Tuesday, August 31, 2004

In the nude

And while researchers discover that the percentage of women playing games is increasing, others do their best to put women characters in the games in their proper place - like in Playboy. BloodRayne will appear nude, while several others will put on "seductive poses".

Lara Croft appeared in a bikini on a chocolate bar some years ago, with an ironic remark about how much money she made them pay for her to pose like that. I wonder if there will be irony in the playboy October issue, or if this is the emergence of Gibson's Idoru, the virtual reality girlfriend.

Girlfriend update by way of Netwoman

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Along the same somewhat dystopian vein it may be interesting to note that Bandai, the makers of the Tamagotchi, had a virtual girlfriend out some years ago and that the ren'ai dating sim is a well established genre in Japan. Closer to home the guardians of ethical business in the SMS industry are covertly using nymphomaniac chatbots to extract premium messages from males engaged in willing suspension of disbelief. Disturbing, but interesting. - even

Torill said...

Hei Even, I didn't quite understand the last part of your comment - who are using chatbots? The guardians of ethical use of SMS? Do you have a link to that? It's an interesting concept - let the horny guys chat with a bot, and save the tender ears of innocent girls...

Anonymous said...

Hei Torill, just irony getting in the way of clear communication. The SMS business is one of the most opportunistic in the media landscape, and after having worked in the outskirts of it for a short while it is difficult to contain my lack of enthusiasm for their business practices. No link for this story, but my friend Timo met a maker of such things at a party last weekend. I guess it makes perfect sense. In a low bandwidth medium with a cumbersome interface how could anyone ascertain the presence of human at the other end of the wire. - even

Torill said...

Yes, irony is difficult in a low bandwidth medium :) Thanks, even.