Retro gaming controversy: the story of Strip Poker on the Commodore 64

Strip Poker: A Sizzling Game of Chance by Artworx became one of those games in the early home computer era that people talked about far more than they actually played seriously. On paper, it was nothing more than a straightforward five-card draw poker game against a computer opponent. The rules were the same ones people already knew from a kitchen table card game: bet, draw cards, bluff if you’re feeling brave, and hope your hand beats the opponent’s. But Artworx added one little twist that guaranteed attention. Instead of simply winning chips, every time the computer opponent lost enough money, she would remove an item of clothing. And just like that, a fairly ordinary poker program turned into one of the most eyebrow-raising pieces of software on early home computers. In the mid-1980s, this kind of idea didn’t quietly slip onto the market. Home computers were usually sitting right in the living room, often next to the television, and they were marketed as educational tools or family entertainment machines. Parents imagined their kids learning programming, maybe playing a few space shooters or puzzle games. What they didn’t necessarily expect was a game where the goal was to win enough poker hands to trigger a pixelated striptease. Unsurprisingly, once people realized what the game was about, it quickly became a topic of debate in gaming magazines and even mainstream media.

Critics were quick to jump on it. Some commentators described the game as a “depressing way” for teenagers to access erotic material through a computer. Their argument was basically: if someone really wanted that kind of content, adult magazines like Playboy already existed and were sitting on newsstands everywhere. Why bring that into video games, which at the time were still widely seen as toys? To them, the idea of mixing adult themes with what many people considered a juvenile medium felt unnecessary at best and inappropriate at worst. Parents and educators also raised concerns, and not entirely without reason. Unlike magazines or movies that were usually kept out of sight, a computer game could be loaded up by anyone who had access to the machine. Since many families shared a single computer, critics worried that games like Strip Poker blurred the line between private adult entertainment and something casually available in the household. Some commentators went further and argued that presenting women as rewards for winning a game might reinforce objectification. Even though the graphics were extremely basic—let’s be honest, we’re talking about blocky 8-bit images here—people were already debating what kind of messages games might send to younger players.

At the same time, plenty of people thought the outrage was a bit dramatic. After all, the graphics were so primitive that the “scandalous” images looked more like abstract art than anything truly shocking. Anyone expecting something realistic would have been disappointed pretty quickly. In fact, if you showed the game to someone today without explaining the context, they might struggle to figure out what the fuss was about. For many players back then, the game’s biggest appeal was simply curiosity. It was one of those things where you heard about it from a friend and thought, “Wait… there’s a game that does what?” Naturally, that kind of reputation spreads fast. Interestingly, Artworx reportedly thought about turning the whole concept on its head. There were discussions about creating a gender-reversed version of the game where a female player would face male opponents who would gradually remove their clothing after losing hands. The idea never moved beyond the planning stage, but the fact that it was considered at all is pretty interesting. In the early 1980s, game developers rarely thought about female players as a major audience. A reversed version of Strip Poker would have been unusual for the time, even if the motivation was probably just to reach a wider market—or stir up even more headlines.

Why the idea never happened is anyone’s guess. Maybe the developers decided the market wasn’t ready. Maybe the controversy around the original game was already enough to deal with. Or maybe they simply realized that drawing one set of awkward pixel people was hard enough without doubling the workload. Whatever the reason, the concept remained just that: an idea that never became an actual release. Ironically, all the criticism probably helped the game more than anything else. Controversy has always been great marketing, even if no one called it that at the time. The more people complained about the game, the more curious others became. Players wanted to see what the fuss was about. Was it really that scandalous? Was it actually fun? Or was it just a weird curiosity sitting on a floppy disk? Many people bought or copied the game simply to find out for themselves.

Looking back now, Strip Poker is less interesting as a game and more interesting as a small cultural moment in early gaming history. It showed that even in the 1980s, developers were already experimenting with content that pushed boundaries. At the same time, it revealed how society was still figuring out what video games were supposed to be. Were they toys? Educational tools? Or could they also be entertainment aimed at adults? Today the whole debate feels almost quaint. Modern games regularly tackle mature themes, complex stories, and realistic characters. Compared to that, a primitive poker game with a few suggestive images seems pretty harmless. But at the time, it was enough to spark conversations about morality, representation, and the role of video games in society. And perhaps that’s the real reason the game is still remembered: not because it was a masterpiece, but because it managed to cause a surprisingly big stir for something that, by today’s standards, looks like it was drawn with a handful of coloured Lego bricks.

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