Out of the readings for this week, I found the Anne-Marie Schleiner article to be the most intriguing. In particular, I found her analysis of the Nude Raider patch to be quite fascinating. It is obvious that many consider Lara Croft to be a modern sex symbol, even though she is a fictional digital character, so it does not come as a surprise to me whatsoever that individuals would go through the pains of modifying the game to produce Lara Croft in the nude.
Her analysis of the nude patch as creating a fetish object of the male gaze is particularly revealing, as it is clear that such mods enhance the gameplay in no way, but merely serve to strip the already skimpy clothing from Croft’s person. The fact that a single search engine logged over one million hits for the patch serves to illustrate the popular desire by fans of the game to witness Lara Croft without her clothes.
In addition, the fact that the official Tomb Raider homepage at one point contained a direct link to the Nude Raider patch only serves to reinforce the idea that the choice to create such an attractive female character was deliberate. Without a doubt, many copies of Lara Croft: Tomb Raider were sold solely based on the fact that the main character was a scantily clad and well endowed female. The developers of the game clearly used this identifying factor to their advantage, and their indirect endorsement of a patch meant to remove Lara Croft’s clothing only serves to further their commitment to using their character as a sex symbol.
While I find it hard to believe the official Tomb Raider website had a link to the nude patch, I do think it’s interesting that in this world of so much free internet porn, male gamers still feel the desire to see polygonal nudity in their games. But then it occurred to me–are there really that many people masturbating while playing Tomb Raider? Probably not. For the most part, it may just be male gamers wanting to show that they can exercise power over a woman and get her clothes off.
I wonder how much this patch has to do with sexuality, which I concede there is a great deal of eroticism involved with this patch. I would venture a guess that this patch also has a lot to do with the classic hacker/programmer mentality of using the existing coding and ‘scrap matter’ to flesh out the character fully, pun intended, and give everyone a cheap thrill while they are playing the game.
I would also be willing to venture a guess to say that this patch could be be seen as another ploy by modders, or dare I even say by Eidos Interactive and Square Enix, to perhaps open up the doors to more sales by giving a new aspect to the game that had previously been unavailable to the average gaming consumer.