Conservatives seeking to ruin E3 now?

[Aurora]

New guidelines for a private event = censorship?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

They aren't guidelines, they are rules, and you get a hefty fine for not following them. I think there are better ways to change the whole booth babe standard. This is more of a threat to behave, perhaps they should try and spin the fact that a more child friendly and less sexist E3 will help greatly with PR. They need to open up the Boys Club of video games, but attacking the door with an axe is not the smoothest way to do so.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

It's a rule, yes, but it's still a private event, so it's not censorship. "Child friendliness" is also irrelevant since you have to be 18 to get in.

 

And yes, I agree that it's probably not the best way to go about making the show female-friendly (probably not the reason, as pointed out, it's likely due to people freaking the hell out over Hot Coffee), but I'm just having trouble <i>caring.</i> Am just too amused, I suppose.

[Darque]

Coffee sucks

 

Hot Cocoa is better

[Gabrielle]

Coffee sucks

 

Hot Cocoa is better

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Indeed it is.

[GhostofAnakin]

I like my coffee cold.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

That doesn't surprise me.

[FFSOMGLOLOLOL]

The difference from Comic Con is that E3 has never been intended as a consumer show.  It's for press, publishers, developers, and retailers -- which is why the E3 folks actively try to restrict attendance.  When I have difficulty navigating the floor because a string of obviously not-industry people are waiting to have their picture taken with a Lara Croft model, I want to throw grenades under them.

Those are good points. However, I guess you'd also want to lob grenades at them if they were waiting in line, say, to get a NWN2 t-shirt, right?

Does that mean they should also ban expositors giving out promotional gifts?

 

 

By the way, I actively oppose sexualization of characters unless that's a fundamental part of their design.  I fought the valkyrie design for Seven Sorrows every step of the way.  During the development of Black Hound, I had to repeatedly call attention to the fact that male versions of armor were absurdly different from the female versions.  A suit of hide armor on a male human looked like it came from an eskimo.  The same suit put on a female human looked like an Amazonian bikini.

Yeah. Somebody needs to do something about the social stigma that porn entails.

 

 

If anyone out there didn't know this, I'll let you in on an internet secret: there are many pictures on the internet of women wearing less than a bikini!!!  You don't even have to buy a game to look at them!!!

Meh.

 

 

Got any links? We can exchange!

 

 

 

I know IGN has.

 

 

And I'm pretty sure I've read about them in pretty much every news source.

That may very well be the case. It was a honest question, by the way.

However, that still does not prove that games are not getting any publicity because of IGN mentioning the amount of crazy hot girls in minimalistic suits in E3.

And I repeat the argument I made before, if a game is getting replaced by scantily clad girls in a gaming news report, then that game isn't that interesting to begin with.

 

 

What an industry it would be if good games would actually get the attention they deserve, without having to resort to lame marketing tactics.

Huh? There are no "lame" marketing tricks. There are efficient and inefficient marketing strategies. That's about it. If you feel the need to take a shot at something, then have a look at the people who are actually driven off from good games because their stands do not feature hot cyber vixens from outer space.

 

That's what it comes down to, anyway. Having hot girls around seems to be a profitable marketing investment. Why the hell shouldn't they benefit from that investment? It's not like anyone is getting hurt with this, outside those companies that don't want /can't afford to do it. But that's capitalism, folks.

[Aurora]

So how many people in this thread have bought games solely or largely because of hot siliconed bikini chicks (Playboy Mansion & Leisure Suit Larry excepted)? How many have even bought games they otherwise hadn't heard of because of hot siliconed bikini chicks?

 

I buy that "sex sells" sometimes, though I'm repulsed by the idea that that makes it okay, given that only one narrow, vicious idea of sex is generally used in the mass media. I don't buy that "sex sells" for computer games the same way it does for foul-smelling deodorant. Computer games are a larger investment of time and money and more dependent on particular interests than most products out there. If someone is considering buying a game because of sex, they have to know (Sims & Singles excepted) that it'd be a much wiser investment to simply hand over 5 bucks for Playboy. Or 30 bucks more for the Playboy game, I suppose. Or paying nothing, just googling for pictures of the hot siliconed bikini chicks.

 

Additionally, as I've never heard anyone complain about the lack of scantily-cladness in a game (though I have heard people complain about the lack of explicit sex scenes or such) but plenty complaining when it is in, I think that companies that adopt "sex sells" as their motto actually drive off more customers than they bring in.

[Llyranor]

You're asking the wrong crowd, though. By frequenting a gaming forum, we're relatively well-informed about our games. I wouldn't be surprised if such tactics did work on the casual crowd. It's being used as a marketing tactic for a reason after all.

[GhostofAnakin]

I buy that "sex sells" sometimes, though I'm repulsed by the idea that that makes it okay, given that only one narrow, vicious idea of sex is generally used in the mass media.  I don't buy that "sex sells" for computer games the same way it does for foul-smelling deodorant.

 

Additionally, as I've never heard anyone complain about the lack of scantily-cladness in a game (though I have heard people complain about the lack of explicit sex scenes or such) but plenty complaining when it is in, I think that companies that adopt "sex sells" as their motto actually drive off more customers than they bring in.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I'd agree with that. I don't think there's been a single game I bought because it had some big breasted female on the cover.

 

Well except that one time.... :ph34r:

[Llyranor]

You bought DOA Xtreme Volleyball for the Xtreme Volleyball, didn't you?

 

DIDN'T YOU? :ph34r:

[FFSOMGLOLOLOL]

I buy that "sex sells" sometimes, though I'm repulsed by the idea that that makes it okay, given that only one narrow, vicious idea of sex is generally used in the mass media.

To each their own, I guess. It's not like anybody is getting hurt with that. There are much worse things to "be repulsed by".

 

 

I don't buy that "sex sells" for computer games the same way it does for foul-smelling deodorant. Computer games are a larger investment of time and money and more dependent on particular interests than most products out there. If someone is considering buying a game because of sex, they have to know (Sims & Singles excepted) that it'd be a much wiser investment to simply hand over 5 bucks for Playboy. Or 30 bucks more for the Playboy game, I suppose. Or paying nothing, just googling for pictures of the hot siliconed bikini chicks.

I agree with you here. That's outside of the scope of the discussion, though, as I'm not a marketing guy, and I suspect you aren't in that sector either. The fact is that marketing people seem to think that sex sells here too. I don't see why they shouldn't be allowed to put that idea to the test, but on the other hand, there's no problem with sex being used as a marketing strategy in deodorants, just to use your example.

 

 

Additionally, as I've never heard anyone complain about the lack of scantily-cladness in a game (though I have heard people complain about the lack of explicit sex scenes or such) but plenty complaining when it is in, I think that companies that adopt "sex sells" as their motto actually drive off more customers than they bring in.

That's speculation. I can't really say either, but I suspect it's more about hypocrisy than anything else, when the complaints aren't about stupid stereotypes such as the bikini power armor.

[GhostofAnakin]

You bought DOA Xtreme Volleyball for the Xtreme Volleyball, didn't you?

 

DIDN'T YOU?  :ph34r:

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

How did you kn.....I mean, no...

[Aurora]

To each their own, I guess. It's not like anybody is getting hurt with that.

 

I think people are getting hurt, but that is a quite more complex topic than this and would just branch out into insanity if pursued here.

 

I agree with you here. That's outside of the scope of the discussion, though, as I'm not a marketing guy, and I suspect you aren't in that sector either. The fact is that marketing people seem to think that sex sells here too. I don't see why they shouldn't be allowed to put that idea to the test, but on the other hand, there's no problem with sex being used as a marketing strategy in deodorants, just to use your example.

 

I have a problem with sex being marketed to sell most anything, but I think it's definitely effective in certain cases where it's not in computer games because they're totally different products, and also often because those products tend to be cheaper and/or necessary in a way that computer games are not. For simpler products like deodorant, clothing, recordable DVDs, whatever, brand recognition matters a lot more than the quality of the actual product. If a brand name is stuck in your head because of a memorable commercial, whether because the commercial was full of half-naked women & that turned you on or because it was actually well-written doesn't matter - what matters is that the brand name & possibly brand claims are in your head. Most people need deodorant to function in society, deodorant is cheap, and you're familiar with this brand, plus on the label it claims to be the most effective sweat-killer ever. You might read reviews of deodorant, but they won't necessarily help you, as different human bodies respond differently to chemicals and you don't know if the reviewers have the same biological makeup as you do - plus it's going to be pretty hard to find a variety of reviews on deodorant. Most deodorants are basically going to have the same effect.

 

When choosing a game, though, half-naked commercial women might make the game title stick in your head and make you curious enough to pick up the box, but if you have no interest in the genre or game in particular, you're probably not going to shell out $55 for that game. After all, you're going to be devoting 10-100 hours to a game you buy, you have plenty of choices and if you have the internet you have access to reviews (from a variety of viewpoints, generally from reviewers whose past reviews you can check out to see if their tastes match up with yours) about every single one of those, and playing a game is a recreational activity - basically, you can judge the quality in many, many ways that you cannot judge the quality of something like deodorant. I think genre & company recognition beat out brand recognition in computer games.

[Jumjalum]

Good, ogling busty women at computer game shows only enforces the caricature of gamers as sex starved adolescent morons. I doubt any of those models go home to brag about what they were doing at work that day.

Edited January 25, 2006 by Jumjalum

[mkreku]

So how many people in this thread have bought games solely or largely because of hot siliconed bikini chicks (Playboy Mansion & Leisure Suit Larry excepted)? How many have even bought games they otherwise hadn't heard of because of hot siliconed bikini chicks?

Well.. When I was like.. 15 years old I bought this game with a blonde, superhot, scantily clad woman on the front cover. The game turned out to be less than good, but boy, did I love that covergirl!

 

 

Nowadays, even her boobs have an eighties look about them..

[Aurora]

Oh, my god. That is far too tasteful for me to find fault with.

[alanschu]

That may very well be the case. It was a honest question, by the way.

However, that still does not prove that games are not getting any publicity because of IGN mentioning the amount of crazy hot girls in minimalistic suits in E3.

 

I never said that games were not getting publicity, nor was I trying to prove that. But, resources are finite. Every comment about a booth babe is a comment that could have been made about something else. This cannot be denied.

 

And I repeat the argument I made before, if a game is getting replaced by scantily clad girls in a gaming news report, then that game isn't that interesting to begin with.

 

I'd rather make my own determinations as to whether a game is interesting or not, rather than some reporter that would rather discuss the hot woman he just saw.

 

 

 

 

And Sawyer brought out an excellent point. This is not a consumer show.

Edited January 25, 2006 by alanschu

[Laozi]

Well one has to admit that their attendence does diminish the professionalism of E3, and if nothing else its hard to concentrate when a pretty girl is smiling at you. Its even hard to pretend you're interested in what shes displaying/selling. Although more often not booth babes are mostly plastic and reek of fake tanning solution.

[moreKOTORplz]

maybe the politicans can help clean up the monotonous **** that has become current gaming genres as a by product of this push on anti-violence. i mean how many times can you be a freaking elf or black mage??

[Jack the Ripper]

I'm glad this is being done, because fawning over booth babes is pathetic and it takes attention away from the games.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

So? Do you think they're doing this for the good of the video games or to placate conservatives or anyone else who's being prudish about women in bathing suits?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I didn't read through the entire thread as it's late and I'm tired, but you should note that when it comes to censorship, it's typically liberal democrats that take the charge, not conservatives. That "Parental Advisory" sticker on your CD: Tipper Gore. Violent game bans: Illinois, Michigan, Maryland. Biggest pushers for media censorship: Joseph Lieberman. The MPAA: Feminists. ESRB: Heavily endorsed by democrats. And not that I think they're banning booth babes to appeal to prudes, even the story you're mentioning is happening in a heavily liberal city in California, although the violent game ban was deemed unconstitutional in California by a conservative judge. And this story already happened in another heavily liberal city, Las Vegas. Seriously, censoring music, movies and video games, and blaming them for violence and depravity in society, is a liberal gimmick used to tell hardcore family people that the democratic party is the party of morality.

[LadyCrimson]

To each their own, I guess. It's not like anybody is getting hurt with that. There are much worse things to "be repulsed by".

*soapbox*

 

Porn is porn. Sex is sex & natural. I have nothing against any of that, or nudity in general. I'm not a prude or overly prim. Sex as exploitation however...to say it does no harm to a supposedly 'modern and enlightened society' as a whole is highly debatable.

 

Look at the difference, say, at the pictures people post on myspace.com...the guys vs. the girls, percentages wise. Guys post one or two fuzzy pictures of themselves, girls toss up seXXy pictures of themselves in their underwear because...because why? Perhaps because they think they won't get any attention/be popular otherwise? Scantily clad females everywhere and in everything makes the impression that in order to get attention, one has to be/do the same. Be 20yo, be in a bikini, be 115 pounds. That's not a society message I like.

 

I'm for the ban in this case...not because I think it's so horrible all by its lonesome...but because of the entire attitude in general. Men have their own pressures as well, it's not just female-focused...but women as sex-objects/decoration is definitely in the forefront. Teaching kids to be unashamed of their bodies and sex in general is not, in my opinion, the same as exploiting and encouraging only a SINGLE KIND of what is 'acceptably seXXy'...whether to sell games, cars, or anything else.

[kirottu]

I

[FFSOMGLOLOLOL]

I think people are getting hurt, but that is a quite more complex topic than this and would just branch out into insanity if pursued here.

No, nobody's getting hurt. If anyone, then it would be the hunky male models that aren't being hired for that kind of jobs, and I haven't seen any of them complaining yet.

 

 

I have a problem with sex being marketed to sell most anything, but I think it's definitely effective in certain cases where it's not in computer games because they're totally different products, and also often because those products tend to be cheaper and/or necessary in a way that computer games are not. For simpler products like deodorant, clothing, recordable DVDs, whatever, brand recognition matters a lot more than the quality of the actual product. If a brand name is stuck in your head because of a memorable commercial, whether because the commercial was full of half-naked women & that turned you on or because it was actually well-written doesn't matter - what matters is that the brand name & possibly brand claims are in your head. Most people need deodorant to function in society, deodorant is cheap, and you're familiar with this brand, plus on the label it claims to be the most effective sweat-killer ever. You might read reviews of deodorant, but they won't necessarily help you, as different human bodies respond differently to chemicals and you don't know if the reviewers have the same biological makeup as you do - plus it's going to be pretty hard to find a variety of reviews on deodorant. Most deodorants are basically going to have the same effect.

What you or me think we know about marketing, or our thoughts on how it should be conducted are rather irrelevant, as there are people who do that for a living. There are set rules, set strategies that do work, and that is a fact. Anything else is just speculation. That's why I said it's outside of the scope of this discussion.

 

If they say sex sells, even in video games, you're going to have to deal with it.

 

 

When choosing a game, though, half-naked commercial women might make the game title stick in your head and make you curious enough to pick up the box, but if you have no interest in the genre or game in particular, you're probably not going to shell out $55 for that game. After all, you're going to be devoting 10-100 hours to a game you buy, you have plenty of choices and if you have the internet you have access to reviews (from a variety of viewpoints, generally from reviewers whose past reviews you can check out to see if their tastes match up with yours) about every single one of those, and playing a game is a recreational activity - basically, you can judge the quality in many, many ways that you cannot judge the quality of something like deodorant. I think genre & company recognition beat out brand recognition in computer games.

I neved said otherwise. That, however, is the problem of the people who actually buy games based on sexy advertising, not the problem of the people who make that advertising. They do that just to make a profit, not to create agenda-driven social conscience or improve the human race.

 

 

I doubt any of those models go home to brag about what they were doing at work that day.

Money is money. Do you go home and brag about your busy day at the office? I know I didn't brag about it when I had to lift boxes for eight hours a day in exchange for laughable wages.

 

 

I never said that games were not getting publicity, nor was I trying to prove that.  But, resources are finite.  Every comment about a booth babe is a comment that could have been made about something else.  This cannot be denied.

Something else such as... what? If an article is being made about the features in E3, there's only so much you can say without repeating yourself. You can't comment on something that doesn't exist. Yes, I suppose you could write lengthy articles about the quality and advantages of the linoleum used as floor covering, but that wouldn't be much better than talking about booth girls. That's your fallacy right there.

 

For that argument to be valid, you would have to prove that relevant information is not being published because of the booth girls. But I think you already said that was not your intention, so the point is moot.

 

 

I'd rather make my own determinations as to whether a game is interesting or not, rather than some reporter that would rather discuss the hot woman he just saw.

Your own determinations? Such as the reckless assumption that a reporter that is on the business of relaying quality gaming news would rather talk about booth girls than the subject of his work?

 

Whatever.

 

 

And Sawyer brought out an excellent point.  This is not a consumer show.

So?

 

 

Sex as exploitation however...to say it does no harm to a supposedly 'modern and enlightened society' as a whole is highly debatable.

Exploitation how? Claiming that a girl in a bikini intended as eye candy is being "sexually exploited" is not only "highly debatable" but also quite disrespectful to people that are actually being sexually exploited.

 

 

Look at the difference, say, at the pictures people post on myspace.com...the guys vs. the girls, percentages wise. Guys post one or two fuzzy pictures of themselves, girls toss up seXXy pictures of themselves in their underwear because...because why? Perhaps because they think they won't get any attention/be popular otherwise? Scantily clad females everywhere and in everything makes the impression that in order to get attention, one has to be/do the same. Be 20yo, be in a bikini, be 115 pounds. That's not a society message I like.

Well, sorry. That's how it works. There's an antropological explanation for that, but I don't want to go into it, and I doubt I'd change your mind if I went on a long, boring rant, anyway. I'll just say than when it comes to sex drive, we're still animals, driven by hormones.

 

So, basically, you don't like what evolution has delivered. A shame, because there's not much that can be done about it, even more so considering we've effectively switched evolution off for the human species.

 

 

I'm for the ban in this case...not because I think it's so horrible all by its lonesome...but because of the entire attitude in general. Men have their own pressures as well, it's not just female-focused...but women as sex-objects/decoration is definitely in the forefront. Teaching kids to be unashamed of their bodies and sex in general is not, in my opinion, the same as exploiting and encouraging only a SINGLE KIND of what is 'acceptably seXXy'...whether to sell games, cars, or anything else.

An unrealistic view, if I may say so.

 

And calling booth girls "sex objects/decoration" is not only a straw man, but it's also quite disrespectful towards those girls. It's not like it's the girls that are being sold. It's not like they're being demeaned in any way. They just stand there, smile, and get paid. I wish that was my job.

 

And about the "single kind of what's acceptably sexxy", well, that's when biology meets marketing. Some things are not sexy, period. Fit bodies are, at least for males. It's hard-wired in us (as in something no amount of lame humanist conditioning can change). That is not to say it's the only thing males can ever find sexy, mind you. It's just something that triggers an automatic, uncontrollable reaction.

Sure, maybe somebody considers 200kg old bald men or women sexy, but that's not mainstream. And therefore, they are not important enough a target group to warrant dedicated advertising.

[Gfted1]

~SNIP~

 

 

[Musopticon?]

Numbs?

[Diogo Ribeiro]

Welcome back, newc0253.