“Well, if you want to get a lot more men to show up, have a panel on sex in games,” said Brenda Braithwaite, a game developer who led the panel.
Braithwaite also is director of the International Game Developers Association’s Sex Special Interested Group, formed in August to address the hot-button topic of X-rated game content in the wake of the Grand Theft Auto “Hot Coffee” controversy.
Although she was the lead programmer on the popular “Playboy: The Mansion” adults-only game, Braithwaite said her new mission is to help create sex games for women while continuing to battle knee-jerk far-Right reactionaries who she said want to restrict the rights of adults to view — or play — whatever they like.
She sees many parallels between her industry and the adult entertainment business, both in the way they approach female audiences and the challenges they face from conservatives.
“Erotic content for women is the fastest-growing segment of the adult market,” she said. “It stands to reason that it’s a growing segment in the gaming market as well.”
Actually, the gaming industry may be one step ahead of adult entertainment when it comes to developing a female audience. According to the Entertainment Software Association, 43 percent of gamers are women.
The problem, Braithwaite said, is not necessarily a lack of sexually oriented games, but a lack of games designed with women in mind.
For example, there was a general sense of shock during the WGC seminar when Braithwaite ran a graphic segment of the popular explicit title “Virtually Jenna,” featuring ubiquitous adult starlet Jenna Jameson. Braithwaite’s point was that the game, which has been a smashing success with male gamers, does not have the same appeal to women.
To capture the female market, she said, games must go beyond sex and also offer story lines and an element of relationship formation. This is especially true for adult websites that offer subscription-based interactive games.
Braithwaite points to two games set for release in 2006 that promise a female-friendly approach — “Spend the Night” challenges players to sweet talk virtual dates into offering them cybersex, and “Naughty America” is a Sims-like role-playing game that offers an explicit sex mode.
Webmasters who use such games effectively will find a subscription windfall, according to Braithwaite, because wherever women go, men are sure to follow.
