One of the developers behind the Oculus Rift adult game Wicked Paradise says the sex scenes in Mass Effect were much more erotic than anything currently available from adult videogames.
In December 2012, the inevitable happened: A company calling itself Sinful Robot announced to the world that it was making porn for the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset. It’s an obvious fit in my book, but for one reason or another the main investor in the venture pulled out, leaving the project in limbo. But now it’s back, with a new name and a more detailed plan for the future, and an interesting source for inspiration, too.
Previous attempts to make erotic virtual reality games have been “ridiculously bad,” Wicked Paradise founder and CEO Jeroen Van den Bosch told Road to VR. “There is nothing sexy about unrealistic models that move like rusty robots with faulty servos,” he said. “If you want to genuinely create an erotic atmosphere in a videogame you need to convincingly cross the uncanny valley.
He added that story and setting are “everything” and referenced a title that will be far more familiar to gamers than any VR sex game. “The non-explicit sex scenes in Mass Effect are much more erotic than current available explicit adult videogames. This is because you care about the characters in Mass Effect,” he continued. “A player will never feel very attracted to a virtual character if he or she doesn’t care. I believe that virtual reality is the perfect medium for an erotic videogame because you can make the player feel really connected to your computer characters.”
I’ve always thought the sex scenes in Mass Effect were overwrought and silly, but it’s an interesting idea. But the current state of the porn industry (as it’s been explained to me by others, of course) makes me think that caring about characters (or the people behind them) isn’t necessary to its enjoyment. Eroticism may be a different matter, but the line between erotica and porn is a fine one that’s often drawn based entirely upon who you happen to be talking to at any given moment. Oculus Rift “adult content” is inevitable, but caring about the characters that appear in it? I’m a little more doubtful about that.
Source: Road to VR
Published: Jun 17, 2013 08:00 pm