The theme for this year’s Game Design Challenge was enough to make a game designer blush: the first time they had sex.
Every year at GDC, the Game Design Challenge tasks a handful of designers with creating a game around a specific concept or object. Past years’ challenges include making a licensed game for the poetry of Emily Dickenson, creating a game that used fabric as a controller, or designing a game to be played with an animal. This year, a trio of developers were asked to design a game around their first time in the sack. There were a few rules, of course. There was really only one restriction – the game their game concept had to be playable on existing technology. Keeping their games Wal-Mart friendly wasn’t technically part of the rules, but the participants decided to err on the side of good taste, anyway. For the most part, that is.
Long Island Business News has posted a feature on Perspective Studios. While the name might not sound familiar to you, there’s an excellent chance that you’ve seen Perspective’s work. This is the company Rockstar Games used for motion capture in Grand Theft Auto IV. According to the LIBN, Perspective has an "exclusive contract with Rockstar Games." In addition to work on GTA IV, the company has worked on Manhunt 2, Uncharted and more.
With all the fornicating and prostitute beating that’s possible in GTAIV, I’m sure many of you wonder what happens in Perspective’s mo-cap sessions. To answer the burning question that’s on everyone’s mind, studio director Rich Nelson said: "We’ve done sex. Simulated, of course."
Then there was more nudity sprinkled about the games, but hey, it fits. And as it turns out, according to European gaming site PS3 Sense, a sex mini-game should return in God of War III. Now, we’re not entirely sure what they plan to do, because team member Stig Asmussen seemed on the fence about the issue:
"The sex mini-games are a double-edged sword: we’re damned if we do, damned if we don’t. If we do include a sex mini-game and don’t add anything new to it, then people will say it’s getting old. If we don’t include the sex mini-game, then the fans will be in an uproar."
The recent offer from World of Warcraft allowing its players to change their sex for a paltry $15 resurrected the controversy over sex on the most popular massively multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG) ever.
When game-maker Blizzard made the offer in December, WoW bloggers started posting reactions and comments rolled in at a rate of one per minute….and that was at 2 AM!
With more than 11.5 million subscribers, the topic of game sex is no small matter.
Critics of the game question the real reasons so many people spend hours playing the game, sometimes forfeiting sleep or other obligations. Game defenders say it is the action-packed quests for magical items. Critics say it’s the sex.
Sites like Myspace and Facebook are the methods our children are using to communicate. John Iannarelli, a supervisory special agent with the FBI in Phoenix, says, “The reality is predators know where to look for children. They’re opening Myspace, getting on AOL, they’re chatting. They’re even getting on Playstation 3 and talking through internet and playing games with your children.”
If you’re horrible in bed and don’t have enough guts or brains to learn better techniques, then Sega Toys has something for you.
That’s right, the company that makes video games for children of all ages is now releasing ‘The Love Trainer‘, a headphone set that guides you through better sex.
The ‘Trainer’, which monitors your heart rate, says things like:
"The foreplay, will now begin!" "Please confirm the heart rate sensor!"