It's no child's play

AHMEDABAD: Raunchy video games are a big hit with the city’s school kids, who are spending hours playing them in cyber cafes. The games, some of which are titled Playboy The Mansion, Seven Sins, Bible Black, Private Dancer, Jeena, Singles Flirt Up Your Life and Lula, allow the players to kiss, fondle and undress virtual models and finally make love to them.

The games are designed to play on youngsters’ imaginations. While one of the games shows a player as a high-flying media baron making love to pretty models, the other has a player working at a garment store and seducing his female customers.

Available all over the city in shops selling compact discs and digital video discs (DVDs), these pirated CDs and DVDs cost not more than Rs 150 while originals come at steep Rs 1,500.

According to the owner of one such shop, school vacations were the best time for business . “We were flooded with kids asking for naughty video games during the summer vacations. Even now, we have at least three kids asking for naughty games every day.”

The games have profited cyber cafe owners as well. A cyber cafe owner in Naranpura said, “A large number of school kids come and play games for hours. We don’t allow people to surf obscene websites but there is nothing wrong in playing video games. After all, they are virtual.”

And of course, the big bucks kids shell out for spending hours in a cyber cafe can make any owner look the other way. Each game lasts for hours and is filled with sexual interaction between a player and the virtual models. In Playboy The Mansion for example, the player plays to enact Hugh Hefner, the owner of Playboy magazine and a self-confessed womaniser.

He gets to select the ‘models’, undress them, and take a shower with them. Of course, there is empire building involved and the player also conducts editorial meetings, design the magazine’s 12 editions and at the end of the year, choose his Playmate of the Year. Hefner would have been proud of this!

In Seven Sins, the player works at a female lingerie shop and his target is to seduce as many customers as possible. Once the virtual customer is seduced, the player goes to the next level, where he can make love to the woman.

In Flirt Up Your Life, the player’s target is to make a woman cheat on her lover. Said 12-year-old Ravi (name changed), “I love playing Playboy The Mansion... it’s a fantastic concept. I get a kick just thinking I’m in Hefner’s shoes, so what if it’s virtual.” Ravi’s 11-year-old friend said, “These games are not at all vulgar, they are simply naughty. What’s the harm in having some fun? Our entire group spends about five hours everyday in cyber cafes playing such games, which de-stress us after boring tuition classes and school.”