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To Broaden Fan Base, Game Creators Consider New Genres
The Oblivion game caused a stir last month over a third-party modification that allowed players to create topless characters.
(Bethesda Softworks)
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The Entertainment Rating Software Board, for example, created a headache for local game developer Bethesda Softworks last month when it changed the rating for its popular Oblivion game from "Teen" to "Mature" partly because of a third-party modification that allowed players to create topless game characters.
When secret sexual content was discovered in a Grand Theft Auto game, its rating was changed from "Mature" to "Adult" -- and it was subsequently taken off retail shelves in the United States until the objectionable content was removed.
Still, an increasing number of companies are pushing the boundaries. Game makers, who cannot sell "Adult" games in big retail stores, will sometimes make a "Mature" version for retail stores and sell a downloadable "Adult" version on the Internet.
With the prevalence of high-speed Internet connections, some adult-oriented businesses are able to sell their products without making an appeal to an uneasy executive at Best Buy or Wal-Mart.
Online adult-video company Naughty America is set to launch a sex-themed game this summer -- one that aims to replicate the world of dating and will contain explicit content. One of the game's designers is scheduled to appear at the conference on a panel about multi-player games.
One show speaker, Brian Shuster, chief executive of Utherverse Inc., made his fortune with a network of adult-oriented sites in the 1990s.
Now, his company is trying to be an early mover with a virtual world, based on Amsterdam's red light district, that allows players to do whatever they hanker for.
"There is a bit of a gold rush or a dot-com syndrome going on right now," in the area of games with adult content, said Regina Lynn, a Wired.com sex columnist who will speak at the show. "For these games to be vibrant and thriving and profitable, they will have to reach beyond the gamer audience."
