Poke the Doll— And Then What?

Many of you may have heard that the very first Sex in Videogames conference was held in San Francisco last month, bringing together a couple hundred game designers, erotic futurists, and pornographers, into the same room.

The special economies of porn design vs. game conception were one hot topic, according to the Wired story I've linked above, but my friend Neil added to the story: "I find it interesting that they are (accurately) able to point at the porn industry for lacking a sense of adventure in sex. Prudes."

My friend Tony, who attended the conference, told me it was interesting and full of information... "though it became a bit grating after a while. I heard one spiel too many about the hard-wired differences between men and woman. Many— like women are not "visual"— are complete bullshit, imho.

"Most of the games being developed by porn people are of the 'poke the doll' variety," he said. "I'm not convinced there's much of a future there.  The real excitement is in massive multiplayer games and environments like Second Life and RedLightCenter, that are open-ended. Again, my opinion."

I'd never heard that expression "Poke the Doll," before, and it made me laugh. We've all done our fair share of poking and prodding in our toy-life history, I imagine.

I remember having someone bring the earliest title of this kind into the On Our Backs office in the 80s. It was a black-and-white game for the Macintosh called MacPlaymate. She was a hand-drawn, b/w cartoon, a heavily pixelated naked woman who lay on a bed. You moved your mouse around her pussy, to arouse her to orgasm. She responded by writhing and moaning.

I was startled that she turned me on at all, but she did. What was it? I finally decided it was her incredibly sexy voice. You would just keep mousing away at her forever to hear those moans. I called up Mike Saenz, her creator, and he said that yes, he really did luck into "Rachel," his impromptu voice talent.

But I forgot about her after a few days. What a cad.

With my taste in story and dialog, if I did follow a game, it would because there was suspense, conflict, occasional ecstatic relief, and a real investment in character. A little poking now and then would be fine too, but in the excitement of those contexts!

I grew up with the first generation of boys who played Dungeons and Dragons. I always wondered how come that world wasn't sexier. My own version of Dungeons and Barbies certainly had the erotic suspense element.

What do you think? Did you or do you ever play a computer-origin game that feeds your inner horny dragon? Did any of you go to the conf and come to other conclusions?