I find this kind of thing disturbing.
What people need to do is look back at the actual issues involved in female equality and feminism. It wasn't all that long ago where in the US and other enlightened countries there were wide scale demands that women pretty much be kept demure and respectable. A big part of the civil liberties revolution and such was women violating that taboo and coming out as being naked, sexty, etc. People seem not to "get" that the early Bond girls (James Bond movies), the work of Irvin Claw, and popularity of Betty Page, and others was all about liberation and freedom. Granted we were never as backwards as say Muslim culture in demanding women pretty much dress in tents all of the time to be almost totally concealed, but we were pretty much mandating exactly what this arguement was about and that women were expected to be conservatively dressed and portrayed.
The funny thing is that a lot of the people who are pretty much crusading for the end of things like booth babes, or explicit material featuring women, are ones claiming to embrace the ideals of freedom. Your pretty much seeing a lot of the same arguements being made that were made decades ago, with women being forced to conform conservatively in public, largely for their own protection and dignity. When you have conventions running around telling women to cover themselves for being too provocative, or people in general even saying that attractive women in revealing outfits shouldn't be around or are demeaning (to themselves if nothing else), I find it almost painfully funny that people don't understand the sheer irony here especially seeing as the people doing it nowadays tend to be politically correct liberals. It's one of the reasons why (as you might notice) I tend to have some left wing leanings, but stick more to the right wing, and have little or no respect for anyone who identifies as being part of the left wing exclusively.... liberals generally having no idea what they are even supposed to stand for. Right now the left wing seems to generally stand for the worst aspects of the right wing and societal oppression, albiet gussied up in it being for the "best interests" of those being targeted. Attacks on women being sexy or portrayed that way, attacks on free speech to protect people from the "wrong kinds" of speech like "hate speec" (which defeats the purpose of free speech to begin with)... and most just do not get it.
In a practical, non-political sense, women are not being forced into this. Nobody "owns" these women, even indirectly by controlling all of the property or money. As a result it's up to the women in question how they want to display themselves, and if they want to make a profession out of how they look. To be honest someone like a model, actress, centerfold, or even porn star is no differant than a professional athlete... someone who makes a living based on their innate gifts, having won the "genetic lottery" so to speak. It's like a Michael Jordan making a fortune playing pro-ball. Sure, looks fade, but so do things like athletic abillity, any inherant gift winds up having a "sell by" date. If you make a living entirely by your looks, yeah... eventually your not going to be able to do that anymore, just as eventually it will be a bad joke for a Pro-Boxer to step into the ring. It does vary with individuals both ways as well, someone like George Foreman was able to box well past his sell by date, and some women have managed to make a living off their looks well past the point where most models and such are forced to retire due to the sheer passage of time.
The funny thing is that most of the arguements seem to be made by jealous women who don't have these innate gifts. Those basically argueing that they are unhappy with the gorgeous babe making a living off of being attractive, because they can't do the same thing. It doesn't matter if your dealing with the beauty equivilent of an A-Rod (who would be someone like Cindy Crawford, Jenna Jameson, or Tyra Banks in their prime, having a huge career, appealing to the masses despite some negative opinions by individuals), or that of a minor league player (your typical Booth Babe, or model doing a mall opening or whatever). The basic arguement is based largely off of jealousy. To be honest most women don't seem to really care that much, but there is a vocal group of them, mainly because it gets attention (which leads us into issues like a certain infamous blogger who got herself attacked and couldn't cope with it).
To be honest a good booth babe or spokesmodel is going to get my attention initially. There is a little more to it that just looking good and the costume, there is a reason why people pay big bucks to go to modeling schools, and then sign up with agencies and such which are where such girls are hired from. It's subtle though, and would take some time to spell out the tecniques (I know a bit about it), suffice it to say that you can't just take any half way decent looking girl, pop her into the equivilent of a bikini, and expect it to work on a professional level, which is why Modeling agencies stay in business. In the end though this doesn't in of itself carry a product, especially seeing as most people are quite aware of the concept of a honey trap. It's also noteworthy that there are men hired to do the exact same thing, but they get less attention, and the techniques are similar but a bit differant.
This is one of those things where it's a non-issue created by those who simply want attention. There is no real problem with the portrayal of women in gaming, or in society in general, as anyone who actually pays attention and knows what's going on (starting with say the creative works of women themselves) can tell you. In reality even humoring "issues" like this is allowing yourself to be manipulated by attention seekers. On a lot of levels trying to "rescue" women from this kind of thing is a sexist manipulation based on the "female in trouble, must protect" reflex of men, combined with vulnerable segements like nerds who mistakenly believe that championing such causes might make them recpiants of more positive female attention.
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Oh and while this is long, and I hadn't originally intended to say much about the techniques. One recurring thing you'll hear reported is how the "booth babes" seem bored and detached. That's intentional on a lot of levels, models train to seem kind of lifeless like statues at times and when to animate and not (so to speak). When working a more personal promotion the idea is to get people to want to approach them and "cheer them up" so to speak at which point they "animate" and act a lot more friendly, and typically gradually re-direct conversations towards whatever they represent this week. Likewise if they go pro-active, having seem relatively bored initially makes their interest seem more valuable to whomever they decide to direct it at. It's a common "grifting" (to use an archaic term) technique as well.
I think a lot of the "problem" that third parties see and report on is that not being the targets, they just don't get it. The Booth Babes aren't there for more than an initial draw from those who represent the gaming media, or are visitors. Those who product games, or represent services that are going to potentially buy units of the games for re-sale? That's
a little differant.
Modeling agencies like "Elite" and others hire out models (and by this we mean general ones, not nessicarly huge fashion models) becayse in general hiring their girls oftentimes winds up making the person picking them up more money than they wind up spending. Pay them say $10k for a couple of models (who might see 1k apiece for a few hours work) and if you wind up securing extra funding or moving 25,000 units of your product or cutting an earlier digital distribution agreement, due to them keeping interest on your product area, it's worth it.
When I worked casino security I've met/dealt with a decent number of models, when people rent convention/ball/conferance rooms and the like it's hardly uncommon for them to hire models, and want to have some security present for access control if nothing else. Like anyone else when done working models and such do tend to gravitate to other casino areas afterwards (instead of just going home). I've had plenty of oppertunity to talk business, they are generally even more cynical than I am being professional manipulators, and that's saying something.
