sims.

Ian:

My point with Rumble Roses was not to show that breasts would make it a more complete game. It was to show an example of how the game industry is basically walled-off in terms of sex.

If Rumble Roses were a magazine pictorial, movie, website, book, tv show, or radio program, there would be some nudity somewhere. But since it's a video game, there isn't any.

It's as if you went to another country and saw their version of porn, where all nudity had been blurred out. It immediately causes the question, "People are aroused by this?" to spring to mind.

The lack of nudity makes it apparent that there is a boundary. The immediate conclusion is that since this material does not have any such boundaries in the rest of media, that games must be intended for a younger audience.

Maybe Rumble Roses wouldn't be marked AO, but you never know. The ESRB slapped the "Nudity" descriptor on to DOA Extreme Beach Volleyball when there was no actual nudity in the game. That's a minor detail in comparison to the conception of games as child's trifles, though.

I don't think the sex SIG says to anyone that games "need" sex. I think developers are smart enough to realize that Super Mario Brothers doesn't need nudity, and at the same time the devs also realize that something needs to be done so people don't freak out about it.

It's funny that you mention the film industry. Deep Throat sparked protests in the streets. While there wasn't a formal iniative to put more sex into films, you just saw it start happening. Filmmakers couldn't just openly say, "Sex! We're for it!" because the public would have branded them as smut purveyors.

But those times have changed. What they're showing is that nudity and sex are allowed everywhere except in games. The SIG seeks to break down that barrier so next time someone does put it in, in whatever form, that nobody loses their head over it. I don't think you'll be seeing numbers from the group touting, "Banner year! Sex in games up 75%!"

Bogus, unsupported objections.

1) Complaints about Playb-y: The Mansion, and comparisons with other sex-themed games, have nothing at all to do with the IGDA Sex SIG.

2) "I refuse to accept that representations of sex in games are a more pressing design and business problem than representations of human relationships about love and intimacy." Nobody said they were. I refuse to accept that sports is more important than economics, too, but that doesn't mean Sports Illustrated is gonna shut down to make more magazine-rack space for The Economist. If you don't care about the issue, don't join the SIG!

3) "But the Sex SIG doesn't seem legitimately interested in commercial videogames that hope to make forthright comments on the human condition; rather, they seem interested in facilitating empty titillation through adult content." I don't see any justification for this assertion at all. None of the material I've seen describing the SIG's mission has said anything one way or the other about EITHER titillation OR the human condition. And in any case the SIG is brand new; we don't yet know what all we're legitimately interested in yet.

4) It is much, much more difficult to make non-offensive, meaningful interactive experiences about sex than it is movies, so your Director's Guild analogy doesn't apply. And even so, I could well imagine conference papers on filmmaking back in the 1920s discussing the best way to film sex scenes.

You've clearly got some conception of what the IGDA Sex SIG is about and for in your head, and that's what you're attacking. But it's a straw man, your notions are not supported by the published material. I'm sorry that you don't want the Sex SIG to exist, but a number of us feel that it's a valuable forum. Already there's an interesting debate on whether sex MMOGs ought to warn people that their partners might consider playing the game a form of adultery, and what obligations we have to our players. The Sex SIG is the ideal place for such a discussion to take place, because it's directly on point for the developers of those games (and not on point to almost everybody else).

Thanks for responding Ernest. Glad to see you here. Let's see if I can reply to your objections.

I didn't say I wasn't interested in the SIG. I didn't say that it shouldn't exist. If I wasn't interested I'd just ignore it. I said that the SIG should concern itself with a broader interpretation of sex than it was advertising or, if it already intended to do so (as Brenda indicated) then it should change the way it advertises itself. The SIG represents one of a select few issues the IGDA and by extension the industry puts forward as important problems. The development community in general should be as concenred about what trade groups don't pursue as it is about what they do.

None of the material I've seen describing the SIG's mission has said anything one way or the other about EITHER titillation OR the human condition.

I quote from the SIG's Mission Statement:

"The adult content development community grows every year. It needs a place where it can discuss the unique issues..."

The adult content development community clearly tracks as "porn industry." Furthermore, look at the SIG's suggested sample initiatives:

# Gatherings: Hosting conference gatherings for adult content developers to network
# White Paper: Responsible Development Practices
# White Paper: Restricting the Underage User
# White Paper: Hardcore & HR Issues

The intended focus indeed seems squarely focused on titillation. I don't think that's a conception in my head; I think it's the impression most reasonable outsiders would infer.

It is much, much more difficult to make non-offensive, meaningful interactive experiences about sex than it is movies, so your Director's Guild analogy doesn't apply.

I'll admit that it's a provocative analogy that verges on becoming a false one. But I disagree that non-offensive meaningful interactive experiences about sex are as difficult as you describe. Michael Mateas is my colleague and collaborator and I do understand the difficulty inherent in the kind of approach he and Andrew Stern attempt in Facade. But the other games I point to as counterpoints to the Pl*yboy game were meant to suggest that in fact it *is* possible to make meaningful small-scale interactive experiences about sex.

The Sex SIG is the ideal place for such a discussion to take place, because it's directly on point for the developers of those games (and not on point to almost everybody else).

This is precisely the kind of thinking that worries me. The SIG seems designed to support sex games as a genre -- not sexual representation as an aspect of game-based expression (as would presumably be the case in your hypothetical 1920s sex scene paper). My main concern is this apparent intention to support a subset of games about sex acts, rather than games that comment on and support sex and its role in human experience more generally.

Thus, my reply both to you Ernest and to Brenda's earlier comments is the same: the SIG in its current form looks like a support group for porn game developers, whether or not that's what you intend it to be or not.

Ian, the Sex SIG is intended to serve developers who are making sexual material, INCLUDING explicit adult content ("porn" if you like -- "Pornography: name given to any sexual material that someone is trying to suppress." - Alex Comfort, The Joy of Sex). The developers of explicit content have a lot of special problems not faced by people who are only making hearts-and-flowers, and-now-gentle-reader content: keeping it out of the hands of kids, not getting censored or prosecuted, and so on, to say nothing of presenting the whole wet, squishy business interactively. The SIG is a place for them to discuss those issues, AMONG OTHERS.

I guess Brenda could add a note that people who want to talk about sex as part of the human condition are welcome too, but frankly I don't see the need. This is the only Sex SIG the IGDA has; people who are interested in the subject are going to come here. How the SIG shakes out will depend on who chooses to show up. It may turn out that it IS only about porn games because that's what people are interested in -- in which case, so be it.

For the moment, at least, the members seem to be thoughtful, articulate game developers, more than half female. If it turns into one long debate about simulating the physics of flying semen, then I'll start to worry; in the meantime I think you are being overly harsh.

Oh, and incidentally -- I haven't played Playb-y: The Mansion so I can't speak from direct experience, but I strongly question the suggestion that Custer's Revenge was more erotic. The object of Custer's Revenge was to rape a Native American woman tied to a post. When I displayed a screen shot of it to the Women in Games conference, there were audible gasps in the audience. It was the absolute nadir of the commercial game industry's taste, social responsibility, and good sense. Custer's Revenge was not erotica at all, but a sick, puerile joke by a misogynist. I don't think anyone could reasonably say that about Playb-y: The Mansion.

Ernest, I hope you're right that the SIG will support "other" types of discourse but I still wonder at the fact that such discourse will be "other" and not central. I don't doubt that the individual developers participating in the discussions are upstanding and intelligent. But I still maintain that the SIG gives the appearance of a games industry saying the equivalent of, "sex is the new pixel shader." My response does not necessarily speak against the intentions of the SIG, but rather on how its goals will be perceived outside that inner circle and in the public sphere in general.

As for others joining without prompting: I really do think that even most developers will think the SIG is for developers of porn games. I'm not willing to take it for granted that they would come on their own. And that would be a shame indeed.

Finally, I'm a little confused by your final conclusion: isn't the purpose of the IGDA and its SIGs to encourage and facilitate discussion about important topics, not just to provide a kind of tabula rasa for whatever anyone might write on it? Would the Quality of Life SIG feel that it's ok for employers to continue to encourage bad business practices if that's what everyone who showed up decided to talk about? It's always been my impression that these intiatives were led by greater vision. I don't know why this one should be any different. Or, perhaps it is, and I just object to the vision.

On Custer's Revenge, of course you are right: it is a demented artifact. The rest of the Mystique games are likewise demented, and in fact I'd even hold up Beat 'em Eat 'em as a potentially worse example of violent sexual power than Custer's Revenge. P-boy: The Mansion is a good game with interesting business and social dynamics. But the way the sex is mechanized in the game, as a single verb on a menu, I find bereft even of the questionable sexual subtlety of the Pl*yboy magazine. My intention, which I realize is not clear in the original article, was to point out the fact that even an offensive, derogatory game on a now-archaic platform offered a more complex representation of the sex act than a contemporary console title. That said, I recognize that it may be impossible to bring a game like Custer's Revenge into the discussion without appearing to endorse it wholesale, and I certainly have no interest in doing so.

Thank you for your clarifications, particularly re: Custer's Revenge. One last point. You ask:

"Isn't the purpose of the IGDA and its SIGs to encourage and facilitate discussion about important topics, not just to provide a kind of tabula rasa for whatever anyone might write on it?"

If by "anyone" you mean "any member," then I can't tell the difference! The IGDA and its SIGs are, tautologically, a reflection of its membership. It IS nothing but what its membership wants it to be. If the Quality of Life SIG were to be dominated by members who believe it should be business as usual for employers, then, yes, that is necessarily what it would come to be about. It is a democratic, grass-roots organization and it will go wherever its members want it to go -- as nobody knows better than I, believe me!

Ian, I hope you give the SIG a chance. It's a diverse group of people, most of whom have nothing to do with the porn industry. I won't waste your time explaining what erotica is, or linking you to human s*xuality information because I know you're perfectly capable of thoughtful consideration and appreciation for the constructive use of media for social and political change, entertainment, and education. Please put aside, temporarily, any bias you may have against porn to really learn more about the amazing possibilities at the intersection of game technologies and human sexuality.

I am (so far as I know) one of the few designers working specifically in the erotic fantasy genre but I expect many more designers will be incorporating more sexual themes in their game designs as the content of the medium diversifies and m4tur3s [Editor's note -- the last word was altered to get around our comment spam filters -- ib]. It's arguably perverse and bizarre to expect sex to always be deep, emotional, and complex when in fact human sexuality can be expressed flippantly, for fun, for profit, naturally, and simply for nothing but the joy of sex itself. And if that to you is unworthy of exploration in our medium, then I imagine it absolutely confounds and frustrates you to see so many games devoted to such emotionally nuanced and complex activities as racing, sports, combat, and pretending you are an elf with an orc-slaying bowstaff :D

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Well, I'm not a developer, a designer, or a writer, but I found this discussion through the SIG. I'm a 48 year old gamer quite legitimately interested in the future of adult gaming. As far as I can tell while reading the SIG, I feel that they are thowing out the ideas in front of the readers to see where it will lead. They are looking for reactions and responses to get a feel for what people want to discuss. Personally, I'm glad to see the IGDA have a SIG like this, because, like Brenda and Alkaiser said, it needs to be discussed. I am more hoping that solid ground can be gained in this area of gaming, because it's long overdue.
I've learned quite a bit about the gaming industry from the SIG, not only legislatively, but logistically. I wish them a very large "good luck", and I'm on their side.

Ian, the Sex SIG is intended to serve developers who are making sexual material, INCLUDING explicit adult content ("porn" if you like -- "Pornography: name given to any sexual material that someone is trying to suppress." - Alex Comfort, The Joy of Sex). The developers of explicit content have a lot of special problems not faced by people who are only making hearts-and-flowers, and-now-gentle-reader content: keeping it out of the hands of kids, not getting censored or prosecuted, and so on, to say nothing of presenting the whole wet, squishy business interactively. The SIG is a place for them to discuss those issues, AMONG OTHERS.

I guess Brenda could add a note that people who want to talk about sex as part of the human condition are welcome too, but frankly I don't see the need. This is the only Sex SIG the IGDA has; people who are interested in the subject are going to come here. How the SIG shakes out will depend on who chooses to show up. It may turn out that it IS only about porn games because that's what people are interested in -- in which case, so be it.

For the moment, at least, the members seem to be thoughtful, articulate game developers, more than half female. If it turns into one long debate about simulating the physics of flying semen, then I'll start to worry; in the meantime I think you are being overly harsh.

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