From Erotic Games to Mainstream Games

Upcoming Platinum Games’ DS game Infinite Line is being co-developed by Tokyo developer Nude Maker and directed by Nude Maker’s Hifumi Kouno. Nude Maker? That’s an interesting name! And meaningful. The company spent a few years, cutting its teeth on erotic PC games. Says Kouno:

I won’t take this lightly. I do not feel that there’s a big difference in my thinking between standard adult titles and consumer titles. We don’t have the idea that we’re really shifting gears as such… Generally, people looked down on adult titles just because they’re adult titles. But this is just one genre that I want to experiment in as a game designer — just one avenue for my creativity. There may be other avenues for my creativity. I don’t want to limit what I can explore as a designer, based on expectations… As part of writing scenarios, it’s very important to understand human behaviour. You have to address the basics of human feeling and motivation. The sexual urge and sexual motives are absolutely a core part of human behaviour and a really primal urge. I think we can’t forget that. I don’t want us to forget that part of ourselves… I think people get love and sex mixed up a lot of the time, of course. Just straightforward sex in games, I don’t think that represents love.

Sex and love are part of the human experience. It’s a shame to see them pushed to the side and marginalized in gaming, while violence seems more “acceptable”.

Q&A Getting Nude [Gamasutra via Insert Credit]