I can't believe I'm making this writeup. Not because it's about sex, but because I'm going to lay bare before you the dark depths of my own gaming geekdom. You've been warned.
This seemed fitting with the recent rumblings of a Playboy featuring renders of "naked" female game characters (one could argue that game characters are almost always naked, since we don't bother to model the skin under their clothes, and underneath this skin, they're as hollow as a chocolate easter bunny). Those efficient Germans beat the US to the punch on the games/girlie mag cross-over front. Witness Spielboy! My mind is still reeling from the pun. Not only does this webzine exist, they are actually on their fifth issue.
Okay, so it's not a direct match to what Playboy is doing. Spielboy is really more about a playful combination of eroticism and boardgaming. It reminds me of Dan the Automator's Music to Make Love to Your Old Lady By in that it's so playful that I have a hard time telling whether it's satire or straight-faced sex-positivism. Sections like the version of Am I Hot or Not using images from board and card games suggest satire, while the (tame) Pictoral points toward a more serious outlook.
This is the part where I reveal just how deep my gaming geekdom goes. What really interests me about this site is not the sex, but the sheer unadulterated love for non-electronic gaming and everything associated with it. There's a quiz page where you can try to match up 20 game designers with their previous occupations.
Take a minute to comprehend what that means.
While Germany is certainly famous for their love of family games, this sort of gaming wonkery just totally blows my gourd. Spielboy is unique in that it is not a goofy sexual niche site, no, it presents gaming qua lifestyle so completely that it demands human sexuality also be viewed through that lens.
Just to point out a minor factual error - "those efficient Germans" are actually based off the East Coast - they just share our love for good games made here in Germany and elsewhere, which we play a lot when we're not being efficent ;-)
Apart from that, thank you for pointing me in their general direction. The one thing that really gets to me in their current issue is the feature "Do I offend?".
Posted by: ThomasB | 09/17/2004 at 12:54 AM
Spielboy is, actually, American. It's all about German boardgames, that's true, but Matthew Horn, the mastermind behind it, is American.
Me? I read it for the articles.
(Oh, and I think it's satire - sexy satire, but still - and more about boardgames than sex.)
Posted by: Mikko Saari | 09/17/2004 at 06:54 AM
One other minor point: Music to Make Love to Your Old Lady By isn't actually just Dan the Automator, it's Lovage which includes Mike Patton, Dan the Automator and others. Sure, it's Dan's baby but ... you know.
Posted by: peccaui | 09/18/2004 at 11:26 PM
Thanks for the kind comments about Spielboy.com. It seems that you "get" it very well... which is to say that it's a mix of a love of boardgames, satire, sex, and, if I do say so myself, idiocy.
I'm not sure what you mean by "straight-faced sex-positivism", but I'll ask my wife. It sounds hot.
Posted by: Matthew Horn | 09/20/2004 at 07:06 AM
Oh my god, this was really fabulous.
Speaking of naked female characters, Solid Sharkey (scroll down to his Sept. 19th post first) had a great time making a Naked Female in City of Heroes, then rather distastfully turned her into 'Inside-out Girl'. Ick.
http://www.solidsharkey.com/index.html
Posted by: Lisa Galarneau | 09/22/2004 at 08:31 PM
A av A
Posted by: kuwang | 09/19/2006 at 02:30 AM