Sex, AI, and Games

[Huntn]

Several years ago, Steam turned on the switch for adult games which now seem pretty prolific. No need to visit a porn site, just your friendly online game distributer. Not starting this discussion to condemn or approve, but to discuss are any of these games worthy in the traditional sense of gaming?

Some are clearly designed just to arouse males others actually seem to have stories, yet still the main attraction seems to be the x-rated sex. Now I have played 2 of these types of games, one about going to college (a common setting) and one in a village with some fantasy elements that actually applies itself to telling a story. But my impression is that my categorization is correct, without the sexual element and shallow sexual encounters, there would be little otherwise to sell these games.

So I’m trying to imagine a traditional game like Red Dead Redemption or Cyberpunk2077 that builds on a traditional game framework which seems mostly to center on violence, but fun violence , but in the future also includes personal relationships that have some level of depth?

This will be the next threshold, and today this is basically impossible. At best you see in games are limited opportunities if any, to build the most shallow of relationships that then run on rails. I predict the future will include, when it is possible a believable, flexible AI, and then who knows how far that will take gaming?

 

[Herdfan]

I am going to guess these newer games are a step above, probably multiple steps above, Leisure Suit Larry.

 

[Huntn]

I am going to guess these newer games are a step above, probably multiple steps above, Leisure Suit Larry.

From R to X. LSL is Grand Dad.

 

[Huntn]

Here is a reply of mine in the sister thread that might elicit some comments:
Not really counters but observations. I agree with most of your comments.

• I like playing females however when I last played a game that gave me gender options, Cyberpunk 2077, I played through twice once as a female and once as a male.
• As far as sexualizing females in an inappropriate way, I’m not sure what you mean unless it is hard to find a regular looking woman character, most of them as drawn, are of model quality.
• What happened to Blizzard? Regarding sexuality, the Night Elf female was the sexiest character in the game, but that is my standard, tall, athletic, with a slim frame.
• I would not describe sex as the uglier side humanity, but I understand that sex, a biological imperative makes us act in certain specific ways that accounts for up to 50% attitudes and actions regarding relationships with the opposite sex. It’s part of the baggage of being a biological organism.
• Regarding beefcake MMOs not drawing women and sex being a guy problem, it has been known for decades that as a rule women are not visually effected by the sight of the opposite sex’s body to the same degree as men are. Hence Playgirl magazine failed. I’d call it the reality.

This is an aside, to the ability or current technical inability to construct games that allow for something other than shallow relationships, if relationships at all. They have created cities that on the surface look and act like what a city street looks like, but when you try to interact with a character on the street you quickly see the shallowness if it.

The best games out there are adventures, I’ll pick my favorite Fallout 4. Basically WWIII, you enter a vault, go into cryo, emerge 200 years later to a post apocalyptic world with an opportunity to rebuild civilization. Noble, yes?

Let’s not worry about realism , the game gives you enough skills to survive and while doing good deeds, rebuilding and nurturing settlements you spend a great deal of your time killing off bandit’s, otherwise known as raiders, and mutants, including mutated human beings who are in some cases feral. So with this setting you can still say you are a good person, or role play as you desire. Note, I don’t role playing bad people as a rule. In Red Dead Redemption you can run around murdering folks as you desire. I watched a nephew do this, and I’m like “Why?”

Back to F4, it also allows you to acquire companions, who pretty much automatically over a period of time, gain affinity for you and grow to you, no work at all, completely unrealistic, but who cares? You even get a buff from sleeping with them although there is no physical sex shown, just a comment that leaves no doubt the state of your intimacy with this character. And they don’t even care if you become intimate with multiple partners, all is good and completely unrealistic, lol.

Where AI comes into this is is the ability to expand the state of a relationships, being able to piss off partners where they can to go tell you to screw yourself or in some way effect the outcome of the story. But most games are very limited in the avenues open to the player. It’s not as if the options are unlimited and anything goes. The developer wants you the player to get to the end of their game, and as I see it technology is the limitation.

The bad thing about these “sex” games is that for the the limited ones I have seen, my impression they mostly cater to male sexual desire, are extremely shallow, and everything else is secondary and lacking.

However, as we have seen the earliest attempt to incorporate the framework of human relationships in games, I predict as technology and AI advances we will see more relationship capabilities added.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

However, bear in mind that a great many games, the vast majority, have been designed by the the sort of demographic described by the term "techbro"; in other words, this is a world where the vast majority of people who design such games come from one particular demographic, - white males, and very often, cis white males - and the games tend to reflect that perspective, especially as they used to be aimed primarily at the young male market.

If you want more depth re character creation (especially re the character of the female characters) it may become necessary to recruit more women (and aim for greater diversity generally) into designing games, and that means aiming to have, in addition to cis white males, women, gays, others who are non-cis, people of colour in the business of designing games.

However, perhaps both the target audience - and the ranks of those who design these games - could be broadened?

On the Star Trek thread on MR, I watched a few interviews yesterday; one was a compelling and extraordinary interview with Nichelle Nichols (who played Lieut Uhuru on TOS) where she described how she had wanted to leave ST and return to the stage, only to be talked out of it by, firstly, Gene Roddenberry, but, also, much more relevantly, by MLK, who made the point that she was an extraordinary and potentially powerful role model, - in his home and elsewhere, he allowed, indeed encouraged, his kids to watch Star Trek - because she was playing a woman who was also a person of colour, a person who held commissioned rank, in a show set centuries in the future, and to offer a world where this might be a future, a possibility in some life, was worth doing.

Whoopi Goldberg, in another fascinating interview posted in the same thread, spoke of how the sight of Nichelle Nichols - "someone who looked like me" - the first time that scifi had ever featured a person of colour (and, who, moreover, happened to be female) in a major recurring role, a role where this person held commissioned rank and was respected - had astounded, delighted and thrilled her, and, among other things, had prompted her later to seek out a role (the role that became Guinan) on STNG.

 

[Huntn]

Guess what? Sister thread at the Black Hole got yanked as controversial. Not closed, evaporated. Mine was a conversation about games and the direction of games.
No surprise really ... over there, back to discussing yard work, cars, and working out. I don't really have to say this, but I won't be participating in any political discussion based on what they decide to post as political news. Too many mine fields there and it's just not worth it.

From the Weasel:
Huntn,
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Your post: Sex, AI, and Games

 

[User.45]

On the Star Trek thread on MR, I watched a few interviews yesterday; one was a compelling and extraordinary interview with Nichelle Nichols (who played Lieut Uhuru on TOS) where she described how she had wanted to leave ST and return to the stage, only to be talked out of it by, firstly, Gene Roddenberry, but, also, much more relevantly, by MLK, who made the point that she was an extraordinary and potentially powerful role model, - in his home and elsewhere, he allowed, indeed encouraged, his kids to watch Star Trek - because she was playing a woman who was also a person of colour, a person who held commissioned rank, in a show set centuries in the future, and to offer a world where this might be a future, a possibility in some life, was worth doing.

Sisko reporting in

 

[thekev]

Sisko reporting in

Thread topic seems more Riker than Sisko.

 

[Huntn]

Thread topic seems more Riker than Sisko.

All of a sudden I want to rewatch STNG and you reminded me of Captain’s Holiday where Picard takes a break on Risa and while reading, keeps being asked by scantily dressed beautiful women if they can help him. You see he has his horga’hn on display thanks to Riker.

 

[SuperMatt]

All of a sudden I want to rewatch STNG and you reminded me of Captain’s Holiday where Picard takes a break on Risa and while reading, keeps being asked by scantily dressed beautiful women if they can help him. You see he has his horga’hn on display thanks to Riker.

View attachment 9770​

It’s definitely a classic episode. The woman he got into adventures with ended up re-appearing in DS9 I believe.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

All of a sudden I want to rewatch STNG and you reminded me of Captain’s Holiday where Picard takes a break on Risa and while reading, keeps being asked by scantily dressed beautiful women if they can help him. You see he has his horga’hn on display thanks to Riker.

View attachment 9770​

It’s definitely a classic episode. The woman he got into adventures with ended up re-appearing in DS9 I believe.

Her name was Vash.

She turned up in a few more STNG episodes (once heading off to explore the stars with Q), before materialising in DS9.

Anyway, there was a fascinating archeolgical episode (in STNG) where her specialty was duplicitous double-crossing, and, there was a hilarious, hysterically funny (I recall howling with laughter, watching it with my mother, actually, we were both helpless with laughter) where Q transported the bridge crew to a setting reminiscent of Robin Hood and Sherwood Forest (Vash was Maid Marion, Picard a reluctant Robin, Worf an unusually grumpy - even by his gloomy standards - Merrie Man, - he smashed Geordi's (Allan A Dale) mandolin - Q was the Sheriff of Nottingham, and so on).