'Ass Physics' a Design Challenge for Erotic Games

The sex-in-games design roundtable at Game Developer Conference raised a number of technical challenges the rest of us might not think of at first, such as the animation overhead of designing for a wide range of human sexual behavior.

From a CNET story:

Several participants in the discussion said that gay men and women arealso underserved. And one main reason, it was agreed, is that becausestraight couples have different body movements when having sex than dogay men or women, there's often too much animation work required tosatisfy those markets.

[snip]

(Brad) Abram said that Virtually Jenna allows players to highlycustomize their characters, including giving those wanting men withdifferent size genitalia the ability to get what they want.

The same goes for what Abram called "ass physics," essentially the firmness of the male buttocks.

I think the developers need to realize that while straight guys might seem to be the largest market segment for their virtual worlds, it's not the size that matters: it's the willingness. Those of us whose sexualities don't fit a simplistic marketing descriptor (like "straight young guys will always pay for sex" which btw isn't true either) might be more likely to try out an erotic metaverse than the vast but overwhelmed-with-options straight young guy population.