Republik's Spend The Night is about sex. It's an online multiplayer game in which adults can meet other adults and act out their fantasies through graphically rich avatars. Next Generation spoke to company CEO Robert Coshland.

Note: This feature deals with sexual issues.
Image: Promotional material from Spend The Night

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A game in which adults are encouraged to indulge their sexual fantasies is bound to attract the media's attention but, so far, Republik's Spend the Night has been keeping a low profile. Come the middle of next year, when it launches online, that'll all change.  

Details are scant at present, and Coshland doesn't want to give too much away, but the basics are simple. Players go online, choose a graphical identity, mooch around with other players, find someone they like, and find a room. Graphics claimed to be "cinematic" are promised, and a simple interface allows the action to proceed.

"This is a fantasy multiplayer dating game," says Coshland. "It's not like the dating games that we've seen coming out of Japan where you try to win the favor of someone of the opposite sex. We're providing more of a game where two people can go on a date and interact in a 3D space."

Target market

The male-orientated game and pornography industries have something in common in their oft-attempted and usually woeful attempts to woo 'the other 50% of the market'. Coshland reckons he's found the key. Women will be the target market of the game from a creative and a marketing standpoint.

"There is little to nothing with erotic content, that has been developed specifically targeted to women either in the game industry or in the adult industry," he says. "For whatever reason, women tend to be written off as people who have no interest in sexual content. We don't believe that to be true."

moscallout"Women want to be a part of the experience"/moscalloutHe believes interactive erotic content will appeal to women in a way that passive erotic content doesn't. The theory goes that gawking at a porno mag or 'enjoying' a bad video may be okay for male consumers of erotica, but women want to be a part of the experience. It's the central theory that drives this development and is at the core of its success of failure.

"We have found, just in talking to people and focus tests, that women respond better to our concept than men. That's not so say that men aren't interested but women are truly intrigued by this idea because it's geared towards them and it involves them."

He says "every marketing cent" will be spent on targeting women, based on the theory that "men will follow".