Software:Cobra Club

From HandWiki
Short description: 2015 video game
Cobra Club
Cobra Club Cover.png
itch.io version cover
Developer(s)Robert Yang
Platform(s)Linux, macOS, Windows
Release18 May 2015
Mode(s)Single-player

Cobra Club is a 2015 video game by independent developer Robert Yang. Players navigate a fictitious mobile application as a nude character standing before a mirror to take and send dick pics as customisable user-generated photos of their character's penis. These images, shared initially with other automated users of the platform, are revealed at the end of the game to have been uploaded without the player's awareness to an online Tumblr page. Inspired by critiques of mass surveillance and the privacy issues of dating apps, Yang developed Cobra Club to simultaneously provide players with a "safe space" to simulate taking dick pics outside of the real-world context, whilst also making the player aware of the data and privacy implications of those practices in real life. Upon release, Cobra Club was met with critical and academic interest, with reviewers finding the game to be an amusing and highly customisable representation of self-experimentation, and academic writers commenting on the game's representation of the interactions between identity, self-exploration, technology and privacy. Following release, the game's online component was affected by a site-wide adult content ban on Tumblr and streaming ban on Twitch, prompting comments from Yang about the impact of censorship on queer and adult online content. A remastered version of the game was uploaded by Yang in 2016.

Gameplay

Censored gameplay screenshot, depicting the appearance and camera controls and sliders on the user interface.

in Cobra Club, players interact with the interface of a fictitious mobile application in which the aim is to take and receive ingame dick pics. Starting as a randomly-generated character standing naked before a mirror, players can use onscreen sliders and buttons to change the perspective to take pictures of themselves, and unlock options to change their physical features, including the shape, size and erectness of the penis and testicles, and options to change its appearance in unrealistic ways.[1] Other features include the ability to select image filters and to download the pictures taken onto the player's desktop.[2] The interface features periodic automated messages purporting to be other users of the application, who request and send dick pics of their own, to which the player receives and can respond to abstract messages such as "hyper combo finish" or "show me your Pikachu".[3] After 15 to 25 minutes of play, the player will be notified that their images, "chat transcript" and username hashtag have been uploaded to a "government spy database" named 'COBRACLUBB'.[4] It is revealed to the player that the social features of Cobra Club are not automated, with the game uploading the pictures taken by the player onto a public Tumblr page.[1] The game features a privacy agreement and a procedurally-generated random name to protect the anonymity of the player.[4]

Development

Cobra Club was developed by Robert Yang, a queer independent game developer and academic associated with the New York University Game Centre.[5] Yang was primarily influenced to create the game after exploring political critiques of mass surveillance,[4] primarily taking inspiration from an interview between John Oliver and Edward Snowden on Last Week Tonight, in which Oliver jokes with Snowden about the mass collection of "dick pics" by the National Security Agency.[6] Yang was dissatisfied with an initial prototype focused on saturating the Internet with user-generated images, titled Dick Pics 4 Freedom, finding the concept too "obvious and boring". Instead, the game was redesigned to explore the "muddy relationship to identity and context" and the political and cultural dimension of taking a dick pic. To achieve this, Yang modelled the game around the design of "purpose-built gay male dating sites" and applications, including Adam4Adam and Grindr.[4]

Yang aimed to create a positive representation of the act of creating and sharing dick pics, "disconnected from beauty standards and body shaming",[7] in an attempt to "establish a sort of safer space to explore dick pics" through the medium. Yang was conscious of the representation of bodies in the design of the player character, randomising the skin colour and dimensions of the player character in each playthrough, and preventing first-time players from immediately changing these attributes.[4] However, Yang also sought to deconstruct the "fantasy" of this experience,[7] stating that that "art and meaning" of the game was focused on the game's twist of disclosing the player's efforts without their knowledge and consent to illustrate "how surveillance and systems of control work".[8]

As of September 2017, Yang stated that 75,000 player-generated pictures had been uploaded to the game's database.[8] In December 2018, in reaction to the announced ban of adult content on Tumblr on December 17,[9] Yang migrated the networked component of Cobra Club to a Twitter account to preserve the functionality of the game and its 100,000 user-created images.[10] Yang publicly expressed discontent with censorship of Cobra Club and his other adult works,[11] citing the Tumblr ban on the game and a ban of broadcasting the game on Twitch as moderation of queer adult games that were "policing sex and queerness" and limiting the "audience and community" for games that depicted "intimacy or LGBTQ experiences".[12] In 2016, Yang re-released a revised and updated version of Cobra Club, featuring "completely new dick, pubic hair (and) strap-on support".[13]

Reception

Cobra Club received praise from video game publications and writers. Several writers, including Laura Hudson of Boing Boing and Patricia Hernandez of Kotaku, found the game to be a comic and sympathetically disarming subversion of the act of taking and sending dick pics, in contrast to their often "unwanted and unsolicited" nature for women.[14][15] Zack Kotzer of Vice found the game to be the "most explicit and engaging" of Yang's work to date, describing it as "subversive", "mysterious", and "intimidating".[3] Philippa Warr of Rock Paper Shotgun noted the game's unusually broad level of customisation and experimentation open to the player, stating "it's comical but you also end up focusing on the aesthetics rather than the fact it's a penis".[2] Laura Dale of Destructoid praised the "real level of depth and social commentary" behind the game's "interesting and intellectual message" about online data security.[16] Paolo Pedercini described the game as "the best of the series" of Yang's games and "the one that most effectively demands to exist in our thoughts".[17]

Several media and game design academics have discussed the themes of Cobra Club. Dr. Rob Gallagher characterised Cobra Club as a "playful" and "explicitly political" game that "poses questions about privacy, technology, identity" and "consent" by subverting the player's understanding of the fictional and real dimensions of their interaction with the game, and in turn is a game that "explores the dynamics of digital sociability and surveillance through narratives of exhibition and voyeurism".[18] Gallagher also found the game to be effective representation of the interaction between technology and individual expression, stating "for all its humour, the game suggests the importance of the smartphone as a means of mediating between public and private spaces and facilitating experiments in self-experimentation".[19] Eron Rauch stated the game "calls us to engage from new perspectives with the ways that we navigate representations of our seemingly private bodies and their alternating shameful, intrusive, or erotic functions in digital communications technologies".[20] Bonnie Ruberg highlighted the game's "sense of humor", stating the game "simultaneously pokes fun at and revels in “dick pic” culture, making the gay male body the site of play and suggesting that queer erotic practices are taking place behind closed doors".[21] In contrast, Dr. Todd Harper expressed that whilst the game was "clever' and "fun", he felt the game was not an "accurate representation" of the culture of taking dick pics, critiquing the game's avoidance of exploring "risk", threat of evaluation and "fear of judgment" to portray the "vulnerability" of sharing intimate information.[22]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Keogh, Brendan (24 June 2015). "The Games of Robert Yang". https://reverseshot.org/series/entry/2064/robert_yang. Retrieved 9 December 2023. 
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Warr, Philippa (29 May 2015). "Cobra Club: Boner Photography For All". https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/cobra-club-dick-pic-game. Retrieved 8 December 2023. 
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Kotzer, Zack (30 May 2015). "'Cobra Club,' a Dick Pic Simulator, Is the Most Erotic NSA Critique Yet". https://www.vice.com/en/article/78xakq/cobra-club-a-dick-pic-simulator-is-the-most-erotic-nsa-critique-yet-nsfw. Retrieved 8 December 2023. 
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 Yang, Robert (28 May 2015). "Cobra Club as ouroboros". https://www.blog.radiator.debacle.us/2015/05/cobra-club-as-ouroboros.html. Retrieved 8 December 2023. 
  5. ↑ Gallagher (2018) p. 58
  6. ↑ Gorenstein, Colin (9 April 2015). ""Dick pics for freedom": How John Oliver accidentally started a NSFW revolution". https://www.salon.com/2015/04/09/dick_pics_for_freedom_how_john_oliver_accidentally_started_a_nsfw_revolution/. Retrieved 8 December 2023. 
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Koeller, Joe (14 July 2023). "Bodies that Matter: an interview with Robert Yang". https://www.fanbyte.com/legacy/bodies-that-matter-an-interview-with-robert-yang. Retrieved 8 December 2023. 
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Latz, Frank; Yang, Robert (28 September 2017). Gay Science (Speech). NYU Game Center Lecture Series. OpenTranscripts. Retrieved 8 December 2023.
  9. ↑ Liao, Shannon (4 December 2018). "Tumblr will ban all adult content on December 17th". https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/3/18123752/tumblr-adult-content-porn-ban-date-explicit-changes-why-safe-mode. Retrieved 9 December 2023. 
  10. ↑ Yang, Robert (10 December 2018). "The end of Tumblr (and Cobra Club?)". https://www.blog.radiator.debacle.us/2018/12/the-end-of-tumblr-and-cobra-club.html. Retrieved 9 December 2023. 
  11. ↑ Yang, Robert (23 March 2016). ""The game industry needs to get laid and just chill already" @ GDC 2016". https://www.blog.radiator.debacle.us/2016/03/the-game-industry-needs-to-get-laid-and.html. Retrieved 9 December 2023. 
  12. ↑ Joho, Jess (9 June 2019). "The creator behind the best sex games talks art, intimacy, and gay culture". https://mashable.com/article/sex-video-games-gay-culture-pride-robert-yang. Retrieved 9 December 2023. 
  13. ↑ "New and Improved: Cobra Club HD". 11 May 2016. https://radiatoryang.itch.io/cobraclub. Retrieved 9 December 2023. 
  14. ↑ Hernandez, Patricia (29 May 2015). "A Game About The Complicated World of Dick Pics". https://kotaku.com/a-game-about-the-complicated-world-of-dick-pics-1707644515. Retrieved 8 December 2023. 
  15. ↑ Hudson, Laura (29 May 2015). "Cobra Club is a game about dick pics and state surveillance". https://boingboing.net/2015/05/29/cobra-club-dick-pics.html. Retrieved 8 December 2023. 
  16. ↑ Dale, Laura (1 June 2015). "Cobra Club made me think intelligently about data security". https://www.destructoid.com/cobra-club-made-me-think-intelligently-about-dick-security/. Retrieved 8 December 2023. 
  17. ↑ Pedercini, Paolo (3 January 2016). "Top Ten 2015 Games You Don’t Have To Play". https://www.molleindustria.org/blog/top-ten-2015-games-you-dont-have-to-play/. Retrieved 8 December 2023. 
  18. ↑ Gallagher (2018) p. 67, 76
  19. ↑ Gallagher (2018) p. 71
  20. ↑ Rauch, Eron. "Cobra Club". https://www.videogamesforthearts.com/articles/xm5kehv46gxdby5fba6r1opprk8eji. Retrieved 8 December 2023. 
  21. ↑ Ruberg (2019) p. 223
  22. ↑ Harper, Todd (29 May 2015). "Not Safe For Work (Or Anywhere Else)". http://www.chaoticblue.com/blog/2015/05/not-safe-for-work-or-anywhere-else/. Retrieved 8 December 2023. 

Bibliography

  • Gallagher, Rob (2018). Videogames, Identity and Digital Subjectivity. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-138-22898-6. 
  • Ruberg, Bonnie (2019). Video Games Have Always Been Queer. New York University Press. ISBN 9781479831036. 

External links



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