Thanks to its frequent sex and nudity, HBO's Game of Thrones — and the series of fantasy novels it's based on — is no stranger to the internet's abiding Rule 34: If it exists, there's porn based on it. Indeed, there is a cornucopia of smutty GOT fan fiction, cartoons, and photoshops only a short Google search away.
But what there hasn't been is graphic, hardcore-porn–style movies of characters from the show, using these characters' HBO-sanctioned likenesses.
Until now.
Using character models and textures ripped straight from the HBO-licensed Game of Thrones video game spin-off, which features the likenesses and voices of several of the main stars of the series — including Lena Headey, Peter Dinklage, and Natalie Dormer — internet auteurs have created a host of highly explicit short movies in which the show's stars perform all the expected configurations, and more. (Much more!)
And they've done it all with free and easy-to-use software that lets users make movies out of computer games.
Here's how.
In early December, TellTale Games released the first installment of its (very good!) six-part adventure game series Game of Thrones. It's a narrative game that tells a smaller story that's parallel to — but sometimes intersects with — the main storyline of the show, based on George R.R. Martin's series of books. In those places, a variety of the series' stars (including, in the first episode, Lena Headey as Cersei, Peter Dinklage as Tyrion, and Natalie Dormer as Margaery) voice their roles from the show, and appear in highly detailed, animated form.
Skilled internet artists bearing names like "Ganonmaster" spend hours converting files — the models and textures that give life to the characters in the game series — into a format that works with the Source engine, a publicly available 3D game engine made by the Valve Corporation. Valve, a multibillion-dollar Washington company that owns Steam, the game distribution platform, also makes movie-making software called Source Filmmaker.
Using Source Filmmaker, anyone can make movies with assets in the Source game engine. Those assets could come from a wildly popular multiplayer game like Team Fortress 2, which is what SFM is probably best known for, or individually created assets, like a highly realistic 3D model of Lena Headey's face.
Source Filmmaker can also pull in assets from Steam Workshop, a vast, user-created database of virtual people, places, and things that provide the set design for these movies. And while Telltale's 3D models don't include the nude bodies of their characters, enterprising digital artists like LTR3000, who likes to give Cersei a penis, simply use other assets.
This kind of fan-made hardcore porn is nothing new for games; It can be done with literally any 3D computer game. Before the release of the Game of Thrones clips, the same artists focused heavily on the Mass Effect and Dragon Age series. But those games didn't feature realistic likenesses of world-renowned stars.
And for a few of these artists, it's a business. The Cunnysseur, probably the most talented of the GOT pornographers, actually takes commissions.
A simple 1-2 second loop with 1 camera angle = 35usd
More camera angles means more work = 45usd
4 seconds of somewhat variable movement with up to 3 angles = 65usd
Price may vary on what we get agreed on, camera angles, length, simplicity of the animation.
What I do is that I give you a rough pose of what you want, if it's OK GOOD I finish the pose completely, have another check with you and then move onto the animation.
Facilitating the pornographic art of anonymous internet creeps is probably not what HBO had in mind when it licensed Game of Thrones to a game company. And as familiar faces continue to appear in the game series (Jon Snow is in the recently released Episode 2), we can expect them to be added to the mix.
But perhaps the TV giant can take consolation in the fact that if anyone would approve of these movies, it's the diminutive star of the show.