Honestly (I think I'm just too tired to be reading this) I had no idea what the point of this article was, but the title is pretty amazing!
148: A Wink is as Good as a Pixelated Nipple
- Thread starter Colin Rowsell
- Start date
I find it amazing that in a conversation about video game sex no one has mentioned Leisure Suit Larry games. No, not that Magna Cum Laude abomination from a few years back - I am talking the originals from the 90's. LSL games were perhaps the only games in the history of gaming that remained "real" games (as opposed to casual flash games, or second-rate, under the table porn simulators), while still being unequivocally adult games. They had the balls to focus on sex front and center without becoming one the above mentioned porn similators, and did so with a sense of humor, fully realizing the limitation of computers, but also appreciating the power of the human imagination to fill in things that 2D (and later 3D) animation couldn't handle. And they were actually a lot of fun.
So I hereby submit to you that we don't need super advanced technology to do Monica Bellucci in a video game. We just need to pay a little bit of attention to human psychology. Hell, if we wait for the day when CGI can produce a realistic kiss in full resolution (we can hardly do hair, for chissakes!), we'll go to our graves as unsatisfied as we are this day. Think of the movies: a lot of the time your juices start flowing just at the IDEA of the resident sexy mama touching someone - indeed, you may never even see that desire materialize before the film ends, and yet sexiness has certainly been accomplished. Games are no different. You just have build your "sexy engine" with the same amount of forethought that you put into your combat engine.
And btw, sexiness does not need to be interactive. That's an addiction that we gamers have - we want to touch everything. But sexiness should not be touched - you will, in fact, probably ruin it the minute you are allowed to put your digital paws upon it. Sexiness should SEEM touchable - but remain out of actual reach. Any woman worth her salt will tell you that much. And that's why Leisure Suit Larry games were 1000% sexier than Mass Effect - Larry never got the girl.
That one little thing is what makes our challenge in video games much greater than that of the film industry - the movies are non-interactive by nature, and run no risk of overstepping that subtle boundary. Games, on the other hand, have the (frequently exercised!) power to ruin the moment before it even starts.
So I hereby submit to you that we don't need super advanced technology to do Monica Bellucci in a video game. We just need to pay a little bit of attention to human psychology. Hell, if we wait for the day when CGI can produce a realistic kiss in full resolution (we can hardly do hair, for chissakes!), we'll go to our graves as unsatisfied as we are this day. Think of the movies: a lot of the time your juices start flowing just at the IDEA of the resident sexy mama touching someone - indeed, you may never even see that desire materialize before the film ends, and yet sexiness has certainly been accomplished. Games are no different. You just have build your "sexy engine" with the same amount of forethought that you put into your combat engine.
And btw, sexiness does not need to be interactive. That's an addiction that we gamers have - we want to touch everything. But sexiness should not be touched - you will, in fact, probably ruin it the minute you are allowed to put your digital paws upon it. Sexiness should SEEM touchable - but remain out of actual reach. Any woman worth her salt will tell you that much. And that's why Leisure Suit Larry games were 1000% sexier than Mass Effect - Larry never got the girl.
That one little thing is what makes our challenge in video games much greater than that of the film industry - the movies are non-interactive by nature, and run no risk of overstepping that subtle boundary. Games, on the other hand, have the (frequently exercised!) power to ruin the moment before it even starts.
Oh and one more thing - we've got to get more women into game development. Because most of us men have no idea how to reproduce the Monica Belluccis of the world (in digital format or otherwise!) - even if we do spend most of our lives chasing them.
The more I think of this, the more I think the problem is mechanic versus reward.
In most games violence is the mechanic, and if you're good enough at it sex (implied, generally) is the reward. There are variations -- sometimes the mechanic is conversation, or puzzle solving, or whatever, sometimes the reward is something more general or vague. But it is pretty much never the case that sex is the mechanic and violence is seldom the reward.
The question that must be answered before you can get decently sexy games is, how does the sexiness advance things toward a different, non-sex goal? Because until sex is an instrument toward a different goal, it's just going to seem like "pay the user off with pornography." Sex shouldn't be the climax, so to speak.
Of course, put that way it sounds almost sociopathic -- using sex to manipulate things toward some other objective. But I'm not sure it's any more sociopathic than slaughtering one's way through a few cubic kilometers of landscape to reach the castle and rescue the princess.
In most games violence is the mechanic, and if you're good enough at it sex (implied, generally) is the reward. There are variations -- sometimes the mechanic is conversation, or puzzle solving, or whatever, sometimes the reward is something more general or vague. But it is pretty much never the case that sex is the mechanic and violence is seldom the reward.
The question that must be answered before you can get decently sexy games is, how does the sexiness advance things toward a different, non-sex goal? Because until sex is an instrument toward a different goal, it's just going to seem like "pay the user off with pornography." Sex shouldn't be the climax, so to speak.
Of course, put that way it sounds almost sociopathic -- using sex to manipulate things toward some other objective. But I'm not sure it's any more sociopathic than slaughtering one's way through a few cubic kilometers of landscape to reach the castle and rescue the princess.
Hi vaga,vaga_koleso said:
Great post. This is the keystone of my argument - the ability to suggest rather than show. It's great that so many people on this thread are leaning in the same direction; once again, the much longer original article touched on this, though my example wasn't Larry but another Sierra game, and you'll laugh your a** off at the choice:
[snip]
The Colonel's Bequest is a 1988 Sierra Adventure game written by the saccharine Roberta Williams. You're in an old plantation house with murderous houseguests and 16 colour graphics. There's a French maid, Fifi (of course!) who spends half the game wandering in and out of rooms, serving food and giving you the odd glance. Then you spy her undressing behind a wooden screen. There's no nakedity, no possibility that you'll get anywhere with her (the main Colonel's Bequest character is female, and Roberta's games just don't swing that way). All she really does is deliver one pixellated wink while pulling on a nightgown.
But damn that cheesy, awkward, sexy moment stuck with me a long time. And no game since the 3D graphics revolution has had quite the same effect.
[snip]
Cheers
Colin
I'll second that. Alyx was a realistic character who I, and it seems many other gamers, felt a pull towards. I'd say the same for Meryl from MGS. If you want to save her, you have to make it through the torture mini game. Considering the build-up toward the end, I think that the "wink" (in this case, our pair driving off into the distance) is a much more fulfilling, sweeter ending than cheap sex.CanadianWolverine said:
Great article, by the way.
Ok, I've re-read, and I'm refueled with energy, and damn is this something developers need to learn, Stompy said it in very simple terms:
"boobs =/= sex appeal"
hell, not just game devs. could learn from this - a lot of people could.
EDIT: and **** it I'll throw in my "Game character that I wish wasn't a bunch of pixels" - and that would be Ada Wong from RE4 - she didn't have to wear a bikini made of strings to catch your eye.
and yes, I also like Alyx because she is a more realistic character who actually has some human qualities to her (and is fully clothed but her pants still kinda sag a little...yay, realism!) - hell, we could probably find someone just like her in the real world, and I'm not talking about Cos-Play.
"boobs =/= sex appeal"
hell, not just game devs. could learn from this - a lot of people could.
EDIT: and **** it I'll throw in my "Game character that I wish wasn't a bunch of pixels" - and that would be Ada Wong from RE4 - she didn't have to wear a bikini made of strings to catch your eye.
and yes, I also like Alyx because she is a more realistic character who actually has some human qualities to her (and is fully clothed but her pants still kinda sag a little...yay, realism!) - hell, we could probably find someone just like her in the real world, and I'm not talking about Cos-Play.
Sylocat's post got me thinking. Film has the advantage of photorealistic portrayal and the potential to perfectly capture the subtext of sexual tension between characters, and this is the basis of its immersive capability when it comes to romance. Judging from the comparisons made between various moments in film and games, the more suggestive and less overt, the more enthralling the result because if we want to get the most out of the moment, we have to use our imaginations a bit and do some inferring. I agree with this concept in general, because it contains a few good suggestions for creating sexually tense and immersive moments, as far as the writing and cinematography of games goes.
But, I was disappointed to see only a few passing mentions of comics, cartoons, graphic literature, or whatever else you want to call them. I believe that evolutionarily, there are better comparisons to be made between comics and games. In an art form's path to general acceptance, there is a period of adolescence where there are two commonalities; one, it is subject to scorn and criticism, two, it mimics the art form that was established as art prior to its conception. Photography had a long internal struggle about how "painterly" it wanted to be, motion pictures initially mimicked theatre, and comics originally relied on film for guidance. It wasn't until comics had existed for some time that comic artists started doing things that film cannot; they altered the shape and arrangement of panels, fiddled with the placement, size, and style of text, and learned how to unify or fracture spreads, and thus affect the entirety of the work. From this experimentation, they gained control over the momentum and overall structure of their art form, and then they could apply that mastery to enhancing the emotional impact in an inimitable fashion. Even though the layperson and the art critic may very well not yet consider comics to be on the same artistic level as film, comics have nevertheless developed their own method of maximizing immersion.
Games currently exist in that period of uncomfortable adolescence, and while they have been looking to film for general guidance, games have been around long enough that developers realize what they have that filmmakers don't. Gamers can lay their hands directly on the action happening before them. It would sensibly follow that developers have an advantage over filmmakers in the natural immersion of their medium, so they can spend their time crafting a more involving storyline, sending a more powerful message, or making their game more mechanically innovative.
For all of the attempts at making the most of games' unusual form of immersion, the people that make, sell, and play games all seem to be most concerned with the two strengths that film will always have over games. One, it is photorealistic. Human beings are pretty good at picking up on the nuances of a facial expression or body language, and there is no better way to portray those subtleties than a picture-perfect presentation of a real person. Two, it features the visages of real people, not just their voices, and it will frequently be easier to connect with a real person than a virtual representation. Maybe this concern is what places better graphics at the top of many a developer's list, and why we currently laud games that play like interactive movies.
So while they worry about their greatest weakness, developers are also trying to capitalize on their greatest strength--interactivity. I believe that this is why sexuality in games is approached without grace or subtlety; it is hard to make a suggestive wink interactive, and developers want to find stable ground for gaming to stand on that no other art form can claim. It hurts subtlety more when you consider that game structure is inherently mechanical, so a natural, human theme like sexual tension and romance requires some manner of translation--unless you're going to confine it within cutscenes, in which case you might as well make a movie. As a result, we get interactive sex games and "Hot Coffee" fiascos which make the romantic relationships that we get to develop in KOTOR and Mass Effect seem stellar in comparison when, really, so much work remains to be done.
Rowsell's article ends on the right note by simply "expecting more" and avoiding the recommendation that games should head towards or away from films or any other artistic influence. But, I don't know if the kind of sexuality that is right for games is going to be the same sexuality that is right for film. There are a lot of kinks that will have to be worked out, but I wouldn't be surprised if the coy wink that the love interest tosses to the hero is never captured in games as well as in film. Romance in games will be, and ought to be, something else entirely. But if games are going to be their own art form--immersive relationships, romance and all--I imagine we'll have to deal with all the misdirection from inside and out along the way. Comics provide a positive example of an art form coming of age, and it is that self-realization that game developers, the people that sell them, and the people that play them should hope and strive for.
But, I was disappointed to see only a few passing mentions of comics, cartoons, graphic literature, or whatever else you want to call them. I believe that evolutionarily, there are better comparisons to be made between comics and games. In an art form's path to general acceptance, there is a period of adolescence where there are two commonalities; one, it is subject to scorn and criticism, two, it mimics the art form that was established as art prior to its conception. Photography had a long internal struggle about how "painterly" it wanted to be, motion pictures initially mimicked theatre, and comics originally relied on film for guidance. It wasn't until comics had existed for some time that comic artists started doing things that film cannot; they altered the shape and arrangement of panels, fiddled with the placement, size, and style of text, and learned how to unify or fracture spreads, and thus affect the entirety of the work. From this experimentation, they gained control over the momentum and overall structure of their art form, and then they could apply that mastery to enhancing the emotional impact in an inimitable fashion. Even though the layperson and the art critic may very well not yet consider comics to be on the same artistic level as film, comics have nevertheless developed their own method of maximizing immersion.
Games currently exist in that period of uncomfortable adolescence, and while they have been looking to film for general guidance, games have been around long enough that developers realize what they have that filmmakers don't. Gamers can lay their hands directly on the action happening before them. It would sensibly follow that developers have an advantage over filmmakers in the natural immersion of their medium, so they can spend their time crafting a more involving storyline, sending a more powerful message, or making their game more mechanically innovative.
For all of the attempts at making the most of games' unusual form of immersion, the people that make, sell, and play games all seem to be most concerned with the two strengths that film will always have over games. One, it is photorealistic. Human beings are pretty good at picking up on the nuances of a facial expression or body language, and there is no better way to portray those subtleties than a picture-perfect presentation of a real person. Two, it features the visages of real people, not just their voices, and it will frequently be easier to connect with a real person than a virtual representation. Maybe this concern is what places better graphics at the top of many a developer's list, and why we currently laud games that play like interactive movies.
So while they worry about their greatest weakness, developers are also trying to capitalize on their greatest strength--interactivity. I believe that this is why sexuality in games is approached without grace or subtlety; it is hard to make a suggestive wink interactive, and developers want to find stable ground for gaming to stand on that no other art form can claim. It hurts subtlety more when you consider that game structure is inherently mechanical, so a natural, human theme like sexual tension and romance requires some manner of translation--unless you're going to confine it within cutscenes, in which case you might as well make a movie. As a result, we get interactive sex games and "Hot Coffee" fiascos which make the romantic relationships that we get to develop in KOTOR and Mass Effect seem stellar in comparison when, really, so much work remains to be done.
Rowsell's article ends on the right note by simply "expecting more" and avoiding the recommendation that games should head towards or away from films or any other artistic influence. But, I don't know if the kind of sexuality that is right for games is going to be the same sexuality that is right for film. There are a lot of kinks that will have to be worked out, but I wouldn't be surprised if the coy wink that the love interest tosses to the hero is never captured in games as well as in film. Romance in games will be, and ought to be, something else entirely. But if games are going to be their own art form--immersive relationships, romance and all--I imagine we'll have to deal with all the misdirection from inside and out along the way. Comics provide a positive example of an art form coming of age, and it is that self-realization that game developers, the people that sell them, and the people that play them should hope and strive for.
All I have to say is I had forgotten about Phoebe Cates. Let's just say I've uh, lost more than a few minutes of my life to that scene.