
Kinect sex game will not become reality, Microsoft says - badwetter
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2010/12/microsoft-kinect-sex-game-xbox-360.html
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mrcharles
This is a very big problem in the games industry right now, because all
controlled platforms have committed to not selling adult only games. The
consequences of which have filtered all the way down the chain, and the
chilling effect is seen almost every single day in the games industry.

The problem is that if you get an ESRB AO rating, no one will publish it,
because everyone believes that Adults Only means porn or gratuitous sex. And
maybe it does. But it can also mean violence, or mature content, or things
which are simply not appropriate for non-adults. I don't think the distinction
should actually exist, honestly, but that's a separate discussion.

But the problem is if you consider a game of some sort that has extensive use
of graphic violence, then you put yourself directly in line for a bit
censorship banhammer.

NC-17 films can still be made. But effectively, AO games cannot, as the market
space for it is artificially shrunk through censorship.

So any time you are working on a game, and the violence or sex or maturity of
content starts reaching a potential AO level, it gets cut, or toned down.

There are game ideas right now which can never be made, thanks to platform
censorship. It holds the industry back.

~~~
mrcharles
Also worse is the reason the platform companies do this -- because it is in
their best monetary interests to keep the market images of the consoles as
"kid friendly." They want that parents can randomly pick a game off a shelf
without ever looking at it without fear of putting something inappropriate for
a child in the console.

They don't want that a child could ever acquire something inappropriate for
the console at all, in any channel, for fear that the reputation of the
console would hurt sales in the sub-16 range.

The irony is that they want this so that they can continue selling M rated
games to 13 year olds, as that's the most lucrative section of sales for M
rated games, as they stand on gaming platforms.

Because really, if you sit back and look at it, the level of 'mature' content
that ends up in actual M rated games is the exact kind that appeals to young
teens, and everyone knows it.

~~~
tptacek
Why is that inherently bad? The companies release a product with a target
market; some content for the platform would be a deal-breaker for their
positioning, so they disallow it. It's a free market and companies are allowed
to make those kinds of decisions.

If there was huge pent-up demand for adult-themed games, wouldn't it stand to
reason that some console manufacturer would buck the trend to collect the
profits?

Incidentally, if the most lucrative part of the market is 13 year olds buying
M-rated games, doesn't that sort of imply either that there isn't much money
to be made from making AO games, or that the eventual audience for those games
would be 13 year olds?

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yock
Absolutely. The idea that this vacuum of hyper-violent or graphically-sexual
video games is somehow a "problem" is more a treatise on what some people
believe the market should be more than what the market actually is. It's
absurd for precisely the reasons you state. If there was a market for it,
however seedy or unorthodox, it would exist to service that market for a tidy
profit. It doesn't exist, therefore no one believes it would be profitable.

~~~
mrcharles
It is not about hyper-violent or graphically sexual games. It is about games
which can conceivably address that content, or use that content for effect,
without fear of being marginalized or censored.

~~~
tptacek
You answered his comment but not mine. My point doesn't depend on superficial
adult content. If there's money in artistically-valid AO games, why doesn't
someone capitalize on that? In reality, aren't we talking about AO developers
being unhappy that they can't capitalize on the success of a platform that is
successful _because it successfully targets 13 year olds_?

~~~
mrcharles
Yeah, I basically got you with reply to my other comment. Multiple threads
FTL.

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jaysonelliot
If it weren't for sex, none of us would be here today. Yet we still hold some
kind of Puritanical censor in our minds that tells us it's the worst possible
thing in society.

How ironic that it should be banned on the Xbox, where you can encounter every
form of violence and gore imaginable.

Would some 3D rendered boobs have been ok if they were zombie boobs?

~~~
philbo
Good point. Is a game that simulates sex somehow less ethically acceptable
than one that simulates murder or warfare?

~~~
tptacek
No. It is equally bad to put realistic violence in the hands of grade school
kids; I won't let my 11 year old play Call of Duty, and am actually a little
queasy about Halo.

I don't _like_ that AO does to gaming what NC-17 does to movies; adults should
be free to play adult-themed games. But I also don't see it as a great loss to
humanity. It sucks a little that Microsoft and Sony are catering to a lazy
style of parenting, but you can write those games for an uncensored platform
instead.

~~~
arethuza
I'm not sure that video games really make exposure to violence that much worse
- certainly when I was in my youth in the '70s we didn't have video games but
we did have imaginations that turned just about anything we could get our
hands on into an imaginary weapon (being in the UK the Bad Guys were, of
course, the Germans).

I let my 11 year old play CoD and Halo - sometimes with a twinge of concern
but as all his friends do it would have to be more than a twinge to make me
stop him.

I don't think this has impaired his view of violence in the real world - we
watched a TV recreation of the events of Bloody Sunday and he was genuinely
shocked by the behavior of British soldiers even though his school has an Army
Cadet unit and he has friends with big brothers in the forces.

~~~
tptacek
I don't think less of you for letting your 11 year old play CoD.

But: why do you have that twinge? And, what does "what all his friends do"
really have to do with your own parenting decisions? All my son's friends
drink bottomless cups of carbonated sugar syrup, too.

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kristofferR
This is a really stupid article. Everybody knew that Microsoft would never
approve a sex game for the Xbox 360, but this was never about that.

They're integrating Kinect support into their already existing Windows sex
games using the thriXXX engine. They're using open source Kinect drivers and
software to make it possible, they don't need (or want) Microsoft's approval.
Microsoft can't do anything to stop this.

You can read the full press release at <http://kinecthacks.net/kinect-sex/> .
It's pretty what they meant.

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adulau
I just remembered the article "Pornography Drives Technology: Why Not to
Censor the Internet" while reading the article:

<http://www.law.indiana.edu/fclj/pubs/v49/no1/johnson.html>

~~~
Mz
Excerpt:

 _Pornography has several values beyond serving as a test-driver for new
media. As suggested above in the Betamax-VHS battle, porn, with little cash to
spare and its nose to the ground, is often first to sniff out the practical
uses of new media, leading the way for profitable investment by the
mainstream.

Furthermore, porn draws curiosity seekers, who stay to see what else the new
media can do. There is a convenient dovetailing in the audience for computers
and pornography: young, white males dominate both markets. Gadget-playing,
girl-crazy young men will stay longer at a terminal that supplies both girls
and gadgets.(48) Finally, several studies have suggested that, far from
creating sexist, violent feelings in young men, pornography has a calming,
cathartic effect, easing adolescent cares with a dose of mild erotica.(49)

Other values of pornography have been suggested. For one thing, the very fear
that pornography arouses in parents may redound to society's advantage. In
order to keep indecent messages from reaching their computer-literate
children, parents themselves must become computer-literate and learn to use
blocking and screening devices. If Congress is allowed to assume the parental
role, parents will have less incentive to learn what their children already
know.(50) Furthermore, far from fearing what computer sex may be teaching,
parents can use the computer as an opportunity to discuss sex in a meaningful
way with their children.(51)

Finally, sex on the computer is far better for children than another kind of
sex that is drawing Congressional fire, that is, sex on television.(52) While
sex and violence on television shoulder the blame for sex and violence in
society, several studies have suggested that something else about television
is the real culprit. That is, the passive, solitary nature of television-
watching is an anti-social activity, which steals children's time away from
more active, engaging kinds of play. Thus, when children erupt in violence
after watching television, it is not because they have been watching too much
sex or violence but because they have been watching too much television.(53)
Computers, by contrast, are interactive and socializing, feeding the very
skills that TV starves. Therefore, anything, including the risque, that
entices children from the TV to the computer is a good thing.(54)_

I will add that porn has educational value in its own right. People who are
all uptight and judgmental about porn are typically also all uptight and
judgmental about sex generally. For many youth, these illicit forms of sexual
materials are the best education they can pursue on a topic that is pretty
vital to quality of life (for a variety of reasons). Asking uptight adults
isn't going to get them useful, meaningful feedback (and may result in
disinformation -- or even punishment) and asking other people their own age is
likely to get them little or no information, mixed up with a lot of
misinformation. Porn has the additional advantage that while it transmits
information, it doesn't transmit disease or cause pregnancy.

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tdoggette
Like hell it won't. Microsoft's approval isn't the only way to get code
running on a 360, and the Kinect is wide open. I give it a couple of months
before everyone can happily thrust their hips at their televisions and rack up
orgasm points.

~~~
iwwr
Can Microsoft sue companies that release Kinect-based products that are not
licensed (and specifically required to work on the xbox 360)?

~~~
devicenull
I would think the DMCA 'reverse engineering for compatibility' exception would
prevent that.

~~~
iwwr
Wasn't someone selling unlocked xboxes fined and/or imprisoned recently?

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cubicle67
After watching the demo, it looks like it should be pretty simple to transform
it into some sort of Tickle Me Elmo game though

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morphir
The perverts will win. Simply because there is too big of a market for this to
be ignored.

~~~
geoka9
Essentially you are saying that many people will win because too many people
are perverts for this perverse demand to be ignored, right?

~~~
morphir
Essentially I'm saying that the developers/distributors that make these kind
of products will find a way to reach their customers some way or another. Just
because microsoft makes this statement may indeed hinder the market from
developing in the early beginnings. But it will not stop the perverts in the
long run. Not that I'm against this product in any particular way - as I think
people are to be free to explore their sexual fantasies. I am saying however,
that the market will be (probably) too big to be ignored.

