November 16, 2006
Writing in the excellent Dean & Nooch game blog, San Jose Mercury tech writer Dean Takahashi reports on Playboy's racy depictions of video game characters in the magazine's November issue.Tough assignment, Dean, but somebody has to do it, eh?
It's the third year in a row for such a spread in Playboy. With the cooperation of game developers and publishers, a number of game characters are depicted in the November issue, including:
- Sarah Morrison from Tabula Rasa
- Jessica McRae from Scarface: The World Is Yours
- Lida from God of War II
- Persphone from God of War II
- Alica Claus from BulletWitch
- Dr. Jasmine Lin from TimeShift
- Enrica Villablanca from Splinter Cell: Double Agent
Scott Alexander, a senior Playboy editor, told Takahashi:
Hef is a gadget guy and tech is a huge part of men’s lives. The constituency of gaming and Playboy are almost exact... These are all beautiful women in these games. They’re marketed to adults. It’s not like we’re dealing with Princess Peach. God of War is an M-rated game. It’s funny how you can have all this violence and game gets a teen rating. There’s always a lot more violence than there is sex...
The issue is that games are seen as for kids. But they’re so not. The level and intensity of games is clearly not for kids, like in Scarface or The Godfather... The politicians are scoring points by exploiting this. They want to point to easy targets.
Takahashi wonders if Playboy's involvement is good or bad for gaming:
I have to wonder whether Playboy is pushing the game industry forward with its message about the growing diversity of games, or setting it back by emphasizing the sexist depiction of women, which can turn off half the human population and appeal to just a slice of the male population. It's sort of like going to E3 to see a fantastically creative game -- presented to you by a booth babe.
GP notes that high-profile female characters are generally not appearing in Playboy. Are we seeing the game industry equivalent of the starving young actress doing what she has to do to get by? Will the nude images come back to haunt a female character if her popularity blossoms?
Comments
So why not have a Playgirl edition, with all the popular male characters? Only include their likes/dislikes, what kind of romantic date they'd take a girl out on, exploration of their sensitive side...
You know, all the fluff they put in Cosmo.
One could argue that at least Playboy is the skin mag that does the least objectification of women (compared to other skin mags I mean). I think more damage could have been done had they appeared in Hustler or other trashier magazines.
No, because no one would actually care. at least, not normal people would...
Besides, it's not as if you can't find fanmade 'porn' on the net of just about any female (and some male) game characters ever made. But is the thought that there's nudity of a game character so horrible that people should forget about the GAME itself, lay down their controller/mouse and throw the cd away?
Hardly...
Tabula Rasa - a game from the creators of Ultima (not very ADD friendly)
Scarface - not for the tiny cocka roaches
God of War 2 - definatly not going to be an E rated game
BulletWitch - looking to be M rated
Timeshift - holy crap whats this another M rated game?
Double Agent - hot damn another M rated game.
Looks like they have their adult fanbase market pegged and they are all old enough to legally buy the magazine.
God of War II -- sequel to a best-selling game and a huge franchise in the making.
Splinter Cell -- very successful game franchise.
Tabula Rasa -- NCSoft's next big MMO release and the first such release since Auto Assault flopped.
Anyway, I don't think this hurts gaming. If anything, it should further demonstrate that video games are no longer only for kids and Playboy is about as tasteful as a magazine with pics of naked women could possibly be. I don't think it's a big deal.
If anything, this will probably advance Sex In Games, even if it's in a mostly one-sided manner, although there is probably a bit of a PR issue if you're a Thompson-type.
/b
On a sidenote, this is the hardest time I've ever had trying to sort seriousness from sarcasm.
If only there were enough good looking (and not underaged, Suikoden I'm looking at you) male main characters for that to happen. *sigh*
/b
If you regularly purchase Playboy you'll appreciate it, and if you don't you wont be affected in any way.
I second the idea of doing them for girls/gay men too though.
I mean, why not?
Oh please GP please. That is really funny. For some reason that is making me think of the Family Guy episode with Minnie Mouse exposing herself for Walt Disney in order to become famous.
Seriously though. It would be great if they could get guy characters in on this deal I mean don't guys out number girls in games anyway. But I'm still a little against playboy. Just a little since I've never read it and from my understanding it seems to show women in the sexual light only. Man, I'm torn. Its like if thats what the magazine is about then its the same as having an all car mag. So in essence this was a waste of space, me posting as well as you reading. Sorry.
Shame we're not going to see Link in there any time soon though.
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