Why Apple Needs to Allow Adult-Themed iPhone Games

[John Funk]

Why Apple Needs to Allow Adult-Themed iPhone Games

The iPhone could very well be the harbinger of a golden era of porn games - if only Apple would relax the standards on what can and what cannot be sold on its App Store.

Like many other things, sex is a very human need, and has shown up in pretty much every form of media known to man. With comic books came porno comics, with TV came porn-on-demand, and with videogames came... well, interactive porn. But even though sex-themed games have been released on platforms since the Atari 2600, and despite a massive potential market, they haven't evolved past the earliest of sex-game designs. As Robert Stoneback discussions in Issue 219 of The Escapist, despite the iPhone App Store theoretically allowing adult games to be sold directly to consumers - bypassing the restrictions on brick-and-mortar retailers - Apple's strict standards prevent a Golden Age of Porn Games from flourishing in your palm.

[blockquote]iGirl, lacking as it is in anything approaching nudity, is obviously much tamer than consumer demand may dictate, a necessary condition of its placement on the App Store. A lot of people, however, question the point of Apple keeping out the steamy stuff, since the iPhone's Safari browser allows unrestricted access to the internet. What's the point of censoring a naughty app if someone can log on to Booble.com anytime (and anywhere) they want?

Steven Weitz, an instructor of media arts at Pennsylvania's Lehigh Carbon Community College, sees this practice as "hypocritical." "The fact that you can get to [practically] any pornographic material on the web via the Safari browser ... completely contradicts Apple's 'no adult material' policy," he says.[/blockquote]

Instead, to get adult-themed games that relish in every flash of uncensored skin, iPhone owners have to "jailbreak" their phone, meaning that an incredibly lucrative potential revenue stream for Apple is lost. With the iPhone and other smartphones putting the internet - and all its unlimited porn - in your hand, do these restrictions still make sense? To read the full story, check out "Apple's Forbidden Fruit" [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_219/6518-Apples-Forbidden-Fruit] in Issue 219 of The Escapist.

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[The_root_of_all_evil]

Oh THAT's what the picture is...sorry, in smaller size it's sort of hard to work out if it's legs or fingers.

Anyway, I thought Wilson banned you from using those photos of him?

 

[ae86gamer]

For some reason I imagine people playing these kinds of games a while waiting at the DMV or at the hospital.

Anyways, are there honestly people who want a sex game on their iPhone?

[sup]Who am I kidding? Of course there are.[/sup]

 

[Amnestic]

Fairly interesting article, especially in light of the moderately recent Platinum Games debacle and the SexBox games console that was being discussed. I have to admit that I see most Sex games, be they of the strip poker, erotic Snake or Eroge Visual Novels variety to be fairly pointless in the end since - as the author of the article notes - if you have an internet connection there are literally hundreds of terabytes of free, streaming porn on the internet with no registration necessary at all.

Not to mention all the extra videos/pictures that are available for download - generally via torrents.

Still, it'd be nice to see more sexually explicit games come out I think. If games developers continue to push these and people see that (shock horror!) sex games don't cause the Apocalypse, the games industry and developers may have more freedom with what they do in the future which can only be a good thing.

 

[goatzilla8463]

Apple are pretty stupid, it's true.

They could be sitting on a hug lump of cash out of my wallet right now but no.

 

[captainwolfos]

Seriously, for those who want porn, all you really have to do is go onto 4chan.

If you want it on the iPhone or iPod Touch (assuming you can actually find a WiFi hotspot, of course), then just use Safari. Simple.

Though I guess you could use the very same argument against the Wii, especially considering the Internet Channel is now free for download again.

 

[Jon Etheridge]

I say why not. You can get porn online or on DVD. Why not let porn be in a game format? It's a stupid double standard that needs to eventually die out.

 

[teutonicman]

I understand why apple hasn't done this already but it is still a stupid idea not to. Really who cares if a couple people get butthurt over it, think of the money.

 

[bodyklok]

I have but one word to add to this thread: Japan.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

Steve Jobs is God, and God decrees sex and nudity to be unlawful, we should all just baske in the loving glow* of our iPhones. It will be a cold day in Microsoft (According to the Apple bible; Hell) when scantily clad girls are romping over the small screens of Apple products.

*The loving glow is actually the brief light given off by an iPhone shortly before the battery bursts into flames.

 

[Bigeyez]

While I understand your intentions with the article and I agree that it's dumb to have this double standard when it comes to games, I have to say that this won't happen anytime soon.

No mass market company, be it Apple, M$, Sony, etc, will allow porn games onto their platforms for one simple reason...Image.

If Apply allowed porn games in it's app store people (most of which who probably never owned or will own an Iphone) would go crazy. You'd see it all over the news and Apple's company image would take a beating. Misinformed and lets be frank here, stupid people, would then label Apple as a "bad" company and avoid their products.

You can take that and apply it to any other major game company. They won't touch porn because they don't want to tarnish their companies image. That's all it really is.

 

[Amnestic]

You can take that and apply it to any other major game company. They won't touch porn because they don't want to tarnish their companies image. That's all it really is.

Mass Effect had that very tame sex scene, and Bioware is no worse for wear. Obsidian Entertainment have said that their new game, Alpha Protocol - well, quote here:

I was told we can expect as many as four love scenes. I inquired how they compare to Mass Effect's infamous sex scenes. They're on a spectrum, I was told, one of them being "pretty racy." Oh, and pretty "unexpected" too, in terms of when it happens and the "choices you make in it?"

-Source [http://kotaku.com/5336178/alpha-protocol-more-sex-than-mass-effect-more-interrogations-than-fallout-3]

I doubt Obsidian Entertainment will suffer for it. If they suffer for Alpha Protocol, it'll be based on the game itself rather than their sex scenes.

That's my prediction anyway.

 

[cleverlymadeup]

they'll come around one day when bags of money are tossed their way

i think it's kinda stupid that america and it's companies are so prudish

 

[Bigeyez]

You can take that and apply it to any other major game company. They won't touch porn because they don't want to tarnish their companies image. That's all it really is.

Mass Effect had that very tame sex scene, and Bioware is no worse for wear. Obsidian Entertainment have said that their new game, Alpha Protocol - well, quote here:

]http://kotaku.com/5336178/alpha-protocol-more-sex-than-mass-effect-more-interrogations-than-fallout-3

I doubt Obsidian Entertainment will suffer for it. If they suffer for Alpha Protocol, it'll be based on the game itself rather than their sex scenes.

That's my prediction anyway.

And look at the media uproar that 2 minutes of bare ass and side boob caused. Hell remember the Janet nipple flash at the SuperBowl a few years back? American media goes apeshit over little stuff like that. People are stupid, period. An actual porn game or some form of interactive porn on say the apple app store or XBL arcade would cause a huge ruckus.

I wish that weren't the case but I just have no faith that something like that could come out and be handled maturely and properly by the media.

 

[George Palmer]

I say no. That last thing I want while searching for something on the app store is to have to search through piles and piles of porn and porn spam. Theres enough out there already. Just open safari and type "iphone porn". Voila. No need to clog up more bandwidth.

Would there be more money? Sure. But Apple has always been more about creating great products that actually work and are designed well.

Leave the porn to the blackberry or zune or whatever.

 

[bluepilot]

But, correct me if I am wrong, but isn`t porn more of a `solidary in your room` activity that needs privacy and time rather than a `quicky glimpse in pulic` kind of affair.

I have nothing against porn as such, but if you are going to indulge yourself why not go for the lotion, scented candles, locked door, big screen approach. I do not see what kind of satsifaction can be gained from a quick glimpse when you are out and about.

 

[cleverlymadeup]

I say no. That last thing I want while searching for something on the app store is to have to search through piles and piles of porn and porn spam. Theres enough out there already. Just open safari and type "iphone porn". Voila. No need to clog up more bandwidth.

that's odd cause when i searched for "iphone porn" the top link was "George Palmer's iPhone Pornstravaganza"

and i will say i quickly closed my browser after a good 15-20 minutes of first viewing the site, it's content and bookmarking it

 

[Anarien]

This really isn't different than console makers refusing to allow AO games or let's say, streaming porn through services they are or could be aligned with.

That said, the answer to George Palmer's issue would just be throwing them behind their own category. Softcore and bikini girl games are actually a hot seller from my phone provider, apparently, as well as wallpapers featuring females in various states of undress. All this stuff is always on the top sellers list.

There's obviously a market for sex in virtual settings. Not allowing it is silly, but how to handle it all in a mature, legal manner (preventing underage porn, for instance) is the big question.

 

[Gindil]

There's this thing called a "family image". I believe Apple wants to keep that.

It's also the reason why Times Square didn't change from a seedy XXX district in the 60s and 70s to a huge consumer place of the 80s, 90s, and today until Disney helped reinvent it.