Brenda Brathwaite
As our ability to tell stories in games improves, I believe that over the next twenty years, we'll see game stories evolve from violence and hit points to passion and romance. We'll be able to tell our version of The Graduate, Shakespeare in Love and Sideways. Some games are incorporating sexuality, sexual content and relationship development in a "normal" way even now God of War and The Sims 2 are perfect examples of this.

There's also going to be major growth in the MMOEG (massively multiple online erotic games) market in the very near future. In 2006, there are no fewer than four of these games set for release. While others might mock them now or dismiss them as fads, I believe such games are the next logical extension of services such as match.com. ...read more

Brenda Brathwaite
As our ability to tell stories in games improves, I believe that over the next twenty years, we'll see game stories evolve from violence and hit points to passion and romance. We'll be able to tell our version of The Graduate, Shakespeare in Love and Sideways. Some games are incorporating sexuality, sexual content and relationship development in a "normal" way even now God of War and The Sims 2 are perfect examples of this.

There's also going to be major growth in the MMOEG (massively multiple online erotic games) market in the very near future. In 2006, there are no fewer than four of these games set for release. While others might mock them now or dismiss them as fads, I believe such games are the next logical extension of services such as match.com.

I also think sexual content in games will be used to educate all kinds of people. Software can teach kids about safe sex and be used by parents to open that dialogue. Software can also teach couples how to get the most out of their relationship.click to close

Henry Jenkins
Video and computer games will never achieve their full erotic potential until game companies abandon their preoccupation with photorealism. Look, guys, if I wanted to gawk at naked women with plastic or silicon-based bodies, poorly rendered body hair, unrealistic proportions, and limited A.I., then I'd probably go out and buy a Playboy! I have trouble picturing that appealing very much to the more discriminating readers of a fine publication like Hooksexup. Far be it for someone whose first erotic fantasies centered around pictures from the underwear section of the Sears catalogue and from topless amazons in National Geographic to underestimate the astonishing capacity of adolescent boys to get turned on by almost anything that remotely has to do with the female body. But so far, the thing that characterizes the representation of sex in most ?mature? games is its total immaturity. When you can't develop believable characters, all you are left with are bouncy bouncy balloons. Seriously folks, whatever complaints people have about the puppetlike quality of video game characters become that much more pronounced when it comes to sex and games. So, for the moment, let's bracket the idea that games are going to be the hot new pornographic form of the future. That doesn't mean games can't be sexy....read more

Henry Jenkins
Video and computer games will never achieve their full erotic potential until game companies abandon their preoccupation with photorealism. Look, guys, if I wanted to gawk at naked women with plastic or silicon-based bodies, poorly rendered body hair, unrealistic proportions, and limited A.I., then I'd probably go out and buy a Playboy! I have trouble picturing that appealing very much to the more discriminating readers of a fine publication like Hooksexup. Far be it for someone whose first erotic fantasies centered around pictures from the underwear section of the Sears catalogue and from topless amazons in National Geographic to underestimate the astonishing capacity of adolescent boys to get turned on by almost anything that remotely has to do with the female body. But so far, the thing that characterizes the representation of sex in most ?mature? games is its total immaturity. When you can't develop believable characters, all you are left with are bouncy bouncy balloons. Seriously folks, whatever complaints people have about the puppetlike quality of video game characters become that much more pronounced when it comes to sex and games. So, for the moment, let's bracket the idea that games are going to be the hot new pornographic form of the future. That doesn't mean games can't be sexy.

I have already suggested in an earlier post the ways that the erotic potentials of games expand once you move into a multiplayer environment where the real intelligent agents — humans — share their fantasies with each other and where some of the social constraints on physical sexuality break down as we enter into a realm of mutual fantasy. So let me spin out another scenario:

Rather than realism, think surrealism. Rather than erotic, think sensuous. Games are wasting their potential trying to duplicate the realm of everyday reality when they can create new kinds of sensory experiences. What happens to sexuality if the limits of the human body no longer matter, when we have the ability to defy the laws of physics? When our bodies can fit together in unexpected ways? So far, horror films have done the best job of imagining posthuman sexualities and sensualities — to see what I am imagining, you might check of Clive Barker's Hellraiser or perhaps the climactic sequences of Brian Yuza's Society (where peoples bodies merge and melt together, sexual identities mutate, and body parts are reconfigured), or Matthew Barney's Cremaster films or... Once you start going down that mind-blowing direction, the erotic fantasies of Anais Nin start to seem tame by comparison.

Surrealistic games pose a challenge: how do you orientate and immerse players into these new environments if these places do not look and act like the world we already know? I think figuring that out is going to be half the fun. For starters, there would seem to be lots of interesting things you can do with peripherals to extend the tactile sensation of playing the game. The world will feel different depending on whether you are grabbing a hot throbbing joystick or stroking across the screen with your mouse. What would happen if we put the energies going into designing games like Dance Dance Revolution to work thinking of other ways we can use the body as a game interface? I think I'd better stop there before I really get myself into trouble.

As for VR, don't hold your breath. We grossly oversold this technology. Everyone wants the Holodeck. Half the people think the Holodeck is available already. I don't know anyone who has interacted for what passes as virtual reality at the moment who hasn't come away mildly or seriously disappointed because it falls so far short of their assumptions about what it is possible to do. None of them are going to put up with the baby steps that take us from where we are now to where we are in our fantasies. For the moment, a good video game is about as close as any of us are going to get to Virtual Reality any time soon so we might as well enjoy exploring what can be done within that medium.click to close

Ian Bogost
If what sex in videogames means is porn, then I think we're going to see a lot more of it. That may be good or bad, depending on your worldview. Certainly it's not new -- there was more than one developer making games for Atari 2600. I'm not a prude nor a zealot, and I empathize with the idea that sexual repression, commonplace in the U.S. today, is socially and culturally injurious. But I also 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. There's been a lot of publicity recently about the future of sex in games, celebratory publicity. But I think it's a huge error in public relations for the industry to send out the message, "we're rolling out the sex." Rather, we should strive to incorporate the complexities of human emotions in all their forms -- including desire, lust, jealousy, and so forth -- into meaningful representations of sex in games. As I noted in another response, this isn't easy; it requires a great many technical and design advances. But if there is a future of sex in games, that's the one I have in mind. Something beyond mere titillation.

Eric Zimmerman
To answer this question, let's get one thing straight. Sex in videogames is not about the depiction of virtual bodies on computer screens. It is about investigating new forms of pleasure that lie at the intersection of technology and play.

Much reportage of sex and games focuses on the exaggerated pin-up bodies of game avatars. But visuals are less central to games than other elements that are more intrinsic to the medium. Games are dynamic systems of interaction that change as players play, and that bring people together to participate in shared worlds of meaning. If games are going to end up exploring sex in a meaningful way, it's going to take more than reskinning existing game genres with prurient content, as the Leisure Suit Larry titles do with the classic adventure-game format....read more

Eric Zimmerman
To answer this question, let's get one thing straight. Sex in videogames is not about the depiction of virtual bodies on computer screens. It is about investigating new forms of pleasure that lie at the intersection of technology and play.

Much reportage of sex and games focuses on the exaggerated pin-up bodies of game avatars. But visuals are less central to games than other elements that are more intrinsic to the medium. Games are dynamic systems of interaction that change as players play, and that bring people together to participate in shared worlds of meaning. If games are going to end up exploring sex in a meaningful way, it's going to take more than reskinning existing game genres with prurient content, as the Leisure Suit Larry titles do with the classic adventure-game format.

What is that solution going to be like? It's probably not virtual reality, as the question implies. V.R., for all of its "teledildonics" hype, was little more than two low-resolution screens placed headache-inducingly close to your eyes, and a very expensive glove input device that was essentially an extremely clumsy cursor. This is not the future of games and sex.

What is? One place to look is in how existing sex practices already include implicit or explicit game behavior. Role-playing in a sexual context bears a strong similarity to role-playing in games — in both cases, the extra layers of narrative identity allow for the exploration of new kinds of behavior. The physical tussling of lovemaking, the determined pursuit of sexual partners, and other sexual behaviors, suggest forms of play and games. How could we translate these kinds of pleasures — flirtatious glances, BDSM masking, full-body carousing — into videogames? And I don't mean at the level of imagery or content, but at the layer of experience and interactivity. These are unsolved design problems, and part of what makes it so exciting to be involved in this young medium. Avatar sexchat is possibly our best current example, but it's only the tip of the iceberg.

If we look at the pre-computer precedents of videogames (as I seem to do in all of these questions), there is a rich history from which to draw. Childhood games of earlier generations, like Spin the Bottle and Seven Minutes in the Closet, demonstrate that games and sexual behavior have often been linked in the past. One of the reasons for this is that games allow for players to take on "taboo behaviors" — they give permission for players to pummel each other in a boxing ring, or to sneak up behind a best friend and blow her up with a rocket launcher, or to break social boundaries and kiss whoever the spinning bottle indicates.

This is good news for sex and videogames. Both share a focus on social interaction, the experience of pleasure, and indulgence in behaviors that are forbidden in a public context. Sex is doubtless fertile terrain for video games. But that doesn't mean that the games themselves will get made. As some of my fellow panelists have mentioned in their responses to earlier questions, there is still a strong political outcry against videogames, and the economic limitations of the game industry often squelch innovation and new ideas. If these obstacles can be overcome, then I think we can look forward to many sex video games — whatever forms they end up taking. And one thing's for certain: I'll definitely be playing them. click to close

Rob Levine
You really saved the toughest question for last. If you're talking about packaged video games, for consoles, I don't think you'll see much sex at all: The Grand Theft Auto fiasco really scared game publishers away from that. (Remember that a decent percentage of console games are sold in Wal-Mart, which takes a dim view of that sort of thing.) Online games are a different story, especially because the players effectively create the content. What happens in any environment, online or off, really depends on who is in it.

If you look at the online games available today, it's not that hard to project forward and imagine what kinds of social interactions you might see in the future, including some that involve dating and love. But sex, at least in the physical sense, is much harder to look at simply because I think technology has to evolve before sex in any kind of virtual reality reaches any sort of, um, climax. ...read more

Rob Levine
You really saved the toughest question for last. If you're talking about packaged video games, for consoles, I don't think you'll see much sex at all: The Grand Theft Auto fiasco really scared game publishers away from that. (Remember that a decent percentage of console games are sold in Wal-Mart, which takes a dim view of that sort of thing.) Online games are a different story, especially because the players effectively create the content. What happens in any environment, online or off, really depends on who is in it.

If you look at the online games available today, it's not that hard to project forward and imagine what kinds of social interactions you might see in the future, including some that involve dating and love. But sex, at least in the physical sense, is much harder to look at simply because I think technology has to evolve before sex in any kind of virtual reality reaches any sort of, um, climax.

The kind of virtual reality you see in game now is almost entirely visual — even the sound isn't usually all that great.That's going to change. In the near future, you might see some kind of online singles game: Immersive video games + Skype + Match.com (or, hey, hooksexup.com) = $$$. After that I think you run into some technical limits in terms of providing stimulation for the other three senses online.

If you're talking about the far future — three or four decades — we'll probably find ways to do that. In his book The Singularity is Near, Ray Kurzweil predicts that virtual reality involving all five senses might be here in half that time. At that point, the nature of sexuality could change considerably.

Even before then, though, I think we'll see significant social changes. This might seem far-fetched, but think about online dating. Ten years ago it was unknown, five years ago it was really just starting and now it's widespread. Some other kinds of online environments — whether they're called games or not — could change the social aspects of sexuality just as quickly. click to close

Katie Salen
I am writing this as I sit crammed into what passes as an airline seat these days, flying at 35,000 feet, nauseated by the physicality of the bodies I am pressed up against, contemplating the future of sex in a space not only less real, but bodiless (and odor free). Sounds great to me.

It does sound great, but to a point. The dream of the holodeck -- of a technologically mediated space where virtual experiences replicate real experiences -- has long been fantasized as a new frontier for sexual exploration and exploitation. Can we create immersive, digital spaces to replace physical, sexual encounters? Is it possible to have sex with an avatar? Is there a way that the mediation of the body through digital means can lead to new forms of sexual pleasure or create opportunities for interaction not possible in the real world? ...read more

Katie Salen
I am writing this as I sit crammed into what passes as an airline seat these days, flying at 35,000 feet, nauseated by the physicality of the bodies I am pressed up against, contemplating the future of sex in a space not only less real, but bodiless (and odor free). Sounds great to me.

It does sound great, but to a point. The dream of the holodeck -- of a technologically mediated space where virtual experiences replicate real experiences -- has long been fantasized as a new frontier for sexual exploration and exploitation. Can we create immersive, digital spaces to replace physical, sexual encounters? Is it possible to have sex with an avatar? Is there a way that the mediation of the body through digital means can lead to new forms of sexual pleasure or create opportunities for interaction not possible in the real world?

These were all questions being bandied about in the early years of VR and they are questions I still find intriguing today, because they deal specifically with the concept of interaction, which is something games are very good at. We have spent a good deal of time in this roundtable talking about the social play of video games, of their status as spaces of transgression where people try on different identities, build communities, and interact in surprising and often liberating ways. As we begin to imagine the future of video games in general, we will always confront the question of the kinds of experiences games as artificial systems can model, the kinds of systems they can simulate, the kinds of play they can allow. Sex is social, certainly, but it is also physical, and symbolic, and when done well, highly interactive. Games model many forms of interaction in deeply meaningful ways and I guess we are left with the question of whether or not they can model sexual interaction in a way that people find compelling.

If I were to approach the question a bit more bluntly, I would say yes, in the near future we will see video games about people having sex; we will see hardcore/softcore defined within the pixilated space of games, and we will see alternate reality or augmented reality games with explicit sexual content merging real and virtual game play. Most of these developments are conditions currently limited by the conservatism of the market (games can cost a lot to make), the conservatism of the industry (we know Madden Football sells, so why risk more experimental content), the conservatism of well . . . the country. But we don't yet know what is possible if any of these forces change, and there will always be game designers pushing the envelope when it comes to sex. This can lead to both good and bad outcomes, of course, but the challenge, I think, is quite interesting.  n° click to close