More Divagations on Booth Babes at Gamecloud

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Gamecloud has spent time and life force pondering the recent enforcement of the clothing rules at the E3 Expo. The long outcome deals with the problem of how it's going to work and if at all and what producers will do to push the limits and walk around the rules. Here's a snip:

By far the most vocal complaint about E3 from some quarters is the attention paid to the paid models that exhibitors bring to the show. Of course, most trade shows do have “booth models” or “booth babes” but at E3 the nature of the video and PC game industry and the fact that its being held in Los Angeles causes exhibitors to bring in tons of models and have them wear costumes and clothing that in some cases can be very sexually provocative. Despite the complaints these models are a distraction from the games and can even be offensive to some, web sites (including Gamecloud) do post galleries of booth model pictures at every E3 and they tend to be some of the most popular features of any web site’s E3 coverage. Entire web sites like E3girls.com are devoted to just booth model pictures and that same web site has sold DVDs with nothing but booth model video footage for the past two E3s.

Well, I say producers and publishers, models and all the rest of them should suffer the real consequences of pushing the limits, i.e. suffer the real penalty even if they think they have outsmarted the system. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying we should remove all that's pretty and girly or whatever from the Expo but it reeks of sex as of now. Time to put an end to it. Many people, however, believe it's harmless or even actually a good thing. Feel free to discuss below...

Read the rest at Gamecloud.

 

Since it is unlikely that I will attend E3 prehaps it is unfair of me to comment but I will anyway.

I don't like the exploitation of the women or the pandering to men's/boy's sexual fantasy. Especially if this is supposed to be a professional gathering for professionals (and I don't mean hookers or pimps).

I see nothing wrong with using models, male and female, who are dressed appropriately for the game.

 

The whole booth babe thing is a bit silly - the focus of E3 should be on games - if you want this sort of thing, go to Sexpo (or whatever the equivilant in other countries is) or a strip club or something - you get more of what you want without detracting from the point of E3...

(I hear that Gencon and other such convention things have similar problems - please, please someone send all these horny gamers to a brothel or something )

 

Some time ago, I made the observation that women who willingly objectify themselves like that do a disservice to women who want to be respected and treated as equals. It's hard to treat someone as an equal when he (or actually she) flaunts his stuff before you to attract your attention, especially to a commercial product.

 

I'll be very blunt: I don't see the problem. So, go ahead, try to enlighten me, what's so bad about the current practice of the booth babes. No matter what you do, someone will always take offense to it.

At least it gives the reporters something to report on. It's not really the "shown" games that make the reports interesting, as most are still ages from completion, meaning that what you see at the E3 is totally unrepresentative of what the game will be.

So, yes, the booth babes distract from the lack of content of the expo. The solution is not to go after the booth babes, but try to give more (interesting) content to the E3.

 

It's not just distraction. Some booth babes overdo it and as a result they look like proper sluts. That kind of atmosphere is unneeded, I think.