A lovely day was spent yesterday wandering New York City with three male friends (which, apparently, qualifies you as a prostitute in the city of Chicago. Don’t ask me why, I don’t make up the rules), complete with a trip to Nintendo World. The store itself was shiny and pretty (an important selling point, especially if you, like me, are constantly attracted to anything that sparkles), but content-wise pretty mediocre. More on that, however, to follow over at Planet GameCube. On the upside of things, I did get a chance to shove ten-year-old boys aside for a place at the Nintendogs demo table, and that only after a full minute spent hugging hundreds of stuffed, super-deformed puppies by pressing my body against a rack of too-adorable merch. All in all, quite a productive visit.

In real news, the International Game Developers Association has recently set up a new Sex SIG, which has, in turn, gone and set up a “Sex and Games” blog. The blog, in my opinion, is a great place for open and constructive discussion on the topic; the developers who run it are anti-censorship and believe in sexual content as a valid form of art. At the same time, I don’t envy their position at all. As a part of the IGDA, they have a real public face to maintain, and a lot of people and opinions to try and balance - including angry parents and howling conservatives. So far, it seems like they’re doing a great job keeping things open and objective. On top of it all, they’re providing a ton of informative links - really creating a web of the articles that have come out on the topic and the sites that are willing to talk, including, most recently, Thumb Bandits, a girl and lesbian-friendly gaming site with a super-nice staff and my thumbs up.

Interestingly enough, the “Sex and Games” bloggers say the SIG wasn’t created in response to “Hot Coffee”, that it’s been in the works for a while. How nice to hear. It gives some indication that these developers are really interested in the issue, not just the current hype. Here’s to hoping the attention they get, not just the blog, is still going full steam after the hype is gone. In the meantime, check this out (NSFW).