So I made Baby Girl.
I walked her from one end of London to the other for over a month.
It takes a long time to move in Sociolotron, which is constructed
as a set of rooms with exits to the north, south, east or west.
Movement is performed in the point-and-click style, and maps are
scarcely available. Once one becomes proficient at navigating the
world, the walking only happens so fast, and repetitive brief loads
slow things down even more. It's not exactly a pleasure to control
your avatar or to move about in the game world. I considered it
an investment that would add some needed spark to my game experience.
I badly wanted to confirm the widespread existence of rape and pillaging,
as I'd heard about.
I had no luck. Baby Girl
was neither raped by player characters (PCs), nor was she raped
by the roving gangs of NPCs, who supposedly will occasionally bend
weak avatars. I can only assume that everyone is not lying to me,
and that somehow I've had a singular experience. But what I found
in Sociolotron was quite the opposite of what I was supposed
to find.
There's not much reason
for me, as a gamer, to play Sociolotron. In almost every
respect, there is another game that does what Sociolotron
does, only better. Better graphics. More exciting combat (World
of Warcraft). More in-depth character options (Morrowind).
A deeper economic system (EVE Online). But what Sociolotron
did to make itself radically different from all of the better-known
massively-multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) is not
an "addition" or "feature" as much as it is
the dogged pursuit of removing any obstacle to character actions.
So actions like rape, theft, and general assault or mayhem are possible,
and character's "social" interactions range from basic
sit / stand positions to sexual activities ranging from intercourse
to analingus.
Everything in Sociolotron
is rendered in basically stock graphics. Users find a wide variety
of looks and styles by combining and coloring different base items,
but in general, the map tiles that make up the world vary little,
the avatars are all based on a couple of types, and the stock text
and descriptions that populate the world are repetitive and often
full of typos.
The interface is composed
of a window that looks more like Dreamweaver than The Sims Online:
There is a graphic display window that shows the isometric renderings
of avatars ("toons" in Sociolotron). Beneath
that is a text-based chat window. This is where most of the action
happens. To the right of the screen is a set of inventory, character
status, and action menus, the main control center for the game.
To build up a character's
skills and wealth, players generally start out by fulfilling government
bulk orders, known as "bulking." To do so, one must venture
into wild areas, contend with violent mobs of NPCs (ruffians who
constantly attack), collect raw materials ranging from silicone
and iron to logs and wheat, then process the raw materials, then
manufacture items to fulfill individual orders for things like shot
glasses and dildos.
The development of character
is significant, and the role-playing depth extends to mundane, but
potentially character-altering or defining, ailments such as syphilis
and diarrhea, to menstrual cycles and pregnancy. Pregnancies lead
to births, and children share the characteristics of the two parent
characters. As the child is in adolescence, the gamers who play
the parent characters may choose to play the child character to
help develop s/he/it's skills (hermaphrodites are rare, but possible,
and popular). In the game world, the child resides at Oxford until
prodded into adulthood by one of the players, who assumes full-time
control of the adult character.
This game dynamic alone
requires significant in-game, and often out-of-game (known as "RL"
or real life), negotiations. Prostitutes who are at the right moment
of their cycle may be exceptionally fertile, and a john who presses
her into service might end up being the father of her child. Likewise,
a couple of characters, or gamers, who really like each other can
consummate their relationship with the actual birth of a child.
Of course lineage, coupled
with economic and political gameplay dynamics, leads to all kinds
of interesting social engagements. A poster for player-character
Brat Stella's recent bid for Prime Minister features her head superimposed
on an image of a nude woman in a classic cheesecake pose. She winks
out from under the brim of a purple witch's cap. The wink suggests
she knows about the extent to which the term "backroom politics"
can take on a whole new meaning in Sociolotron.
Players fill all of the
roles in government, from cabinet and representative positions to
judges and bounty hunters. Businesses are incorporated, as are buildings,
and these shares become connective tissue for characters. Families,
whether in the genetic sense or the business sense, grow up in Sociolotron,
and although they vary widely in goals and interests, they all maintain
their bonds through steady social interaction.
Some Sociolotron
devotees spend 10-15 hours a week playing the game, which, according
to figures available from the Entertainment Software Association,
is about twice the amount the average gamer spends playing everything
else. But many of Sociolotron's most dedicated players
spend 10-15 hours a day playing. In a game like Everquest
or Everquest II, it's a bit easier to understand-Sony Online
Entertainment is capable of pressing expansion after expansion and
an ever-developing global storyline. There is nothing like that
in Sociolotron. Everything that happens in the game happens
because of players, and the notification that these things have
happened is distributed by word of mouth and player-run newspapers.
The effect is that a
large global story spanning a fantasy world, as we see in mainstream
MMORPGs, is replaced with intimate narratives focused on individual
players in a dystopian city-state. These are the things that made
me come back to Sociolotron, not to see what the game had
to offer me in terms of narrative or perspective, but to discover
new characters, hear new stories.
I met Roxanne (last name
withheld) in the Twilight Tavern, or, I should say, I met her avatar,
David Prescott, in a backroom of the bar. We sat on a pile of pillows
and discussed the game, mostly out of character. Roxanne has played
Sociolotron since late 2002, is 39 years old, and a self-described
"butch" lesbian. She plays Sociolotron for six
to eight hours each day, on average.
"I met a straight
lady in The Sims Online and played with her until she found
[Sociolotron] and we came here," Roxanne explains.
At that time, Roxanne
lived with her RL girlfriend of five years in Florida. She met her
present girlfriend, "Robin," in The Sims Online.
"Robin" is a 52 year-old, previously heterosexual, divorcee.
Roxanne explains that they felt limited by the gameplay possibilities
(especially regarding sexual play) and the mixture of older and
younger players. They found other Sims players who shared
their interests, and when Sociolotron went into public
beta just over two years ago, many of these Sims players moved to
virtual London where they are free to act on their most intimate
desires.
What ensued after the
couple's move to Sociolotron was a drama of soap opera
proportions: Playing a toon named John Fuckwell, Roxanne proceeded
to woo and make every female toon she could find.
"Women just need
to feel special," she explains, through her avatar, who sits
on a couch in a long overcoat, looking like a buffed out Neo. "Even
sex in the game gets boring if its just sex all the time-guys don't
think of it as much as women and the fact I take the time to bring
flowers or take them to a park and give them wine and food impresses
women."
These shenanigans involved
flings with old Sims Online consorts who had relocated to Sociolotron,
in-game marriages and marriages for revenge, serious fights, and
eventually Robin's toon killed Roxanne's toon. The two worked out
their issues in RL as well as in-game, and now live together as
a monogamous couple in Ohio as well as in-game. Roxanne has no problem
finding reasons beyond random cybersex to play Sociolotron.
Sex is an important part
of Sociolotron. In many cases, curiosity about the sexual
aspects of the game is a draw for new players. The game's creator,
Patric Lagny, who works as a programmer and developer in southern
California, has built in some significant connections between sexual
activities and gameplay mechanics.
"I was always hoping somebody would make a game where anything
goes but that's probably not possible for big companies who must
report to their stockholders and the public, so I made it myself,"
Lagny explains.
Indeed, anything does
go in Sociolotron, and because of this, the game is strictly
regulated to adults over 21 years-old who register with a nominal
fee charged to an active credit card. No fantasies involving children
or people pretending to be children are allowed. Other than that,
the gloves are, often quite literally, off.
Not only is prostitution
a skill, but "urges" such as sado, maso and exhib might
compel your toon to involuntary behaviors or outbursts. Likewise,
moral uprightness is a quality that must be altered in order to
achieve specific goals, such as becoming a demon overlord or a high
priestess in the Cult of the Succubi.
For players like Roxanne,
the boundaries between the game and RL are negotiated and permeable.
Roxanne seems to have no trouble differentiating herself from her
in-game characters, but, as she points out, "These are real
people playing." Roxanne claims the players in Sociolotron
are, overall, more trustworthy and upstanding than players of The
Sims Online, but she still tends to only "trust"
her RL partner and a select few whom she has had long-term contact
with.
Danni Wanned, who plays a demon named Aubrielle Shadows, is much
more guarded about the boundary between her game life and the real
world. A 30-year-old, married woman from Missouri, Wanned plays
Sociolotron for up to five hours a day, specifically because
she enjoys the game and likes to indulge a fantasy life her husband
is not interested in.
"There's no way
he would do BDSM," Wanned says, "so this takes the pressure
off him."
Wanned says she has developed
some out-of-game friendships through Sociolotron. "But
I would never let a romantic or sexual relationship develop from
it," she explains.
Before playing Sociolotron,
Wanned played text-based MUDs and MOOs, such as IgorMUD, which allows
users to inhabit avatars in a virtual fantasy world with remarkable
freedom and agency. She also played The Sims Online before coming
to Sociolotron and knows many others who used to play the
Sims:
"It was too G-rated,
plus you always had to worry about if you were messing with someone
who was underage, which isn't a worry here," Wanned confirms.
Wanned is not alone in
her fairly isolated approach to playing. Many players, it seems,
are more interested in personal exploration than making new friends,
although, perhaps surprisingly, most of the avatars I interviewed
said they told their spouse or significant other about what they
do in the game.
For 62-year-old Jeff
Zema, a married machinist from North Carolina, Sociolotron
is partially about the sex, but much more about exploring his own
personality. He found Sociolotron after playing Ultima
games for many years as well as the occasional session on Combat
Flight Sim 2. After 15 years in the military, he was not interested
in RPGs that focus on fighting and killing, but on social games
that encouraged people to engage in skill development and economic
activities. In Sociolotron he has found an outlet for these
interests, and has enjoyed exploring an alternate persona, manifest
in his primary avatar, Ukikara.
When not playing Sociolotron,
Zema and his wife keep busy with their African Grey parrots and
regular real-world details. That is, when Zema isn't at work-he
still pulls 10-hour shifts six days a week. His wife does not play,
but is aware of what he does in the game.
"She's OK with it
because I keep it there-as a game," he says. "I can explore
some parts of human nature that no other game offers," Zema
says, which is the primary reason why he plays. "I have been
a hooker, and a doctor-no other game allows that. And nobody in
their right mind would hire a 60-year-old male hooker in real life."
For Zema, the safety
of the virtual world is key: "At my age it has given me a chance
to be different than I am ... without the danger or expense of doing
it in the real world."
I asked him if any of his toons were ever raped in Sociolotron.
"I never had that happen. I know-it's a surprise! But I did
figure out that being a hooker is not something I would have liked
to do in real life!"
Virtual environments
and games are known to offer simulations of all sorts intended to
elicit feelings of freedom or omnipotence. In some way, the player
must feel embodied in the virtual environment in order to truly
enjoy the experience. That feeling of embodiment doesn't necessarily
result from fancy graphics or control structures; rather, it is
much more important for users to be able to intend, execute, and
witness the effects of their individual actions on the world and
other avatars. In this respect, Sociolotron is an excellent
case.
John Smith, from Texas,
is 53, divorced, and retired. He has had three heart attacks and
two pulmonary embolisms. He is diabetic, suffers from kidney disease,
and has a genetic blood disease known as THMFR. Generally limited
in movement and freedom in his real life, Smith spends on average
10 hours each day playing Sociolotron. His avatar is Katsuma
Toronaga, the leader of a powerful family within the game.
I meet with Smith in-game,
in his family's headquarters, where his in-game slave, Sierra, pours
us some virtual spirits. Sierra is played by Judy Benn, a 65-year-old
retired teacher from Arkansas. She is married, and her husband is
aware that she plays. Both Benn and Smith are clear that their relationship
does not extend beyond the game, and that they are not interested
in relationships beyond Sociolotron's London.
"Sierra is my number
four slave," Smith explains. "Sunshine, who is not here
today, is number three."
Smith goes on to explain
that the "family" consists of people who have shares in
their tavern. Three real-life women play five different sex slave
toons, and five other toons, male and female, are "associates"
of the family, but not slaves.
He hands me a sample
share in the company to examine, and I see how it facilitates dividing
up the interests of the property. As he describes the economic activities
and roles of the family members, the whole thing takes on a decidedly
mafia-esque tone. Katsuma Toronaga, it seems, is something of a
capo, like Tony Soprano except with magic. He mentions that he loves
to "kick ass on 25 year olds."
I return the share to
Katsuma.
"If I get top billing, then you can keep it," he says.
Sierra adds, "You know, he is making you an offer that is hard
to refuse."
The family's attitude
and Smith's strategic gameplay style illustrate the engagement users
have with the less titillating aspects of Sociolotron.
It's easy to get people interested in sex slaves and prostitutes,
and Smith admits that when he first logged into Sociolotron
he was a "complete horn-dog," but eventually the complexity
of the social systems won him over.
But Smith is not completely
happy with these social systems. He has serious concerns about the
judicial system, for example. "There's no clemency. No retrial.
Guilty until proven innocent," he explains. "Even if the
real criminal stands up, and there is proof, there just isn't any
provision for these issues to be solved. If the decision has been
made, it stands."
To many gamers, this
level of detail is not necessarily a good thing, but Sociolotron's
denizens place a lot of importance on details like these. Roxanne,
who plays several characters in addition to David Prescott, wishes
others in Sociolotron who are elected to government and
judicial positions would take the game more seriously and behave
more ethically.
"If you hold office,
you shouldn't let your friends off easy. It's a position of honor
and it should be treated as such," she explains. "For
example, I had a toon who was a judge and prosecutor, and I had
a case come up against one of my [alternate characters]. I had to
perform my duties as if it wasn't my other character."
Roxanne's views on the
behavior of Sociolotron's leaders extends to issues with
the social acceptability of public intercourse, for example: "If
a toon is running for office, then that toon shouldn't be seen on
the train, fucking in public."
Of course, Brat Stella,
whose nude campaign poster is featured prominently in her newspaper,
available at any public terminal in the game, feels differently
about what is appropriate. There are many factions and attitudes
in Sociolotron, which is part of what keeps people coming
back. Players are invested in this world in a myriad of ways, and
they dedicate themselves to it with a gusto rarely exhibited for
real-world stations of analogous importance.
Lagny tells me stories
of players who have become so devoted to characters that they have
messaged and emailed him repeatedly, or called him on the phone,
to restore a character who has been killed or deleted. "Even
I can't do it," he says. Sociolotron is designed to
be a world where actions have consequences. Rather than relying
on a complex artificial intelligence or programming NPCs to react
differently depending on a "reputation" ranking, Sociolotron's
emotional resonance and interactive weight come from the fact that
one can do anything at any time to anyone.
If there is a real choice
to do something good or bad, positive or negative, or somewhere
in between, then there becomes a reason to do one or the other.
In typical RPGs, the player might worry about the boss fight, which
would follow a lengthy introductory sequence of threats and narrative
set-up. But players would never worry about the player character
(PC) walking towards them on the street, because in other RPGs there
is no way for the oncoming PC to rape the player's avatar. When
walking down a lonesome pathway in Sociolotron, upon passing
a large fellow dressed for battle one does notice a moment of exhilaration
and fear: This person could end my avatar's life. Likewise, the
knowledge that one could dominate and have any other character,
or just steal goods from houses and stores, in some way makes one
feel more rewarded for not doing those things. It is an old axiom
that we are bound to cooperation by the potential to do each other
harm. And what weight do "good" or "evil" monikers
have if there is not the potential to do either in the extreme?
The moral and ethical
complexity of the game, gained by simply opening the door for users
to do the things they can do in everyday life, is compelling for
many players, but generally not the crowd that is normally targeted
by MMORPGs or the mainstream gaming audience. Sociolotron
skews the statistics in nearly every way. Over 50% of its 2000 active
users are female. All of them are over 21 (by default), and many
are quite a bit older. In general, these users are often not "gamers"
per se, or at least they would not self-identify as gamers, yet
they spend more time in this world than most gamers spend playing
all of the other games out there.
Lagny estimates that
half of the current features in Sociolotron are heavily
influenced by user-feedback. His unique position as an independent
(as in, mainly just him) game developer has allowed him to work
with his users to make the world more complex and satisfying. On
more than one occasion, users referred to Lagny, or Player Dark
as he's known in-game, as a "genius" and "brilliant."
"A lot of times
I was close to giving up because it was all becoming too much,"
says Lagny, "But the players always build me up again with
their love for the game, so I always felt I had an obligation not
to let them down since they invested so much time and energy in
helping Socio go forward." Lagny would love to get more financial
backing and technical support for the game, but he is convinced
that no mainstream game company will touch Sociolotron.
"When you say 'adult
game' everybody thinks of strip poker or jigsaw puzzles," complains
Lagny, "I have written to one or two companies who supposedly
invest in niche markets, but never even got an email back."
In the current conservative
climate of game publishing, where sequels and established franchises
reign supreme, it is very unlikely for the game to be picked up
by any large publisher. While game development has progressed at
an amazing rate, much of the increased game qualities have come
by way of conventionalizing videogames to an extreme extent. Formal
systems like commonly licensed game engines lend each game a set
of similar qualities and capabilities, and games are often designed
around these predetermined possibilities. A game like Sociolotron
flouts any notion of mainstream conventions or burly game engines
powering theatrical quality special effects.
The brilliance of Sociolotron
is that it participates in the "old-fashioned" game development
technique of making a game that is meaningful to the developer.
This is a technique that has been relegated to the privileged rock
stars of game development. Will Wright or Peter Molyneaux can make
nearly any game they can dream up, but even these luminaries are
limited by mainstream constraints. After all, with all the talk
surrounding Molyneaux's upcoming game, The Movies, there's been
no talk about whether one will be able to make hardcore pornography.
Or even a Larry Clark movie? Odds are that won't be an option.
As game development costs
and technical requirements continue to ramp up with another generation
of home consoles and the continued evolution of PC power, it becomes
less and less likely that games like Sociolotron will be
made on any kind of mainstream scale. That means that this unique
audience, for whom Sociolotron is just the thing to get
them interested in a videogame, might go untapped by the mainstream
industry, and that is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, considering
all the things that go on in Sociolotron, sometimes it
might be nice to have a little privacy.