Can somone explain this "booth babe" thing to me?
- Thread starter Vault101
- Start date
This may only be anecdotal evidence but it is the only evidence I can provide at this point, since I don't know any studies into the relevant area:Slayer_2 said:
5% is insane. I'd say a third of the girls I know regularly play games: I've live in Western and Southern Germany, the North of England, the Midlands, and the South. From my experience it ranges from where you live and how much pressure there is to be "girly" - but overall I'd say a third of all girls I've met play games. My girlfriend loves RPGs, JRPGs, fighting-games, and racing games most. One of her female flatmates regularly enjoys Minecraft and FPS games, the other female flatmate enjoys dungeon-crawlers and FPS games, especially Boarderlands. My current flatmate's girlfriend is a huge fan of Team Fortress 2, etc etc etc.
Obviously these things are going to range from area to area, but from my experience, the places where women are told "it's not a boy's toy", women often become gamers. I'm not going to argue that it's the same amount as men, but I wouldn't say 5% is any where near accurate.
Then again, this may literally all come from me falling into certain groups of people: I have lived in areas where only one or two of a group of twenty or so women plays games at all.
Sounds like a pretty rare occurrence, I know one female gamer, and maybe 5 girls who've picked up a controller in their life (not gamers, though). This is out of at least 30-40 girls I know well enough to know if they game regularly or not.AngloDoom said:
As a female, I don't really know what to think about booth babes. It's really no different from any other situation where they plop a few well-endowed females into an advertising situation to attract more attention from the male demographic. And I am very well aware that video games are still a male-dominated market.Vault101 said:
But I guess it does me feel unwelcome as a female. I look at booth babes who are specifically for one company, like Nintendo or whatever, and it sort of makes me wonder if Nintendo knows or even cares that I'm there. It's sort of like going into a Hooters. I know why they are there, and so do they. And none of that has anything to do with me. It really gives me that "Am I in the right place?" feeling. I don't feel like I belong.
Maybe I'm being a bit oversensitive, but I feel like I can't possibly be the only female gamer to feel this way. We're getting better about spreading the gender diversity and having genuine female characters in our games, but at the conventions and in our advertising it seems we haven't budged an inch in 20 years. I can tell developers are trying recognize that female gamers are a viable market, but their advertising and publicity contradicts all of that.
So do I want booth babes gone? Not quite, but I think there are much more subtle and tasteful ways of having that female presence. Have them play a part in the convention--not just be a set of boobs for all the guys to get pictures with. Make sure they know a thing or two about games so they can have cohesive conversations, and give them something to do apart from stand there and smile like idiots. Maybe give them male counterparts to play off of, or have them do little skits in character.
Woah. That's such a huge difference. I honestly have no idea how to begin to explain that. I suppose I've just been quite lucky - but then again, it may be the fact that most of the people I know are quite geeky people, so their friends and girlfriends are more likely to game as well, regardless of gender.Slayer_2 said:
I've also asked some girls what got them into games and a lot of them did it at a young age when one of their male friends handed them a controller because they wanted someone to play with.
Well, most of my friends thing a good time is going out and getting wasted. So gaming is pretty low down on the priority list, it's usually get drunk and/or high, recover, and work enough to make some money for booze/drugs. I like partying though, and most of my games are single-player anyhow, so I don't mind being alone as a gamer. Most of the females I know would rather be shopping, reading gossip mags, or partying than gaming. It makes finding an interesting girlfriend hard, but getting random hook-ups easy.AngloDoom said:
And starting gaming early is the most sure-fire way to hook someone, I started at 11 with Quake 2, and ever since then I've been a somewhat serious gamer. Hand almost any girl I know a controller and she flops around like a fish on land. Call of Duty 4 on the easiest difficulty proves impossible for most of them. The zombie mod in World at War is more doable, as the first few levels I can do all the work and revive when I get a chance.
Why I agree:
-Beautiful women in costumes is a great idea to any (ok... most) man.
-If car shows get them, why not videogame conventions?
-Because going to videogame conventions is fun and all, but there sometimes comes a point where you want a break from gamestalk and just feel like Macking.
Why I disagree:
-Men shouldn't be allowed to ask for a physical standard unless they meet said standard. (the guy version of it anyway)
-Women take it the wrong way (you don't *have* to look like a bikini model to wear a costume, take it from me, a guy; We're happy when you simply *show up* in cosplay, if you're not my type, someone else'll fancy you, to each his own. Plus statistically speaking, there's enough people for there to necessarily be a match for you if you want one)
-Beautiful women in costumes is a great idea to any (ok... most) man.
-If car shows get them, why not videogame conventions?
-Because going to videogame conventions is fun and all, but there sometimes comes a point where you want a break from gamestalk and just feel like Macking.
Why I disagree:
-Men shouldn't be allowed to ask for a physical standard unless they meet said standard. (the guy version of it anyway)
-Women take it the wrong way (you don't *have* to look like a bikini model to wear a costume, take it from me, a guy; We're happy when you simply *show up* in cosplay, if you're not my type, someone else'll fancy you, to each his own. Plus statistically speaking, there's enough people for there to necessarily be a match for you if you want one)
they tried the E3 without the booth babes, and it sucked. so they brought them back. I see no problem with it. It gets models some work and it makes the conventions slightly less gross, because noone wants to be that guy who the booth babes might remember as reeking of cheese.