An industry interest group wants to make a space for adult content in video games - and they want to keep it away from kids as much as you do

The biggest screw-up in gaming last year was all about sex. Last summer, a hacker discovered a crude sex game - later dubbed "Hot Coffee" - buried in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, already the most controversial and best-selling game of the year. Take Two Interactive yanked it from the shelves, but that didn't end the controversy: family groups, lawyers and politicians, including values-issue-hungry Democratic Senator Hillary Clinton, turned Grand Theft Auto into the poster child for games that corrupt our children.

But why can't games show sex - or at least, the same kind of sex shown in any R rated movie? Why won't the industry support games that show serious adult relationships - as well as cheap, tawdry ones? And why can we run over pedestrians, shoot cops and blow up cities, but a pair of tits will ban your game from the local Wal-Mart?

Veteran game developer Brenda Brathwaite ran into this taboo working on Cyberlore's Playboy: The Mansion, which shipped last January. The game puts you in charge of Hugh Hefner's media empire; you're in charge of the budgets as well as the centerfold photo shoots, and you're rewarded with a mansion-full of semi-naked bunnies carousing in the hot tub or making out in your grotto. "We had all these questions about, 'can we do that? Is it all right to do this? It's [supposed to be] an M-rated game, can we show this?'" recalls Brathwaite.

Brathwaite found no community and few resources to help them. "While there were people developing games with sexual content, they weren't in contact. They were islands with no means of communicating with each other. People also don't just generally come out and say, 'Oh yeah, I'm working on a porn game, I'm working on a sexual simulator,' for fear of being ostracized," she says. "I have talked to some people who fear that if they started working on sexual content, they were going to be blacklisted forever in the industry and never get a job working on a regular game."

Her experiences inspired her to host a roundtable discussion on "Sexuality in Games: When Is It Appropriate?" at the 2005 Game Developers Conference last March. As SF Weekly's John Mecklin reported, Brathwaite explained her tips and tricks, like how the "magical black thongs" kept Playboy: The Mansion just short of full nudity, while the audience questions ran the gamut from "Why are females passive characters in games?" to "What if your character talks about hand jobs?"

She left the conference with a stack of business cards from attendees who wanted to stay in touch. By August, she had set up a mailing list and then a special interest group (SIG) under the aegis of the International Game Developers Association, and kicked off the "Sex and Games" blog (http://www.igda.org/sex/), which gets 2000 hits a day. Brathwaite runs the SIG with her Cyberlore colleague Ian Schrieber; Kelly Rued of Blacklove Interactive, a Minnesota company that's developing Rapture Online, a 3-D sex fantasy simulator. and Kyle Machulis of Nonpolynomial Labs, aka qDot, who blogs about sexual PC peripherals at slashdong.org. Machulius is a leading designer in "teledildonics," or sex toys that you can control over the Internet, and he invented the SeXBox, which he claims is the first sexual video game controller designed specifically for sexplay.

At this early stage, the group focuses on serving developers, by running the blog and sending representatives like Brathwaite to speak to IGDA members and gaming conferences. But as much as the group will help developers, Brathwaite also wants to support parents. Her goals include promoting responsible development and finding new ways to keep adult content away from minors, and she supports the Entertainment Software Rating Board (the ESRB), which rates retail games for mature content.

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You can see the ESRB rating on the corner of any box in any major retailer. The codes run from E for "Everyone" to T for "Teen" and M for "Mature," and finally to AO for "Adults Only," which is roughly the same as an X-rating, and which bars a game from major retailers like Wal-Mart. When the "hot coffee" sex game was revealed by a Dutch hacker, the ESRB rerated Grand Theft Auto from an M to an AO. Most retailers followed by yanking it from their shelves until the new, "clean" version came out in mid-September. The scandal may have cost Rockstar's parent, Take-Two Interactive, as much as $50 million, according to Gamespot.com.

So how does ESRB make these calls? To some extent, developers take their chances when they submit the game to the Board, because the ESRB's raters don't use a checklist or a standard formula: they want to see the material in context to judge whether a passionate kiss gets a T rating or an E-10, or how much nudity in a cinematic pushes an M to an AO. The ESRB works with a pool of about 40-50 part-time raters based around metropolitan New York. These raters have never worked in the games industry, and they may not even play games on a regular basis - but they have experience taking care of children, and as ESRB President Patricia Vance explains, "they have some sensitivity for how kids would react to certain kinds of content." Publishers submit a videotape of the most extreme sections, and the raters give it both a general rating and a set of descriptors, which cover everything from "comic mischief" and "use of alcohol" to "strong sexual content." As soon as three separate raters reach a consensus, the process ends and the rating becomes official - and nonnegotiable.

Vance considers the ESRB ratings strict: "We find that what potentially might appear in a PG-13 movie in terms of suggestiveness or sexual content, would not find its way into a T rated game. It would be rated M." Michael Pachter, an analyst with Wedbush Morgan Securities, also thinks they're conservative, especially compared to films and TV. "The people who make the rules think that videogames are for children," says Pachter. "Our government is protecting us from something that really isn't harming us, because they think we're all 6 year olds. It's crazy."

At the end of November, the non-profit National Institute on Media and the Family called for an independent board to assign ratings, and gave the ESRB a flunking grade for "ratings accuracy." In a statement, the ESRB retorted that NIMF's assessments and the ESRB's agreed over 80% of the time, and that the attacks came from biased research: "NIMF relied on a for-profit company with a vested financial interest in undermining the ESRB (PSVratings, Inc.) ... ." Many politicians stand by the ESRB: last month Senators Hillary Clinton, Joseph Lieberman, and Evan Bayh, introduced a bill that would fine any retailer that sells Mature games to minors, and it uses the ESRB's ratings to set the standard. However, even that bill calls for more government oversight of game ratings.

The ESRB has only handed out a handful of AO ratings, and in some cases - like Peach Princess' Water Closet: The Forbidden Chamber, it's not clear why the developer even bothered to apply for one. As the ESRB observes, adult game publishers usually skip the whole process and sell directly to consumers, mainly over the Internet. For example, the online role-playing game Sociolotron is a bizarre game set in a post-apocalyptic London and it has built a diehard cult of players (250 regulars, and thousands who give it a try) that log on to have sex with each other, practice BSDM, and sacrifice prostitutes in black magic rituals. Independent developers are also working on dating simulators where players can hook up online and have cybersex, including Republik's Spend the Night, the Safe Escape Studio's Naughty America, and Black Love Interactive's Rapture Online, all due next year.

Vera Odessa Newman, CEO and Founder of Nest Egg Studios in Burlington, Vermont, has worked on her adult online game, Heavenly Bodies, since 1999. As Newman explained in an e-mail interview, that was the year she found Ultima Online. "It blew my mind that you could play a game with 100,000's of people. However what really blew my mind is that it was more dramatic and adult than I expected. It was the first time I had ever had a romantic relationship online and experienced cybersex in an online game environment. Hence I started really thinking, what if there were adult MMOG's [massively-multiplayer online games]?"

Although she's had trouble finding investors who would put money into a video game project, let alone an adult one, Nest Egg has started to build a network of investors and partners. But she's also not selling it as a niche game; players can have sex - which will be "tastefully graphical" - but she explains, "Unlike some of our competitors where sex is the Integral part of the game, Nest Egg Studios feels it is important to keep a realistic, adult orientated, socially dramatic balance within Heavenly Bodies." Newman promises "a universe where magic and science co-exist, where gods oversee galactic empires and any adventure is possible." The only downside? She doesn't expect to launch until 2009-10.

Not every adult game has to be a high-budget commercial product. Much of the growth of mature games for the PC and Mac comes from animators using Macromedia's Flash development tool. Newgrounds.com, the Internet's leading Flash community, hosts a "Mature" section that includes a wide swath of short, casual-length games, from memory games that use naked cartoon images, to hentai-style lesbian wrestling games, to Sack Smash 2005, a sidescroller where the hero crushes the bad guys with his enormous scrotum. "A lot of the mature games focus on visuals and story, with simple point and click interaction. Anyone with some artistic talent can create an experience with Flash," says Newgrounds' founder Tom Fulp.

Fulp estimates that mature games draw around 15-20% of the traffic on the site, and the biggest hits - like Orgasm Girl, which casts you as a lesbian angel who invades schoolgirls' bedrooms at night and gives them something to dream about - score millions of users. Fulp notes that some of the best Flash guys on Newgrounds have contributed adult content - though the worst games are just shy of the flip books we used to make in sixth grade study hall. "There are definite trends, such as dress up games, dating sims, and quiz games," says Fulp. "I don't bother with a majority of it, but I'm amused by anyone who brings some new ideas to the table."

But while independent games can do whatever they want, they don't rake in the kind of revenue that pays for a major XBox title - and that can only come from mainstream retailers. The current climate makes it harder to sell Mature games, and by connection, game designers fear the "chilling effect," as fewer publishers risk making those games in the first place.

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But let's say that the industry could satisfy all of its critics and find a failsafe way to keep adult games away from kids. What about the question your mom might ask: why do video games need sex in the first place?

We know there's a demand for Halle Barre's breasts in the movies, and for gruesome, fetishistic rapists and serial killers in our prime time cop dramas. Couldn't a haltertop or a risque cinematic help your first-person shooter stand out from the pile? But aside from a few exceptions (like Playboy: The Mansion), the industry is already pulling back - Atari cut sexual content from the European game Fahrenheit before releasing it in the States as Indigo Prophecy. By doing so, they surrender to a stereotype about who's really buying and playing their games. "The prevailing attitude is that games are for kids, which our statistics show clearly is not the case," says Brathwaite. She cites a 2005 survey from the Entertainment Software Association which says that average gamer is 30 years old, and only 35% of gamers are minors.

Brathwaite and the sex SIG don't argue that we should have more sex in games: rather, they argue that sex can't be ruled out as a tool at a time when the best developers are bringing story, characters, and adult relationships into their games. Says Brathwaite, "I don't want to be restricted to a Disney-esque palette of game. Granted, for our ability to tell stories in games, we are nowhere near the level of Sideways or Shakespeare in Love. But we might get there."

SIDEBAR: Sexual Video Games, Past and Present

Custer's Revenge: An early milestone of video game sex, Custer's Revenge gave Atari 2600 players a chance to fight the Battle of Little Bighorn and, if they win, rape a naked squaw who's tied to a stake. The blocky early-Atari graphics make it even more disturbing. (Out of print)

Rez: There's no room to cover all of the strange sexual Japanese PlayStation games out there, but Rez stands out because it shipped with a special peripheral: a "trance vibrator." As you shoot targets in the game, Rez rewards you by playing dance music, and if you don't have a subwoofer, you can use the trance vibrator to fill in the low-end effect. Jane Pinckard of Game Girl Advance wrote that she was so impressed by the trance vibrator and its rhythmic thumping that she stuck it down her pants. Well, what would you do? (Out of print)

Dream Stripper: You can find hundreds of games where women get naked, either in strip poker, or strip Tetris, or strip rock-paper-scissors - or games like "Dream Stripper," where a 3-D model simply strips. The model follows your every command without losing her eerily vacant smile. If you ever enjoyed stealing your sister's Barbie, taking off all of its clothes, and pouring cooking oil all over it, this game is for you. (http://www.dreamstripper.com)

Lovechess: Just like regular chess, except that the pieces are modeled after Greek and Trojan myths - and also, they hump each other. (http://www.lovechess.nl)

Orgasm Girl: A favorite from the Mature section of newgrounds.com. The hentai-style art may look sexy, but the game is also notoriously difficult and has spawned pages and pages of advice threads. Keep an eye out for the promised sequel. (http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/180106)

Fable: Your Hero can get a woman - or a man! - in bed, the old-fashioned way: give her expensive gifts, propose marriage, buy her a house, go through the ceremony, buy her more gifts while you're standing right next to your bed, and let the magic happen. But after all that work, the game fades to black and you just hear some giggling. (http://fable.lionhead.com/)

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas: Want to see what all the fuss is about? IFilm has hosted a video capture of the "hot coffee" mini-game. See it at http://www.ifilm.com/ifilmdetail/2673401.

The Nintendo Revolution: The Nintendo Revolution's long, vibrating controller provides one of the only innovations of the three next gen consoles. Also, bloggers have speculated that you could probably stick it up your butt. "Top" that, Microsoft. (http://www.nintendo.com/home)

SIDEBAR: "Emergent Sex": Horny Players Prowl the Shadows of World of Warcraft

"Tired of grinding that next level? Kick back, relax and let me take care of you! I will do anything, yes ANYTHING you want me to. Let me dance my sultry Night Elf dance for you. Let me run my fingers through your hair and shower you with kisses. Want some hot girl on girl action? I'll invite one of my girlfriends over and the 2 of us will blow your mind. I am waiting for you to command me!"

That quote comes from an eBay auction placed on August 25, by a World of Warcraft player offering one game hour of striptease for a minimum bid of $10. The seller, who went under the name "jailbait15," didn't get a single bid, but word about the auction spread around the Warcraft community, and it broadcast one of the unpublicized features of the game: "emergent sex" - or, sex between the players that takes place whether or not the game supports it.

Warcraft is the world's most popular massively-multiplayer online role-playing game, and thousands of players at a time login to explore the same world, socializing together, sharing quests, and of course, having cybersex and auctioning off lapdances. "Jailbait15," who turns out to be a guy named Scott, started his eBay auction as a joke for his friends. Scott says that cybersex is common on Warcraft, but "the options to have your online toons appear to actually have physical sex is very limited. In WoW, you can have your character stand, sit, kneel, lay down, walk, run and dance. Using those physical motions plus emotes such as flirt, kiss, hug, etc you can certainly get your point across without the actual visualization of sex," he explains via e-mail. And, of course, "The chat interface will allow the participants to get as verbally graphic as they desire."

Other anecdotes have flown around the 'Net, like the time that Gedran the dwarf stumbled across two elves hunched over each other in a dark tram station; he eavesdropped on their sexplay, until they caught him. Sex has also cropped up in EverQuest II and in the hot tub parties of Sims Online, and recently, a group of players from Anarchy Online posted a petition to add real support for sex to the game.

It's easier to get lucky in massively-multiplayer online games that actually allow it, like the extremely explicit Sociolotron, or the adult sections of Second Life, which follows an open-minded, San Francisco-like attitude about mature behavior: kids and teens can have a safe experience and enjoy the views, but stumble into the wrong club, and you're in for an instant sex education. But World of Warcraft is more striking because at 5 million users, it's one of the largest MMORPG's in the world, and a genuine pop phenomenon in the States.

Would officially-sanctioned adult play make World of Warcraft a better game? "I would not derive any benefit from WoW adding support for more graphic sexual content in game," says Scott. "I also think that if [World of Warcraft publisher] Blizzard did add that type of 'feature,' they would lose a lot of their subscribers. This is supposed to be a role playing adventure game, not a Sims knockoff."

Still, if you put 4 million people in the same world, they're bound to have itches that need scratching. But if you want to give it a try, just remember: according to a recent survey by Nicky Yee's Daedalus Project, half of the female characters in World of Warcraft are actually played by men - so it's even odds that the super-hott elf you're bumping against is a dude. And he might be laughing at you.

(c) 2005 Chris Dahlen