Brenda Brathwaite On Sexuality, Homophobia, Serious Games

Sex in Video Games author, industry vet, lead designer on Playboy: The Mansion and both chair and founder of IGDA's Sex Special Interest Group...that's a lot of hats. And Brenda Brathwaite wears them all. The woman herself sat down with Joystiq recently to talk turkey, beginning with two sex-focused roundtables at next week's GDC in San Francisco: one about designing erotic games, and another about the "business end," which I've decided to interpret literally rather than euphemistically.

There's a disparity between the game industry and the film and television industry that Brathwaite would like to see corrected:

"...how can we maturely incorporate mature themes into the narrative of the play – the same stuff you'd see in an R-rated movie – without being locked out of retail? ...Shows from Lost to Grey's Anatomy feature mature storylines that we, in games, feel at risk to take."

She's also got quite a bit to say about sex-tangential gaming scandals of days past - and to come:

"Jack Thompson's profoundly homophobic comments and actions surrounding Bully certainly caused a spike in blood pressure. I mean, come on. Welcome to 2007, Jack. There are GLBT people. Get past yourself. Move on. What's next? Should we remove all Warhol, Maplethorpe, Michelangelo, Shakespeare and Capote from museums and libraries worldwide? It was just absurd to me and felt so very 1950's. I understand that he desires to protect people from content that he deems inappropriate -- his comments were inappropriate."

In fact, Brathwaite is understandably irritated at the implication we face so often that there is nothing redeeming whatsoever in the practice of playing video games:

"I've also been particularly bothered by the general perception that games are just bad and don't do anything of value... Seeing a design document for a serious game I am consulting on, one person commented, "Finally, something good to come out of video games." In one single sentence, that guy had just leveled the entire art form."

"There is a whole world of good that has come from games, and much that can be learned from them. A kid with ADHD zones out after 30 minutes of class but can play WoW for 8 hours. There is something to be learned from games -- something good."

It's nice to hear someone rational and progressive for a change, rather than wroth and hyperbolic, isn't it? There's a wealth of Brathwaitian wisdom in the interview, so check it out.

Joystiq interviews Brenda Brathwaite about sex and games [Joystiq]