Erotic Electronic Encounters

By MICHAEL D. LEMONICK

Are the kids in bed? The curtains closed? It's time to turn on the computer and start playing some of the hottest electronic games around -- games so hot that they threaten to melt your microprocessor. Welcome to the world of high- tech titillation, where characters perform feats of onscreen electronic eroticism that leave little -- or nothing -- to the imagination.

At the raunchy end of the spectrum are programs like Sexxcapades, which is sort of a kinky Monopoly, and MacPlaymate, in which the player requests a model to remove her clothing and perform graphic acts, complete with audible gasps, grunts and groans. Such sleazy software is usually sold by mail order or passed from hand to hand; most retailers won't touch it.

There is soft-core software as well. The most successful by far is the Leisure Suit Larry series, expected to take in $20 million to $25 million at retail this year. Larry, a bumbling nerd of a hero, bounces from one sexual escapade to another with well-endowed females bearing names like Tawni, Bambi and Passionate Patti. The sex itself, however, happens under blankets or behind CENSORED signs.

Says Ken Williams, the president and founder of Sierra On-Line, Inc., where Larry was born: "If the game were a movie, it would be rated PG-13. It is less offensive than what you see on prime-time TV." There are, he remarks, just two breasts and no foul language in the entire five-game series.

Still, even the tamest of sex makes computer-game retailers nervous. "The last thing they need is some parents' group marching outside the stores," says Williams. The problem is that virtually everyone thinks of computer games as part of the toy industry, and the idea of a toy with a sexual theme is inherently objectionable. People like Williams, on the other hand, claim that the games are really part of the entertainment industry -- and few would argue that movies and books cannot contain adult themes. But until retailers relax, Sierra On-Line is not rushing to market other sexually oriented games.

The obvious answer is to give kids and parents some hint about the content of the games they see on store shelves. That would both warn consumers away from potentially offensive games and reassure them about the wholesomeness of others. In fact, Williams chaired a committee of the Software Publishers Association that considered a system of rating computer games akin to the way movies are classified. But software publishers are noted for their independence, and they could not reach a consensus. The best they could do was to urge members to describe clearly on the package what appears on the disk. That is what Sierra On-Line has done with Leisure Suit Larry.

It might be wise to come up with some kind of ratings, though, before computer games get much more sophisticated. Forward-looking designers are working on a concept called virtual reality, in which the action will be so - real that a player will have the sense of actually being inside a game. Imagine what will happen when the X-rated versions come out.