Just recently two major articles hit Kotaku.com and Jezebel.com regarding one of the most offensive games ever made: RapeLay.  I loathe to write about what the game is about and leave it to the reader to click the links above to read the synopsis.  A major uproar ensued and Amazon, Overstock and eBay no longer allow the sale of that game.  What is sad however is that this is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to those kinds of games.

But what I found most surprising is how little the Jezebel commenters are aware of the culture that surrounds the game itself.  Anyone who is even vaguely familiar with Japan knows that there is an astounding amount of deviant sexual behavior found in their comic books, animation and films – not to mention video games.

What is even more disturbing is how these games influence some of the top makers in the big AAA-industry.  I mentioned Hideo Kojima on how he treats women in Metal Gear Solid 4, but there are others too.  The producer of Star Ocean himself wanted to make erotic games and tried to ask permission from the previous president of Square Enix.  He was told an emphatic “no”, but I can’t help but think that he tried to get away with as much as possible with his character designs and story:

Wolfire Games posts an interesting design challenge for depicting anthropomorphic female characters.  David Rosen wants to specifically restrain his design without using “hypersexualization” of the females in the game.

Many games show that characters are female by making them look like strippers. That is, giving them breast implants, tiny waists, heavy make-up, and skimpy clothing, as seen in Tomb Raider, Dead or Alive, Soul Calibur, and so on. This approach certainly sells games and gets banner ad clicks, but it really cheapens the whole experience. Not only is it demeaning to women, but it would also not mix well with animal characters.

It will be interesting to see the final product of David’s elite 5-person team.

Because of its close association with toys, gaming has not yet achieved a sense of “legitimacy” as other artistic mediums such as the cinema, despite it’s close associations.  There are a lot of people who wish for the medium to fully mature into a full artistic medium and to be recognized by and large by the art community.  But this failure is largely due to the fault of the game makers themselves – even the big-AAA producers.

A lot of my rants against the blatant sexualization of women in games may be taken as moralizing, but in reality, cheap sex is never taken seriously – even in the field of art.

For the medium of game development and design to achieve true legitimacy is to maintain artistic integrity and cultural relevance while balancing it with putting food on the table.  “Art for art’s sake” is also self-defeating because it takes the opposite extreme.  True art maintains the balance between being socially relevant, artistic in skill, and popular in appeal.

Gaming yet needs its Shakespeare who perfectly balanced all those elements – and even played a dangerous political game of social protest against religious descrimination.

Perhaps this is a cue for me to enter this contest:

The 2009 Life, Love Game Design Challenge – Can you create a game about Teen Dating Violence, without using violence.

The origin of this contest is a very sad story and well worth reading, but I believe games like this need to happen more often.