Erotic MMO Targets Female Audience

Next Generation reports on another entry into the "social mmo" category, with a look at erotic MMOG 'Spend the Night'. From the article: "A game in which adults are encouraged to indulge their sexual fantasies is bound to attract the media's attention but, so far, Republik's Spend the Night has been keeping a low profile. Come the middle of next year, when it launches online, that'll all change. Details are scant at present, and Coshland doesn't want to give too much away, but the basics are simple. Players go online, choose a graphical identity, mooch around with other players, find someone they like, and find a room. Graphics claimed to be 'cinematic' are promised, and a simple interface allows the action to proceed. 'This is a fantasy multiplayer dating game,' says Coshland. 'It's not like the dating games that we've seen coming out of Japan where you try to win the favor of someone of the opposite sex. We're providing more of a game where two people can go on a date and interact in a 3D space.'"

I just don't know if that is the right headline...

[vertinox]

Erotic MMO Targets Female Audience

Don't you mean "Disturbing MMO Targets Males pretending to Female Audience"

Then again... I've known a girl tell other people they were guys while online just to get them to stop bothering her.

Baiting the press, are we?

[Nice2Cats]

A game in which adults are encouraged to indulge their sexual fantasies is bound to attract the media's attention but, so far, Republik's Spend the Night has been keeping a low profile.

So you have nothing better to do than to put it on Slashdot so that spin vultures we call The Press can grab it and use it to push their conservative, anti-games agenda at the expense of the people who are quietly enjoying it?

You, sir, are a horrible person.

just goes to show you...

[B3AST!]

...nerds have no idea what women want

i think this falls under the category of "wouldn't it be HOT if women wanted a game like this?!?!?"

Weird game

[Eli Gottlieb]

I really don't know if this game is good for anything, especially because the she-gamer/she-geek you thought you met in-game will probably turn out to be a guy, anyway.

If they had verification of the player's actual gender, though... Giggidy, giggidy, GIGGIDY!

Profile Sites

[usrusr]

About time someone tries to make something out of the way most of those "profile sites" (you know the places on the net where all the disoriented teen girls and leftover 30+ show off their latest piercings) sooner or later turns into an inofficial MMOG, where having a long "friends" list and many "woah, u so s3ksah" (or however the current spelling is) in the diary comments equals the levelling efforts in other games. Just look at the friends list of every randomly selected brasilian on orkut for example, that's pure hunting and gathering, and putting somebody on that list is probably about as personal as your relation to the last minion-monster you slayed in diablo 2.

This project can easily fail, mostly because there is not much experience with the genre to build upon, but i see great potential. Some form of convergence between profile sites and MMORGs could easily be "the next big thing".

Re:just goes to show you...

[vranash]

Plenty of women want this, you just might not want them when comparing their online persona to their RL one :)

Two words

[jearbear]

Sausage
Festival

I'm betting that the company knows exactly what will happen, and they know that people won't care, and they'll rake in the dough.

Of course, this always makes me wonder quite a bit about how we view gender and sexuality out here in 1-on-1 chats on the 'net, but I feel like that might be someone's dissertation topic. Oy.

Marketing for Women

[MrCopilot]

He says "every marketing cent" will be spent on targeting women, based on the theory that "men will follow".

Yeah, I know when my wife says "I'm watching a Lifetime special", I always follow her straight to the tv.

Meanwhile, Quietly (cheaply), they are screaming "Naked Female Sex Game" at the male target audience outlets. (ie SlashDot) Notice the aversion to words "Porn Game". Most women hate porn games. Most women will likely hate this one too, No matter how much money you throw at the Oxygen Channel.

The Real question is
"Does the game ship with these http://uk.insight.com/apps/productpresentation/ind ex.php?product_id=EXO88121 [insight.com]?"

Hmm

[drsmithy]

"We can't control what our community becomes, with the exception of prohibiting people from illegal activities, [...]

What _can_ you do inside a video game that's illegal ?