Lesson 9-Sex and Games

Question 1

Which game genre was earliest to introduce sexuality?

Answer 1

Adventure Games

Question 2

Like RPGs, puzzle games, educational games, where do adventure games borrow their ideas from?

Answer 2

MUDs, or multi user dungeons and tabletop RPGs

Question 3

What was the earliest influential adventure game?

Answer 3

It was a text adventure game called Adventure. Adventure began as a text game themed around caving. It was created by Will Crowther who took the basic layout from a cave and added some fantasy gameplay elements. A year later, programmer Don Woods modified Adventure’s code, and added story elements puzzles and a scoring system to Adventure’s exploration mechanics. Wood’s version became Colossal Cave Adventures.

Question 4

What became a critical gameplay element in adventure games, because of Adventure and Colossal Cave Adventures

Answer 4

Inventory management

Question 5

Which game in the 1980s finally made text adventure games, affordable and popular?

Answer 5

Zork in the 1980s published by Infocom. It did a great job of expanding adventure’s rudimentary gameplay elements

Question 6

While America was building fantasy text adventure games, what was Japan creating? What game was the earliest?

end of 9-1-Sexuality and Adventure

Answer 6

In Japan, graphic text adventures were also growing in popularity. Many if these were erotic games with sexual imagery.

Night Life, released in 1982. The game was marketed as a tool to improve couple’s sexual lives. The game was kind of a sexual simulator

These are called eroge games

Question 7

There was a resurgence for text based games in the mid 2000s. What game?

Answer 7

Pheonix Wright Ace Attorney (combined traditional adventure game and novel visual elements

Question 8

Which game brought adventure back? What other game did it inspire?

Answer 8

Telltale gave us Walking Dead which brought the Adventure genre back to public consciousness. This was made possible by new distributions like Steam and new funding opportunities like kick-starters

Question 9

What happened in the 1970s in arcades?

Answer 9

Arcades during this time used sex, usually in the form of a scantily clad female to market games.

Some had print ads and cabinet graphics that included female models as eye candy to promote the game

Question 10

Let's think about the kind of audience
game marketers were targeting in
games such as Gotcha.
When creating a game, designers usually
assume something about the lifestyle,
gender and interests of players.
Most early video game designers assumed
that their audience was 
A, male,
B, single, 
C, heterosexual,
or D, all of the above.

Answer 10

The correct response is D.
Many games assumed that the player
was a single, heterosexual male.

Question 11

>> Let's talk about two words we're
going to use a lot in this lesson,
sex and gender.
It is important to keep
them clear in your head.
Although often used interchangeably
in everyday conversation,
the word sex means the reproductive
differences between males and females.
Generally, sex refers to biology.
In contrast, gender generally refers to
A, the same thing.
There is no difference between sex and
gender.
B, the sociocultural construction
of sex roles in society.
Or C, the fact that we're all
the same regardless of our sex.

Answer 11

The correct response is B.
Gender refers to how societies and
cultures construct ideas and
representations of femininity, masculinity
and all other gender conceptions.
This takes the form of gender roles and
gender politics.
It is important to remember that gender
is a fluid and ambiguous concept,
even in cultures that have very
traditional roles for men and women.
Gender is more a process that is built,
learned, negotiated and renegotiated.
Given this fluidity in the conception of
gender, it should not be surprising that
there was some exploration of gender
roles involved in game environments.

Question 12

What is cybersex? What was the article that brought attention to cybersex?

Answer 12

Involves in-character sexual role play between anon players

A Rape in Cyberspace, describes how one character in an online site(LambdaMOO) sexually assaulted several other characters in-game

Some online games like the MMO Maple Story even have complex marital game mechanics

Question 13

Remember that language
shapes perception and
gendered language shapes how
gamers perceive themselves.

Think about stereotype designers assume of the player: white, heterosexual, single.

In the fall of 1993,
two significant things happened.
One was the release of Doom,
which heralded the start of the
male-dominated first person shooter genre.
The second event was the launch
of the adventure game Myst,
which was the number one selling game for
about a decade.
Women played Myst far more often than men.

Interestingly, Myst would lose
its top sales spot to The Sims,
another game known for
its substantial female audience.

And yet the media and
the public rarely characterized
games as something for women.

Why the persisting view
that games are for boys?

Answer 13

For game scholars like Ian Bogost, the
answer is one of language and perception.

Think of the ways that the language of
mass media linked games and maleness.
Mass shootings, as an example, almost
are always perpetrated by young men and
are frequently linked to the play of
first person shooter video games.
The extreme nature of these crimes,
the gender of the criminal and
the kinds of games that the shooter played
are tied to the crime's terrible imagery.
And so,
when people think about video games,
they think about young men playing Doom,
Mortal Kombat or Call of Duty.

this problem of perception is rooted in
the language players use to
describe their culture and
the manner in which the media adopts
that language without consideration.

casual game Sims,
Farmville and Words for
Friends are played by much larger
audiences than violent FPSes yet, nonsensically, These games are dismissed by real gamers
as things played by women over 40.

Question 14

Before we continue with
our exploration of sex and
sexuality, let's review
an important concept.
In this lesson,
we'll be drawing on Robin Hunicke and
her co-authors' MDA Framework for
Understanding Games.
They use the term aesthetics to
refer to a player's experience.
That's the sense of fellowship,
fun, challenge, discovery and
defeat that takes place in a game.
Aesthetics only make up one
piece of the MDA framework.
The other two pieces are 
A, mechanics and
design,
B, materialism and dynamics, 
C,
motivations and decisions, or
D, mechanics and dynamics.
end of 9-2-Sex in Games

Answer 14

The answer is D.
The MDA framework consists of mechanics,
dynamics and aesthetics.
These three elements are in balance.
Mechanics belong in the domain
of the game developers,
while aesthetics are in
the domain of the players.
And dynamics exists
somewhere in the middle
between the players' experiences and
the game's mechanics.

Question 15

What are the five different ways in which sex is used or appears in video games?

Answer 15

sex as abstraction, sex as a game goal, sex as a mechanic, sex as an aesthetic and sex as emergent gameplay

Question 16

What is Bogost’s idea (this was from lesson 6

Answer 16

Bogost’s ideas as of procedural rhetoric both introduced back in lesson 6

Question 17

Sex as abstraction:

What do we mean by abstraction?

Answer 17

Game developers need some kind of abstraction to represent sex and sexuality in a game.

By abstract we mean a conceptual means for representing something that is concrete. So abstraction works through simplification. It’s a means for representing a concrete and usually complex human activity

Question 18

We use the term abstraction to
discuss the representation of sex and
sexuality in video games.
By abstraction we mean that,
A) the aesthetic design visually
represents sexual themes differently
depending on the game's ESRB rating.
B) The sexual content is
often a superfluous addition,
separate from the game's
concrete purpose and game goals.
C) The complex nature of
human sexual relationships is simplified
and represented in another way.
D) The game's mechanics are unable
to represent any human experiences.

Answer 18

C is the correct answer.
Sex and sexuality are incredibly complex,
it is not possible to accurately and
concretely represent
sexuality in video games

Question 19

What is structuralism?

Answer 19

an abstraction that is meant to simplify and yet still capture some of the richness of everyday life.

Similarly, video games abstract sex and sexuality to represent human experience in a simplified yet meaningful manner.

Question 20

Take Rod Humble's indie
art game The Marriage.
It's a deceivingly simple game.
Your goal, if there is one,
is to have your pink and
blue square survive as long as possible.
If either the blue or
pink square disappears, the game ends.
Your only means for interaction are by
hovering near or over the two squares.
Or, clicking on one of
the many moving circles.
When the pink and
blue squares are further apart,
the blue square becomes more opaque and
the pink square becomes more transparent.
And when the squares overlap,
the blue square becomes transparent and
the pink square becomes opaque.
When the squares bump into each other,
the pink square gets larger and
the blue one gets smaller.
And there are dozens of other rules, and
interactions that influence
the lives of the two squares.
The question, of course,
is what does this all mean?
We're given very little
interpretive context.
The game's name suggests a deep commitment
between the two squares, and blue and
pink suggest masculine and feminine
partners, but even that is interpretable.

What are the colors if pink and blue means feminine and masculine?

Answer 20

The colors are abstractions that simplify sex and gender. Two things that are almost infinitely complex. To make sense of the game, we have to dig in our own experiences or those of others.

So in summary, sex as abstraction
in video games does a lot of
things at the same time.
It simplifies certain aspects of
human sexuality in a rational and
repeatable manner.
Simultaneously, it represents much more
complex and rich human experiences.
It allows for adult issues to be
represented in non threatening ways.

The Marriage's simple
interface reveals a fairly
complex interpretation
of marital relations.
The longer one plays the game, the more
it encourages such interpretations.

Question 21

Let's review what we just discussed.
Sexuality is abstracted in video games for
specific purposes.
The reason is, 
A) To attempt to
represent the complexity and
richness of human sexuality.
B) To make games more family friendly,
through symbolism and metaphor.
C) To simplify the complex
nature of the topic so
it can be expressed
rationally in the game.
D) To permit thoughtful
interpretation of human relationships.
Or, E) All of the above.

Answer 21

All of these answers are correct,
so the answer is E.

Video game designers are not
the only ones who use abstraction in
an attempt to explore, simplify, or
confound the topic of sexuality.
We see these themes emerging in film,
literature and advertising.
The next time you're in
a media saturated environment,
try to identify incidences of
sex as an abstract concept.

Question 22

Abstraction used as a game goal: A second way to view sex in video games is to see it as a game goal

Answer 22

An example would be Leisure Suit Larry, where at the back of the box says” the object of the game is to help Larry overcome his jerkisms and lose his you know what.”.

So in this game, the goal and
motivation for play is to get Larry to
lose his virginity to a female character.

Another game to demonstrate this is strip poker, where you keep making the female character lose, and she removes clothing. You win when she is bare.

Sexuality and presumably lust and
compliance is expressed as a female nude.
That’s the abstraction.

Question 23

There are many other complexities
in the concept of male gaze.
The most significant is that such
perspectives negatively affect our
perception of ourselves.
Let's explore this idea.
Mulvey's theory of the male
gaze assumes that, 
A) It is only men who view sexualized content, be it in a film or a video game.
B) The viewer both objectifies and identifies with the sexualized
portrayal of a character on screen.
C) All video game designers
primarily design games for
a heterosexual male audience.
From the perspective of
a heterosexual male.
D) The avatars available to play
in video games are always male.
If the avatar is male, so is his gaze

Answer 23

The correct answer is B.
Laura Mulvey's theory is an attempt to
explain the societal imbalance of power between men and women. The theory suggests that the consumption of media makes women passive objects for the pleasure of others.
It also makes us active viewers
who objectify those we view for
our own sexual gratification.
This would be the traditional male gaze

A is Incorrect.
Mulvey's theory assumes that
most media is framed for
male consumption, but
more than just men view them.
The theory assumes that all viewers
are affected by sexualized content.
For the same reason, C might have seemed
like the right answer on the surface,
but game designers do build games for
other intended audiences,
as we'll see in a few minutes.
For D,
there are more playable male characters in
video games especially in leading roles.
But for our purposes here,
we're not referring to the gaze of
the character within the media itself.
The theory describes
the gaze of the audience.
Try to keep the concept of male
gaze in mind when we complicate
the discussion later in the lesson when we
talk about game mechanics and aesthetics

Question 24

What are three sub-genres of the dating sims games in Japan(where there is sexual content as game goal, while also featuring complex narratives and rich character development)?

end of 9-3- representations of sex

Answer 24

Bishouji game-usually assume a heterosexual male player who tries to romance one of a handful of female NPCs

Eroge games- features quite explicit sexual content as a goal and reward for progression

Yoai games-predominantly female audience interested in male homosexual couples

Question 25

sex used as a game mechanic.
Brings us back to lesson 6 on Bogost’s procedural rhetoric. The game’s mechanics are making an argument about sexuality. There is no distinction between gay and straight couples(in The Sims)

What is an example in which sex has a role in game mechanics?

Answer 25

Other games make explicit differences between men and females and the roles they play through their game mechanics**
In many early tabletop role playing games, female characters were given an extra point of dexterity(skill with hands) and male players given a point in strength.

In Super Mario Two, Princess Peach is one of the four playable characers. Each character has slightly different abilities: Mario can jump and lift, Luigi can jump higher but lift weaker, Toad jumps poorly but lifts things quickly and Peach is the only character who can float for a short period in time.

This is balanced by the fact that she is slower at pulling vegetables out of the ground than a Toad, she has a shorter jump than Luigi and Mario.
If we compare the characters, the male characters are represented as being stronger and faster than female characters.

So gender is both visually represented in the game and expressed through the game mechanics that involve physical strength and movement

Question 26

Let's examine how game mechanics and
sexuality interrelate.
The abstraction of sex and
sexuality through game mechanics,
creates meaning because, 
A,
mechanics are created by the developer.
The developer determines how
the player experiences sex and gender.
B, 
mechanics determine the player's
experience of sex and gender.
Sexist mechanics create sexist players.
C, 
mechanics are unimportant.
Visual style and
graphics matter more than gameplay in
determining the sexual content of a game.

Or, D, 
mechanics create opportunities for
interaction.
Players interpret such opportunities
through their experiences.

Answer 26

Most of these answers seem
right on the surface.
If you picked A,
there is something to the idea
that the developer has some
authorial control over the game.
But remember that the player's
experience is his or her own.
And that's not something under
the developer's control.
B suggests something similar,
that game mechanics can somehow determine
a player's experience or social behavior.
Mechanics can give the player a context
for action, but it cannot determine it.
C might be true as a personal opinion for
some players, but
as you'll see in the rest of the lesson,
mechanics matter a great deal for
how players experience gender.
So, that makes D the correct answer.
Mechanics give the players a context
within which they can act.
The player's experience
matters just as much and
helps to shape the meaning
sex has within that context.

Question 27

A protagonist’s personality develops through gameplay, which game?

Answer 27

Plundered Hearts which features the pirate Miss Dimford. As her confidence increases, so does the things she is able to do. In the end of the game, Miss Dimsford saves her father and her love interest Captain Falcon. So in this game, the heroine of the story undergoes personality changes that are expressed in both story and game mechanics.

Question 28

>> Good, innovative games try to break out of traditional stereotypes. Such games can use sex and gender as
a game mechanic to foster a sense of
A, Goodwill.
B, Agency.
C, Ownership.
Or D, Excitement.

Answer 28

This was a tricky question. All of
the above might be true in certain games.
Some games build good will between
the player and the protagonist.
So the player cares about the character.
Sometimes this even produces a sense
of ownership in the character.
Some game mechanics are built to be
exciting as we see in the action genre.
But the best answer is B.
When sex and
gender are used well as mechanics,
they can create a sense
of agency in the player.

Agency-
Agency is the level of control that a player feels they have in a game world.

Agency refers to the player’s ability to control and manipulate the game. Not control like controller inputs, but does the player’s actions have consequences in and effects on the game world. Usually the more scripted and linear the game, the less agency the player possesses.

Question 29

It is worth mentioning that a few
games have tried to mimic or
replicate sex acts
through controller input.
The player controls the pace and
progression of sex through the controller.

What can you say about this in a few words?

Answer 29

examples of sex as game
mechanic deserve a few words.
And those words would be terrible and
awkward and awkward again.
In truth, video games have only recently
started to handle themes like love,
friendship, and affection well.
Games are still miles from meaningfully
replicating and representing sex itself.
For now,
sticking to abstractions might be wise.

Question 30

sex as aesthetic. In Mass Effect, there is an optional coitis scene. What does this emphasize in the game between protagonist Shepard and an NPC?

Answer 30

The game emphasizes intimacy. Sex is implied but is never explicitly shown(structuralism-an abstraction that simplifies but still captures the richness of everyday life). Most games represent coitis implicitly like Mass Effect, where during the intimate scene, the camera cuts to the ceiling when appropriate. In doing so, they’re actually expressing and representing gender roles.

Question 31

What is the 1986 adventure game that begins with the avatar at its infancy, and lets player have their agency, making decisions in the avatar’s life until they are old? (additionally the player is given the option of playing a male or female protagonist)

Answer 31

Alter Ego. The developers sold two version of the game- Alter Ego Male or Alter Ego Female

The male version had rock throwing competitions while the female had dress up competitions. Slashing the teacher’s new tire became a risky new hair-do in the female version.

In summary, the both Alter Ego versions express gender stereotypes. The the game heavily oriented on heteronormative

Question 32

What is heteronormative?

Answer 32

is the assumptions that there are specific roles, relationships and identities normal to men and females

Question 33

Let's do a quick review.
Heteronormativity is a concept
that asserts 
A, Men and
women differ inherently in terms
of their physical characteristics.
B, There are many normal ways
of expressing sexuality,
regardless of gender.
C, Men and women have specific
personality traits or interests
that align with the societal perceptions
of what is normal for their gender.
Or D, It is impossible to assign
gender-based personality traits or
interests to individuals due to
the large number of people in the world.

end of 9-4-Sex as mechanic

Answer 33

The correct answer is C.
Heteronormativity describes a social
perception of what is normal behavior for
men and women.

If you picked A, you might have
been thinking of sexual dimorphism.
A phrase describing the physical
sex differences between males and
females of the same species.
But this isn't a biology course.
B is incorrect because it
describes a more pluralistic or
inclusive way of thinking about sexuality.
Which heteronormativity is not.
And D is not correct, either.
Heteronormative thinking
still persists today.
It continues in gaming culture, perhaps
because of the way games are designed.

Question 34

helpless, naive women need
rescuing by a male hero which plays off
fairly static heteronormative roles for
both men and women.
What do these designs impact?

Answer 34

They impact game aesthetics

Question 35

Which character in which game, became the world’s first sex symbol in a video game?

What was the conflict between the developers and publishers about this character?

Answer 35

Lara Croft from Tomb Raider

The developer worked to render a more realistic body

But the publisher continued to sexualize Lara’s body through suggestive ads

This hints at a deeper aesthetic level, what was Lara’s appeal to game audiences? Were the gamers enamored by her acrobatic prowess or was the audience comprised of males who objectified her?

The final way that we want to tlak about how sex manifests in games is sex as emergent play

Question 36

Sex as emergent play: some games intentionally create a play space for players to explore gender, sex and sexuality. What are some examples of these?

Answer 36

in MUDs during the 80s and 90s, there were playspaces where online players could have online weddings, which is an interesting form of emergent play. They import a rather ubiquitous social and cultural institution into the virtual world.

Question 37

Are online weddings play spaces that designers usually create?

Answer 37

Online weddings are usually players constructed(sex as emergent play). The game only exists as play space to facilitate the process.

Question 38

Can you think of ways how players might facilitate a wedding in a play space?

Answer 38

They have to recreate traditions for the ceremony within the constraints of what they could do in the game.(creating traditions). For example, they would have to create a dance, invite guests etc.

They had to fabricate the entire ceremony from wedding rings to flower arrangements and flowers.

Players can use ordinary objects like candles, shields, dyed carpets and make them special items suitable for a ceremony.

all of these activities
reflect how individuals perceive and
represent their personal relationships.
These activities implicitly express or
reject gender norms and traditions.
And serve as a form of emergent sex play.

Question 39

Staging an event like a marriage
ceremony inside a multiplayer video game
can be considered emergent play.
When 
A, the game does not have
a specific mechanics or or
rules devoted to allowing
in-game weddings.
B, the wedding is between a real player,
and an NPC, or, between two NPCs.
C, one of the players does
not consent to the ceremony.
Or D, the marriage ceremony is required to
move further along in the narrative of the game

Answer 39

The correct answer is A.
This is practically the definition
of emergent play in video games.
Gameplay is emergent
when an in-game activity
occurs without the pre-determination
of specific mechanics or
rules to support that activity.
For B and C, although these
are both possible, neither of these
situations describes unexpected events
in the context of the game mechanics.
If you chose D, you are probably
confusing emergence with progression.
If the narrative dictates that
something must happen in a game,
that is an example of progression,
not emergence.

Question 40

In real life, some erotic acts are seen as dangerous and inhumane. But in second life, the play space allows anyone to commit any kind of fancy the player desires in full view of other players. So how would you describe this? What is interesting about this?

Answer 40

It's a space where players
are free to explore forms of
sexuality that are socially
prohibited off line.
And perhaps that is the most interesting
aspect of sex play in virtual worlds.
These play spaces exist because of
real life social proscriptions
against many kinds of sexuality.
In other words, sex play in second Life,
is driven by gender
norms in the real world.

Question 41

According to statistics, there are 45% of females who game, but how many are in the gaming industry?

Answer 41

11%. That means 89% of the people making the games are male, who make games for an audience that is half female. The statistic is worse for the females who actually make games. That is 4%.

About 16% are animators. Men receive 29% more salary.
11% of game desginers are female but they are paid only 80% of their male counterparts.

Question 42

Which, if any, of these classic
games were created, designed or
directed by female developers?
Select every answer you think is correct.
The options are
 A, Centipede, 
B, River Raid,
C, Gabriel Knight, 
D,
Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver,
E, Uncharted and or F, King's Quest.

Answer 42

The correct answer is all of them.

Also, Roberta Williams co founded Sierrra Onlinie and created King’s Quest IV, the Perils of Rosella. She established many of the conventions for Role Playing Games that we see in modern games. Her work on the King’s Quest series was revolutionary.