Every other week for the past nine months, Bonnie Ruberg has contributed Playing Dirty, a column on sex and gender in video games. Since Bonnie is taking a hiatus to work for The Village Voice, this will be her last Playing Dirty piece--at least for a little while:

Female gamers have long rolled their eyes at the role of women in video games. Rightfully so. An overwhelming majority of female characters in mainstream games are either super helpless (think classic Princess Peach) or super sexualized (think Lara Croft). Even nowadays, it's darn hard to come across a decent role model for girl gamers in the games they love. Just finding a reasonably strong female character -- a diplomat into the mostly male world of gaming who can convince men and women alike that beautiful, buxomly women won't always need saving, or even behind-the-scenes manipulation from men -- is itself a serious challenge.

But, come on, we know all that already, right?. The question is, what are we doing about it? Which mainstream games are taking up the challenge and defying video game gender roles? Until recently, I would have said almost none -- at least, none in any significant way (a paired-down bosom here, a spin-off game there). Then came Odin Sphere.

Every other week, Bonnie Ruberg contributes Playing Dirty, a column on sex and gender in video games:

Like every good story, a good game needs a conflict. Sometimes the conflict is obvious (aliens are attacking Earth, you're trapped in a haunted mansion, someone is trying to kick your ass). Other times, it's less obvious (blocks are falling from the sky, the timer is running out, if you don't collect enough cherries you'll never get that bigger house). Whatever the conflict is though, the goal of the game is always the same: to resolve it. Maybe you kill the aliens, or kick his ass, or fit the blocks into perfect rows. The important thing is you win by overcoming conflict.

My question is this: What kind of conflict is there in a sex game?

Every other week, Bonnie Ruberg contributes Playing Dirty, a column on sex and gender in video games:

Do you ever get the feeling dating is a game? Or that racking up MySpace friends is like scoring points? Or maybe that being charming is all well and good, but you should just be able to bid for girls' attention? Well then, cynical love birds, you might want to check out i'm in like with you. Started by Dan Albritton, an ITP student in New York, and his partner Charles Forman, the self-proclaimed game is like Facebook meets Ebay. Except, of course, that the money isn't real, no one regulates the "services rendered," and there's never any shipping and handling. Unless you count the cost of sending your date back home in a taxi at the end of the night. Or the next morning. Or whatever.

Things start out pretty normal in i'm in like with you. You go in, you set up your profile, you pick a sexy "favorite drink." But unlike other social networking sites, the only way you can contact people is by setting up other "games." These games are actually one- to three-day auctions. Usually they're based on questions like "Want to take me out for drinks?" or "Who's the coolest Power Ranger?" Other players bid their points to be one of five top responses to the question. Then whoever started the game picks a winning bidder, and gets the chance to send him a flirtatious message. It better be a good one though, because he just paid for that wink-y smiley face with a hefty chunk of points.

Every other week, Bonnie Ruberg contributes Playing Dirty, a column on sex and gender in video games:

If you came within a fifty-feet radius of Raph Koster at GDC last month, you've probably heard his two cents on the how gaming is being taken over by companies from outside the industry who make games that don't even register on our radar. Koster did mention Korean MMOs, but what he really focused on were kids games. In particular, he pointed the wobbly finger of prediction a virtual world called Club Penguin. With 4.5 millions unique users in December, 2006 alone, Koster claims Club Penguin can rival the largest online games in the world. He seems to be right.

My question is, with that many people playing, there must be sex in Club Penguin, right?

Do you love game cakes? So does Gamecakes.com! In answer to the ever-growing number of game-related cakes that have flooded the game world copycat-murder style, Kotaku's Michael Fahey and Joystiq's yours truly have banded together to start an entire site dedicated to game cakes. Okay, Fahey is the brains and the brawn; I'm just a lonely cake-enthusiast turned contributer.

Anyways, the point is, never before has there been a site so full of deliciousness. Plus, if you've made a game cake and have pictures, we want to publish them; everyone deserves their fifteen minutes of cakey fame. In addition to showing off pics, Gamecakes.com is also a place to share cake recipes, cake-eating testimonials, heck, even cake post mortems. Gamecakes.com is here for all your cake-related needs, or just your digital sugar fix...

Every other week, Bonnie Ruberg contributes Playing Dirty, a column on sex and gender in video games:

I admit, I have a personal beef with this "women are bad drivers" thing. I'm one of those really daring people who never goes more than five miles over the speed limit. My friend's father, on the other hand, is a "zoom down the highway" type, complete with sporty convertible. Somehow it always ends up he's circling the supermarket, searching for a parking spot, when an SUV lumbers in and blocks the way. He shouts, "Come on, lady!" From where we're sitting, he has no way of telling whether that's a man or woman. It might as well be a yeti. Gritting my teeth, I wonder: If women are such awful drivers, how come it's men who go crazy behind the virtual wheel? How come racing games are "men's" games?

Other games blogs may have recently sworn off games cakes, but here at Joystiq this still looks delicious. Then again, this blogger does have a soft spot for vanilla icing. We're not sure where the floating head of a Rayman Raving Rabbids bunny fits into the culture of edible fandom, but can't you just hear him singing his off-key Christmas carol, begging to be smacked across the face?

Actually, this bunny has his own Flickr set. See how he emerged from box art, to tin foil hunk, to tasty, screaming glory.

Thanks, Jason!

Every other week, Bonnie Ruberg contributes Playing Dirty, a column on sex and gender in video games:

Watching Alexey Pajitnov receive the First Penquin award at this year's Game Developer's Choice Awards, it occurred to me I'd never really thought about the face behind Tetris. Sure, I'd heard Pajitnov's name plenty of times, but the man himself, and that lovable, Santa-bought-hair-dye beard, those were off the radar. Who knows what I expected of the infamous Russian: someone stiffer, more stand-off ish, a gaming visage for the Cold War itself. Not that Tetris has much to do with politics. In fact, for me, the game has always represented something totally different. I associate Tetris with sex.

At first, the idea sounds absurd. Colored blocks remind you of sex? Deprived gamer alert! But think about it: the point of Tetris is to make things fit together. Blocks float down to fit in the spaces left open by other blocks. When things fit together right, they make a solid line, a happy, unified whole. When they don't fit right, blocks leave ugly, open patches, the gaping black bane of Tetris existence. To win the game, you need to make sure every block finds its hole.

Prepare to take a beating. Yesterday and today, independent New York developer Gamelab has been heading Gangs of GDC, an in-conference game running on various floors of the expo center. The idea is to join a video-game gang (choices include sects like the M.M.O.F.O's) and then fight rival gang members for control of on-screen territory. Players use their cell phones to call in for gang assignments, then they stand by a Gang TV to get paired off with another knife-wielding thug.

Why do all that? Because it gives us a chance to play while we learn about playing. Also because what the Game Developers Conference needed was a little, old-fashioned gang violence.

Perched proudly on the chests (okay, the shirts) of every employee at the Nintendo expo booth is an adorable Miyamoto Mii -- the same one he showed off a few moments ago in his keynote. Though last night's Lifetime Achievement winner graces the fronts of men and women workers alike, this particular Miyamoto came off a female chest. You know what that means: if you try to sneak a peak at those cute Nintendo blonds, you're bound to get nothing but an eyeful of Miyamoto's cheerful but knowing smile.

Today game developer and pro-girl consultant Sheri Graner Ray encountered something she'd never seen before in all her years at GDC: a line in a women's bathroom. Ray says when she first started coming to the conference, women only made up 3% of attendants. Now there are enough of us skirt-lovers to fill at least a dozen bathroom stalls.

Her potty experiences aside, Ray was part of today's panel on the future of women in the games industry. Unsurprisingly, panelist predicted more female gamers, more female industry members, and more all around gender-y goodness in times to come. And for the first time since Monday, I was actually in a room with more than five other girls. Now let's just hope we don't all run for the bathroom.

Apparently Reggie was in the audience at Phil Harrison's Sony keynote this morning, because waiting for him outside was this dark, important-looking vehicle and a driver who wasn't so pleased to have his picture taken. That guy's hardcore.

My question is, does that driver know what Reggie looks like? Could I be Fils-Aime? And where would I get to go? The Joystiq team considering hijacking the car for a tour around San Francisco ... Reggie wouldn't mind, right?

That Sony's new social channel "Home" looks suspiciously like Second Life is hardly news to anyone who's seen the footage from Harrison's keynote. What I couldn't help giggling about the whole time he showed off the world, though, was just how much sex is going to happen in Home. Realistic avatars? Private spaces? Customization? Think about Second Life. So. Much. Sex. If there was any doubt, just remember Harrison's sample character who was supposed to say "Hi" but said "Ho."

Of course, sexy gamers are bound to have questions. Can avatars take their clothes off? (Probably not.) Will the system support user-generated content that animates sex, like pose balls? (I wouldn't bet on it.) But if MMOs and social networking have taught us anything, it's that people will always find a way to get it on. Just pimp out your pad with downloaded gear, maybe get some porn streaming on your walls, and let the Home sex begin.

Yesterday, in his talk at the Independent Games Summit, Matthew Wegner beat up clowns. To be specific, he showed a physics sim clip of a dozen full-costumed clown ragdolls tumbling helplessly down a spiral staircase. Wegner, head of the physics game site Fun-Motion, called clowns falling down stairs "the ultimate physics game." Why? Because it's a lot easier to identify with clowns in peril then, let's say, a bunch of shapes. Besides, it's just hilarious. Later on, Wegner also showed a sim of a few hundred cows falling through a mess of painful looking barriers. Also very excellent.

The thing that Wegner didn't mention though is what's up with all this sadism? Physics games are definitely fun, but what's most fun is destroying stuff--clowns, cows, ragdoll fighters, whatever. So why the connection? Regardless, if I were a clown at GDC right now, I would probably be in hiding.

At her Serious Games keynote this morning, Jane McGonigal, ex-lead designer for alternate reality game big shot 42 Entertainment, announced her new ARG, World Without Oil. McGonigal calls the game -- which lets players share their ideas for better life during an international oil shortage -- a way to shift from alternate reality games to games that alter reality.

The idea behind the ARG is something called Collective Intelligence, the idea that together we can come up with better solutions to problems than we could alone. In citing examples of CI, McGonigal mentioned games like I Love Bees, even science-fiction novels, but for a great example, just think of Wikipedia. Who, all on their own, would ever know the population of Argentina and the gestation period of a Humpback whale?