Chinese Gaming Expo Bans Booth Babes

[The Lunatic]

I have no issue with this.

Sex appeal and gaming aren't really things I want linked, actions that decrease that, I have no issue with.

I find it insulting that publishers and developers think I'm going to buy a game based on how attractive the characters and how revealing people portraying them at events are dressed.

I'm not that shallow, I have no interest in being treated that shallow, if anything, it just further disinterests me from the product.

I make decisions on liking and being interested in games not by my genitals but my mind.

 

[Savryc]

What's the bloody point then? There are only so many vidyagames I can care about, and when my brain starts oozing "meh" I need skin/cosplay to even bother walking the length of the damn hall.

On a side note. Cameltoe! That is all.

 

[Asuka Soryu]

Gee, now I guess people will have to look at games at Game Expos in China, what a shame. Sarcasm initiated.

 

[Asuka Soryu]

I have no issue with this.

Sex appeal and gaming aren't really things I want linked, actions that decrease that, I have no issue with.

I find it insulting that publishers and developers think I'm going to buy a game based on how attractive the characters and how revealing people portraying them at events are dressed.

I'm not that shallow, I have no interest in being treated that shallow, if anything, it just further disinterests me from the product.

I make decisions on liking and being interested in games not by my genitals but my mind.

Well, as good as that is, there are people who are shallow and will buy a game on that premiss.

~.~ Dead or Alive Bikini Beach Ball. Ugh-

 

[runic knight]

If the ban is solely applicable to booth babes (that being hired marketing), I am all for it. Get rid of that crap, stop promoting games with sex appeal alone and force it to stand on it's actual merits.
If it con-goers as well, well, then I would have issue. Getting rid of aggressive, for lack of a better term, "whoring out" of beautiful women would force the cons into other options. Maybe better ones, but probably not. Still, it is one thing kicked off the list of crap marketing tactics and this is a start.

I wouldn't like it if fans couldn't dress up how they want though. Make the bloodsuckers in the cons clean up their act and the con is better for everyone attending. Forcing the fans to not have much fun in the same brush stroke will have many not want to bother coming.

 

[TomWiley]

I think it's great. The whole expo babe thing is just silly and doesn't belong in the gaming community.

That is absurd. I find those girls quite hot. I enjoy large breasts and exposed crotches, and I'm not ashamed to admit it. Its one of the reasons I go to Pax, E3 and comic con. Seeing as how over-sexualization has infiltrated every facet of the media, I don't understand why we can't give it the option of existing in the gaming world as well. Its all this "gaming has to be friendly towards everyone so we can appeal to a wider audience" bollocks.

BOOTH BABES HAVE A RIGHT TO EXIST!

That's a strange justification: Every other media is oversexualized to the gaming industry should be oversexualized as well.

 

[TomWiley]

I think it's great. The whole expo babe thing is just silly and doesn't belong in the gaming community.

Yeah, it's silly. But not as silly as a banning booth babes.

I don't think you actually mean that. I don't think it's hard to come up with example of things in our society that simply should always be banned or illegal.

It's also not hard to come up with examples of things we should light on fire.

Doesn't mean we should light booth babes on fire.

So I don't see your point.

Basically if that seemed silly note that any example you can give of things that should "always be banned" are extreme and any connection between them and women of any type is moronic.

So I took the initiative and saved you the embarrassment.

That's awfully nice of you. Perhaps you can do it in a less passive-aggressive manner next time. I know this is the Internet, but I'm sure you can behave better than that if you really try.



Yeah, it's silly. But not as silly as a ban. Banning is never a good thing.

This was the post I replied to before it got edited. I simply said that the "banning is never a good thing"- argument doesn't hold because there are plenty of things that should rightly be banned. Which is true.

I can still state that without implying that comparisons between obviously illegal activates and something relatively harmless, such as promotional models, wouldn't be out of place.

 

[TomWiley]

I think it's great. The whole expo babe thing is just silly and doesn't belong in the gaming community.

Yeah, it's silly. But not as silly as a banning booth babes.

I don't think you actually mean that. I don't think it's hard to come up with example of things in our society that simply should always be banned or illegal.

I don't see how booth babes are egregious enough to be lumped in with murder. Banning them is just silly.

Well the post I replied to was:

Yeah, it's silly. But not as silly as a ban. Banning is never a good thing.

I certainly thing that there are a great many things that should be banned or outlawed, and I don't agree with the notion that banning is never a good thing.

Sure, nudity should be banned from cons. But making your dress code so draconian that it really restricts actual cosplayers is a terrible idea.

Absolutely. I think the problem is that due to the clothing of some video game characters, or rather the lack of clothing, it can be hard to make a clear distinction between what's constitutes as booth babes or a girl who's just hired to dress like a bikini-wearing video game character promoting a game.

I think we can all agree on that there is no place for the former in any serious game convention. The problem arise when we have to discuss where to draw the line.

Why?

Also what is wrong with nudity? Is it really that dangerous?
Did sex and/or nudity become more dangerous since the 60's/70's? Have we really gone backwards or forwards since then?
EDIT "Dam-dam-dam"

Well, from what I understand, the problem isn't necessarily the nudity per se. The reason why people protest against the concept of promotional models is because the practice often displays these models (almost exclusively women) in an objectifying fashion. They are used as accessories, to sell products which has nothing to do with sex. It's by definition sexist.

Companies use flesh to lure audience to their products, however a product that is good should sell itself, so this tradition just feels distasteful and out of place.

 

[Sean Steele]

While I hate to put the young lady out of work I do think its a step in the right direction, into saying. "We don't need a sexy girl in a skimpy outfit standing next to a product to sell it."

 

[SonicWaffle]

Why? You can pull huge pay-checks off of modelling.

You can also pull huge pay-checks from acting, even bigger than modelling. How do you think the comparison stacks up between overall number of professional/semi-professional actors vs actors making a fuckton o'money?

She might enjoy modelling, the job itself. I wouldn't look down on models, hey if I could earn money on modelling, I probably would. It's just another job that people do. They aren't victims or ill somehow.

That wasn't my point. The problem with modelling if beauty is your only asset is that A) you are going to have a very short shelf life before you end up either deemed too old by society or desperately trying to hang on by surgically mutilating yourself into a freak and B) the competition is incredibly intense. Think of every clothes catalogue, booth babe, fashion show or what-the-fuck-ever you've seen in your life; all of those people are models. Barring the famous ones, how often do you remember seeing the same one twice? How well do you think these "professional models" are being paid to wear a sweater and pout at a camera for ten minutes a year? Given the sheer number of them, I'm guessing not much.

If you've got something to fall back on when your tits start to sag, that's cool. Sports players tend to do it by going into punditry, for example, given that their detailed knowledge of the sport in question is a great asset. However, if the only thing you're good at is looking good, then when the times comes for you to leave the limelight then what're you going to do? Nobody is going to come calling you to commentate on London Fashion Week, and if you never made it to the big leagues (like -I assume - 99.99% of models) you won't even be able to get on Celebrity Big Brother.

Models have made great careers and really gone long ways. Worthy of envy. I mean programmers, carpenters, plumbers or accountants probably never enjoy the glamour they can live.

A tiny percentage of models do, sure, but the world is full of pretty people. There are millions of the fuckers. It's a trait rather than a skill, and while it's probably (I can't tell you from experience, sadly) a very nice trait to have it isn't enough to coast through life on. Eventually the hard wake up will come for most.

Speaking as an accountant (no, really) I'd much rather have a career built on a sound base of knowledge and skills which could take me anywhere in the world and into any kind of business, will never go out of fashion - if the zombie apocalypse happens, as soon as civilization begins to re-build we're going to be needed as the concept of ownership and trade returns - and has the potential to make me a shitload of money than a career which comes with terrible prospects for advancement and comes with a hard-coded expiry date.

I've nothing against models, and by no means am I saying they're all airheads or whatever, I'm just saying that if your only bankable skill is being beautiful, then one day it's going to turn on you.

 

[SonicWaffle]

And running around with your boobs flapping in the wind is damn distracting.

If your boobs are actually flapping in the wind, you're probably too old to be fighting zombies anyway. You may even be one.

 

[SonicWaffle]

They only exist because they work. If you want game companies to stop focusing on appeal to a teenage male demographic, how about doing the radical thing and not buying games that are advertised in this fashion? You know, that way they're obligated to change their methods or risk losing market share?

Not being a con attendee, I have no idea whether a certain game advertises with booth babes or not. Generally, I know months in advance that I want to play a game, and as such I have no need to pay attention to the marketing. I'd guess for many of us here calling ourselves gamers, game advertising comes in the form of videos, previews and reviews etc rather than big-titted ladies catching our attention.

Oh wait I forgot, there's a common reply to this perfectly logical point of view: "Boycotts never work, so why bother? I'll just keep giving the developers and publishers my money and thus help them support these things that I don't like. Not to mention that this is only encouraging them to keep doing it because (in their eyes) that sort of marketing is obviously working if I'm giving them money for their game."

Boycotts only work in sufficient numbers. On this very forum we have a disturbing number of posters who constantly whine about how feminism is destroying our society and women only use it to get their own way. You think those tools are going to join a boycott? Do you think the vast majority of video game players who have no idea a game has been advertised with booth babes are going to join in, or care?

For all that it's becoming a big issue within the community, feminism-in-video-games is a non-issue to the majority of the video game purchasing public, because most people who buy and play video games don't spend their time talking about them on forums or really give a damn about how the medium is presented; they play a game, have their fun and forget it. What would be the point of those opposed to booth babes (and of that group, the smaller percentage who are actually aware of which games advertise using booth babes) boycotting when in relative terms their numbers are probably so low that a large company won't even notice the lost sales?

And then you wonder why devs don't feel the need to listen to their players. Maybe it's got something to do with the fact that they can pretty much do whatever they want to you, and you'll still rush out to buy their next over-hyped title at full price. In other words, they don't listen because they don't need to.

Or, again, that those of us who bother to put thought into such matters are a tiny percentage of the purchasing public and (in the short term) the smartest business practice for a major game release is to aim for the largest market?

See, personally I don't give a crap about "booth babes". The fact that we have professional models actually doing work for video games is a sign that the video game industry is growing to the point where famous and attractive people are being paid to help push their products. I see that as good, myself, not bad. *shrug*

I don't see how that can be construed as a sign of growth. It says "we're not confident in our product's ability to sell or overly concerned with public perception of our medium, so here's some distracting titties for you"

 

[ThunderCavalier]

Personally, I'm kinda in support of this. I've always thought that the 'booth babes' were a bit of a childish, lowest-common-denominator advertisement that made gaming as a whole look pretty immature, so seeing that China is at least trying to make them less sexualized is a win in my book.

Though they might be trying a bit too hard. Honestly, I don't see anything THAT wrong with the model's pic. Yeah, that's a damn low neckline, but it's pretty conservative if you think about some other booth babes at other previous conventions

 

[dnazeri]

I think it's great. The whole expo babe thing is just silly and doesn't belong in the gaming community.

That is absurd. I find those girls quite hot. I enjoy large breasts and exposed crotches, and I'm not ashamed to admit it. Its one of the reasons I go to Pax, E3 and comic con. Seeing as how over-sexualization has infiltrated every facet of the media, I don't understand why we can't give it the option of existing in the gaming world as well. Its all this "gaming has to be friendly towards everyone so we can appeal to a wider audience" bollocks.

BOOTH BABES HAVE A RIGHT TO EXIST!

That's a strange justification: Every other media is oversexualized to the gaming industry should be oversexualized as well.

I didn't say it should be oversexualized, I said "we should give it the option" of being oversexualized. I don't think we should require every booth to have hot chicks in skimpy outfits, and we shouldn't ban them outright either. Both extremes are wrong. I like booth babes and I'm sure a lot of other gamers do. As I said in my last post booth babes have a right to exist, and banning them is totalitarian bullshit.

 

[SonicWaffle]

Thank you, you've nicely highlighted the attitude I described. No matter how eloquently it's put, it still boils down to the same question.

"Boycotts don't work, so why bother?"

Not what I said.

Boycotts do work, but only when sufficient people support the boycott. With an under-exposed issue like this one, barring some media awareness campaign there never will be enough supporters to make a boycott worth the time.

Because if you're REALLY and TRULY offended by the existence of something, you'll choose not to support it.

Once again, this only works if you're aware of something. I was quite surprised when someone earlier in this thread mentioned Dragon Age: Origins' heavy use of the booth babe marketing strategy. I was very much anticipating this game (and, it turns out, rightly so) and didn't hear a single thing about scantily clad women being used as promotional tools in the run-up to launch. Hell, today was actually the very first time I've heard about it, several years on. It's an issue that the majority of gamers are unaware of, since the people who go to cons and expos are a tiny, tiny selection of the game buying public and the booth babes aren't prominently featured in any coverage I've watched.

Otherwise you're just a hypocrite who is willing to whine about the way you're treated, but refuses to act upon it.

And of course, there are those who will say that if I don't buy the game, I've got no ground to complain about the actions of the publishers because I'm not a paying customer ergo my vote doesn't count. Swings and roundabouts.

Choosing to buy a game which is advertised in a manner you despise is only encouraging the company to do it again and again and again, because they think that those marketing tactics are obviously working if you're giving them money for their games.

Despise is a strong word. I'm not apathetic to the issue, and I can see why it's bad for video gaming as a medium, but I wouldn't say I feel so strongly about it that I despise the practice. It's a bad thing, and it makes the gaming community look bad, but I'm unwilling to riot in the streets over it.

Again, though, we come back to the fact that there is so very little awareness of which games use these advertising practices unless one goes to cons or obsessively studies videos of the show floor to see which companies are flopping out the mammaries. It's hard to object to a practice you don't really notice, and we don't really notice it because there isn't much attention to it, and the reason for that is that such things aren't unusual and are in fact expected of gamers. It's all part of the same problem, really - most non-gamers or even casual gamers probably wouldn't be much surprised by the presence of booth babes, because video games are for teenage boys and lonely manchild virgins. Of course there will be boobs everywhere, because those poor video gamers won't be seeing them anywhere else.

Boycotts only fail to work because the people who whine are the same people who rush out and buy the game anyways because "boycotts don't work" (even though there is evidence throughout history that even comparatively small boycotts of a product have done enough damage to merit a change in approach by the company in question)

Can you cite this? I'm not calling you a liar, I'd just quite like to know the details. I'd also like to see what you define as "comparatively small", especially given (for the reasons stated above) just how few potential video game customers are even aware that this is an issue versus how many people are likely to buy a game.

So to put it bluntly, if you're not willing to be part of the solution, you don't get to whine about the perceived "problem". You don't get to whine about "booth babes" distracting you with their "evil feminine wiles" if you're going to keep handing money over to the folks who employ this tactic, because you are funding that behavior and encouraging it to continue.

I'm not sure anyone here is complaining about booth babes or evil feminine wiles; the main complaint appears to be that their presence portrays gaming in a negative light, and confirms many of the commonly held stereotypes surrounding gamer culture.