Virtual sex goes mainstream: Zynga launches The Ville

June 27, 2012

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Now you can invite friends over to your beautiful virtual home, and then into your virtual bedroom…

Social gaming giant Zynga, purveyor of Facebook games such as CityVille and FarmVille, is making things a little racier with its latest product The Ville, launched today.

As the video shows, users can build the “home of their dreams” and invite their Facebook friends over to have fun there. The fun can start with talking, cooking, and dancing, and then go a little further.

As Rafe Needleman of CNET reports:

According to Zynga executive producer David Gray, when someone is in your house and you begin to interact with them, you can level up by interacting with them in ways that the game sees as romantic. As you climb the experience tree, you eventually unlock the capability to initiate the “happiness home run,” or just “whoopee” as Gray called it in an interview.

When you do so, the two characters begin to disrobe on-screen (not completely, though) and the bed in the virtual bedroom gets covered, briefly, with little floating hearts.

Of course this is hardly the highly explicit interaction possible in games such as Red Light Center or even Second Life, but it is taking the idea of virtual sex into a far broader domain.

While The Sims also has a similar concept of making whoopee, this is interaction with a computer game, not other people. In The Ville, you are interacting with people who have a Facebook profile, and you either already know or might meet sometime. As such, there is the potential for The Ville to be effectively a dating site which will lead either to real-life catch-ups, or potentially inviting friends to go to virtual worlds that do not draw the veil so early.

All of which may increase people's appetite for the ever-growing world of virtual sex.

Ross Dawson

Ross Dawson is globally recognized as a leading futurist, entrepreneur, keynote speaker, strategy advisor, and bestselling author. He is Founding Chairman of the Advanced Human Technologies Group of companies.

Strong demand for Ross’s expertise has seen him deliver keynote speeches and executive workshops in over 30 countries across six continents and consult to leading organizations worldwide such as American Express, Citibank, Coca-Cola, Dubai Ministry of Finance, EY, Gartner, Google, Macquarie Bank, News Limited, Procter & Gamble, PwC, Star Alliance, Visa and many other leading organizations.

He is author of four books including the Amazon.com bestseller Developing Knowledge-Based Client Relationships, now out in its second edition, and the acclaimed book Living Networks, which The New York Times credits with predicting the social networking revolution.

Ross’s frequent media appearances include CNN, Bloomberg TV, SkyNews, European Business Network, Channel News Asia, ABC TV, Today and Sunrise shows, New York Times, The Guardian and many others. Ross has been named as one of the most influential people in the world on topics including the future of work, fintech, crowdfunding, and Enterprise 2.0.

Ross has run executive education programs and lectured at numerous academic institutions around the world, including the University of Virginia, Australian Graduate School of Management, Singapore Institute of Management, Institute of Banking and Finance, Institute of Company Directors Malaysia and Singularity University in Silicon Valley, and is faculty for the innovation programs of Australian Institute of Company Directors.

He has a B.Sc(Hons) in Physics from Bristol University, Graduate Certificate in Applied Finance from Macquarie University, and is a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

Previously Ross worked in senior positions in London, Tokyo and Sydney with organizations including Merrill Lynch, NCR and most recently Thomson Financial as Global Director – Capital Markets. He has extensive international business experience and speaks five languages.

Ross is the founder and publisher of FutureofSex.net and is a globally recognized authority on the future of sex, extensively quoted in the media on the topic.