Yes, this news is probably a bit old by now, and avid Kotaku readers will probably have looked at it already, but I saw this article on the Xbox rumble massage apps receiving some link love on GameSetWatch and couldn’t pass up the opportunity to investigate.
Titled “The Xbox Massage-Makers: Money, Sex Toys & Indie Backlash”, this piece is an in-depth look at the rumble massage phenomenon that dominated XBIG’s earlier days, discussing its origins, its (widely lamented) success and the various motivations that people had for creating these apps in the first place. It’s an intriguing piece because it offers the story from the perspective of the developers rather than rehashing tales of woe and villainy. Heck, wouldn’t we all like to know just what these people were thinking when they built their little vibrating buggers?
This piece answers a lot of questions that I’ve personally harboured for a long time, and it may answer some of yours too. Whether you choose to accept the explanation or not is up to you, but it’s interesting either way.