Pornographic games spice Japanese computer software

Press, 23 April 1984, Page 2

Pornographic games spice Japanese computer software

By

BRUCE ROSCOE

Tokyo

Pornographic censors could be the next victims of Japanese technological wizardry. Japanese pornographers are dropping their pens and tapping on computer keyboards to produce “adult games” spiced with “hightech” eroticism.

Censors, unless they bone up on personal computer use and master keyword patterns for many of the games, will never be able to examine graphic illustrations they may regard as overly offensive, because they will not know how to instruct the computer to bare all on its screen. Even if censors learn to coax computers into yielding the innermost secrets of the pornographer’s programmes, they will still need crash courses in programming to be able to delete as they see fit from disks and tap'es. Hot-B Company, Ltd, a Tokyo personal computer software maker that claims to have pioneered what it calls “Love-tech” from hightech, is confident censors can be kept at bay for years and predicts solid growth in the new industry.

“We are not worried about censorship at all,” says Hot-B’s president, Mr Terutaka Takahashi, a onetime advertising executive who made the news last year with a programme that let computer buffs play defense and counsel in the bribery trial of a former Prime Minister, Mr Kakuei Tanaka.

“You can censor movies and video tapes by just looking at them, but some of our programmes are quite complicated. Censoring them could take hours.” According to Mr Takahashi, there is no law against pornographic software, and flustered politicians, after months of angry protests about the proliferation of lewd comic books and magazines for teenagers in several sittings of the Japanese Parliament, have still to agree on the wisdom of granting censors more power to control print pornography. Hot-B’s animated adult game series include titles such as “Miss Mariko, SOS!,” “The Hot Spring Geisha,” “Lolita Syndrome” and “The Girl Next Door.”

In Utt Lolita game, accordingto the program’s

advertising blurb, “many cute young girls live in the same apartment complex.” Computer game skills are tested by a series of keywords and follow-up commands that will lure the girls out from their rooms and disrobe them.

A “professional sex fighter” appears in “The Hot Spring Geisha,” attacking a geisha who is working at a resort to pay off debts. The object of this game is to give the geisha the upper hand in the fight, if the player is on her side. Other games, designed for couples to play, attempt to be educational. In the last four months, at least two motel-like “love hotels” reportedly have fitted some rooms with personal computers that can run such programs. Since Hot-B was formed last July, according to Mr Takahashi, about six software houses have diversified into pornographic programming. But because the industry is so new, there are no data on its size or sales.

Most Tokyo computer software shops, however, appear to stock the programs, which retail from around $l5 to $3O each, and Mr Takahashi says no distributor has declined to handle them.

“Adult games are very popular,” says Mr Kazuhiko Ishimaru, who runs a Tokyo software rental business called Bug Inn. “They have awakened a generation who thought they could not relate to computers. Most of the borrowers are in their 305.”

Mr Takahashi admits that a large proportion of customers are middle and high school pupils, some of whom he says telephone Hot-B occasionally to ask the meaning of various features of the programmes. The most popular programme among students, says Mr Takahashi, is “Saturday Night In Roppongi.” The player becomes a young Japanese male “hunting cute Caucasian women” in the famous Mecca of Tokyo nightlife. To attract the attention of his quarry, he must select the most appropriate English-lan-guage greeting from several options displayed on the screen.

His linguistic and computer game dexterity determines the outcome of the evening.

Hot-B programmes are designed to run on only some Japanese makes of computer but Mr Takahashi

says the company is planning to develop versions in English for export, tailoring programmes first to suit Apple computer specifications.

“The United States personal computer market is 10 times the size of Japan’s. We could make big sales. The quality of our graphics is better, though in some programs the story line is weak. Already we have had several inquiries from American companies.” Mr Takahashi says the first programme Hot-B will develop for export probably will be “Saturday Night In Roppongi,” though the characters will be reversed to give young foreign males the opportunity to “hunt cute Japanese girls.”