There’s an endless list of computer games released each month, marketing machines work in overdrive, trying to grab the attention from an immense army of gamers. Game magazines and gaming website’s compete to get that latest demo or mind nibbling game review first, feeding their audience, hyping some games, ignoring others. And then there are the game rating boards, deciding what’s healthy to play, but above all reflect some sort of cultural and political agreement on what’s acceptable and what’s not. This well-oiled money making machine has worked for years now, all targeting that typical gamer, young males between the age of 14 to 30.
But times are changing, that typical gamer doesn’t seem to exist anymore, gamers have grown up, and women entered the gaming arena. The Internet made the old distribution and marketing strategies less dominant, or at least it’s not the only way to publish a successful computer game anymore. What we are witnessing right now is a change on both sides. Besides those well-known large international gaming companies, small publishers are gaining ground — even without a million dollar budget — creating “niche games” for an audience that’s more diverse and demanding then ever. The role of the Internet can’t be exaggerated in this, it provides the opportunity to bypass the beaten, and highly protected, publishing path. It gives the gamers a voice, and the possibility to choose the games they want to play themselves, without a marketing machine, or rating board, interfering.
One of these typical gaming niches is adult games, in this case games with erotic or strong sexual content. They seem to exist for quite some time now, in there own, small and hardly known, spot among mainly pornographic websites. But recently this niche is prospering more then ever before. New titles are released, and gamers are more then willing to buy them, as a relatively normal extension of their game collection.
Article comments
1 - RCM
"International guidelines should be set up, with a new definition of what's potentially harmful or acceptable"
Highly disagree. It's hard enough deciding what's acceptable in a city or state in the US let alone international guidelines as to what's ok.
Furthermore, many game magazines usually cover a majority of the console and handheld scene. I've played titles with a high level of sexual content and came away less than impressed.
Could you recommend some titles worth a look to those who dare?
2 - A.veenstra
"Highly disagree. It's hard enough deciding what's acceptable in a city or state in the US let alone international guidelines as to what's ok."
Local rules & guidelines are just not sufficient in an international market, what we witness right now is an American domination when it comes to ratings. I know it’s a large market but not the only one. What’s acceptable or not is highly different in Europe for example. Our game Lovechess was rated mature in the US, but received a teen rating in Germany.
"I've played titles with a high level of sexual content and came away less than impressed."
I agree, many games just exists to get attention that way and don’t do anything related to the game play with it. Sexual content should be an integral part of a game, not some extra fluff to get some attention.
"Could you recommend some titles worth a look to those who dare?" One game I thing ads something to this niche, a social factor, is Redlight center. The graphics are a little outdated, but the way it's worked out is quite nice.
Wrote something about this one here:
Redlight Center online
3 - Pavos Picasso
Privatehottie is also cool as a game!
4 - Lucy
I'm still waiting for a good adult game. Something like The Sims meets WoW, but everything you can find right now is really, really bad. And 99% is directed to only straight men. Sorry, but gays and women are also likely to spend money on these things (or even more likely if it's well done). People just don't think. If I had enough money, I would be investing in something like this.
5 - Mastablubba
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mastablubba