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These columns (as well as the 'releases') come from weekly content that we write for the Edmond Sun, out of Edmond, OK (though we live in Chicago). This page contains the archives for said column, many of which are in their pre-published, unedited state. Some titles and editing by Brendan Sinclair.

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Real of fake, the world loves boobies
Saturday, September 18, 2004

Shocking as it may seem, the life of a video game journalist is far from the non stop party many folks would imagine. While I do get to spend hours each day playing games, there are times when I need to play a less than adequate offering or even research topics which I am not particularly fond of to do my job. Research for this column required me to surf the dank depths of the internet in search of pictures of video game characters that will be appearing in an upcoming issue of Playboy. Having witnessed the results first hand, I am back to give you my opinion on this matter.

First, a brief summery of the sexual revolution of gaming. Surprising as it may seem, creating games of a sexual nature did not come about with the advent of 3D processors or main stream appeal. Even the primitive graphics of the Atari 2600 spouted pixilated versions of the buxom babes that are all too familiar in current games. Take a look at the erotic porn adventure Custer's Revenge in which you attempt to have relations with an imprisoned native american woman. Back then, graphics were so laughably poor, it was hard to take such rudimentary images seriously.

For the sake of time, we can just skip over everything that happened through the 8- and 16-bit eras. Suffice it to say, as graphics became more realistic, more and more games placed an emphasis on attractive female characters. Then, in 1996, along came Tomb Raider. Tomb Raider, starring the blocky breasted adventurer Lara Croft, is one of the first games ever to not only feature and market the heck out of its female protagonist, but actually found a permanent place in the annals of pop culture because of it. Gracing the covers of such mainstream magazines as Time and Newsweek, not to mention the two Hollywood monstrosities staring Angelina Jolie, Lara Croft was a video game icon on the same level as Mario and Donkey Kong. Clearly, other companies were not going to let Eidos hog all the glory.

This means that, as graphics became more realistic and gamers started demanding beautiful images to go with fun gameplay, companies went on a quest to produce the next Lara Croft. From the teen pop idol Yuna of Final Fantasy X-2 to the entire cast of Dead of Alive, with a proprietary physics engine to emulate bouncing breasts, companies have been trying to push the sexual envelope in an attempt at creating a product that will fly off the shelves. Though no one has come close to creating the next Lara Croft, it is hardly from a lack of trying.

Which leads us to the next landmark point in the history of video games - featured in the October issue of Playboy will be an entire spread devoted to showing the naughty bits of characters viewable in the past only through fan made art. Direct from the developers themselves comes completely uncensored pictures of the girls of gaming.

For those curious, the cast includes such no name characters as Bloodrayne from her self titled game, Dixie from Playboy: The Mansion, Luba Licious from Leisure Suite Larry and Tala from Darkwatch. Not exactly a whose who of the video game world. Was Lara Croft busy? Or was the price of ink just too high that day?

First, a question about who is the demographic for these pictures. Comparing the images that will appear in Playboy with pictures drawn by hormone enriched fans of these and other games, I was quite surprised to see quality and imagination is much higher in the amateur art. When fans of the game see the drawings in Playboy, they may wonder why the quality is so poor, what game that chick they never even heard of appears in or, most puzzling of all, why Bloodrayne's face is deformed.

If you are a fan of the game and spend hours mentally undressing these characters as you play through the adventure, chances are you will have already formed an image of them naked in your head. As they are completely fictitious characters whose proportions can be changed with the stroke of a pen, it's ludicrous to say the pictures in Playboy are "real" while the art work or imagination of fans is somehow wrong.

Regardless of how poor the drawings in Playboy are, I am sure many fans will purchase the magazine just to see, first hand, video game characters appearing in the all together. But that is probably a very small percentage of Playboy's overall readership. Most of the people who will view this spread will be regular readers of the magazine who have come to expect pictures of real women, no matter how much of their body is actually fake.

Assuming that most of Playboy's readership is comprised of either non- or casual gamers, I have to wonder how excited they will be by these images. Poorly rendered versions of women most people have never heard of, let alone imagined naked, seems like a recipe for disaster. The level of acceptance of our society is such that, while it is Ok to take pleasure in seeing naked pictures of women, at least in private, there is a certain line one must cross before one can find enjoyment in a drawing of a naked, completely fictitious, woman.

Even more alarming is what this will do to video games as a whole. Slowly and surely, video games are shedding their classification as children's toys and becoming a completely tangible aspect of our culture. While most people don't consider video games art, they are able to accept that people other than small children enjoy playing games and that, at the very least, video games will be around for a very long time.

Having naked pictures of female stars cheapens the whole industry. Every form of entertainment has people willing to scrape the bottom of the barrel to get some sort of attention. There have been many singers and actresses who appeared in Playboy over the years.

But video games are not yet at that level of acceptance where they can do something like this without repercussions. Most of the time, when video games are reported on in mainstream outlets, it is about how violent games are warping children's minds or blaming our children's delinquency on too much time playing games and not enough time running in parks. There is rarely a positive report on video games in circles most people frequent.

Having a pictorial in Playboy reinforces the mainstream belief that gamers are horny loners, and make it that much harder for gaming to gain acceptance.

Nick's Response:

While I definitely agree that the pictures in question are lame, and that the demographic is questionable at best, I'm not against the idea as a whole. All misdirection aside, this kind of thing is represented in many other forms of art, entertainment and society, as Tom mentioned. Whether or not it's "scraping the bottom of the barrel", it shows me that videogames are indeed beginning to penetrate mainstream thought. Of course it would be nicer if it happened in a classier fashion than nude picture spreads and ultra-crappy movie translations, but I'll take what we can get. People can continue to think gamers are horny loners all they want, but as long as little things like this keep popping up in various places, we'll stay in the public's eye. And once they make the effort to explore the medium a little further, they'll realize that gamers represent a very broad spectrum of people, horny and non-horny alike.

As far as the execution, I just think they picked the wrong characters, magazine, and general approach. PSM (Playstation magazine) has an annual swimsuit spread which works very well thanks to the great art and the sense of humor that it's approached with. While fictitious characters can certainly be made to be attractive, we're not not at the level of graphical prowess (and won't be for some time) where a nude "photo spread" of gaming girls can be displayed with any modicum of seriousness. I also think that Maxim magazine would have been a much better choice for such a thing, as the age of their readership is perfect, they have an alright sense of humor, they can probably show cartoon nudity if need be, and it would be reaching an audience who gave a damn. As is, it's just a grossly misfired attempt at making something out of, what would appear to be, nothing.

- Tom


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