PAX Booth Babe Survey

[bluestarultor]

Actually, I think in this day and age, booth babes are rather insulting. The average age of a gamer is what, 35? People who always played games as kids grow up into adult gamers with kids. It's not like you can even say it's to draw in teenagers with holes in their pockets. Gamers are more intelligent than game companies give them credit for and trying to lure them in with sex appeal really insults that.

I mean, sex sells, yes, but you need to balance that with, you know, selling the actual games.

That said, I'm not against appropriate cosplay or anything or tastefully-dressed models. Just the kind of tanned, blonde, "Oops! I just spilled my water alllllll over my napkin of a white tee shirt, tee hee!"* bimbos that I'm sure prompted this. There's a difference between being lured in by a model and being lured in by a model put there to insult your intelligence because companies figure you'll be too busy ogling to notice the difference.



*hyperbole

[Donomni]

Originally Posted by bluestarultor

Actually, I think in this day and age, booth babes are rather insulting. The average age of a gamer is what, 35? People who always played games as kids grow up into adult gamers with kids. It's not like you can even say it's to draw in teenagers with holes in their pockets. Gamers are more intelligent than game companies give them credit for and trying to lure them in with sex appeal really insults that.

Man, you know why as well as I do.

A lot of gamers are still really fucking stupid.

It's cheaper and easier to advertise to more gullible gamers than anything else, and more likely to work.

Older and/or more educated gamers are way past being easy or cheap to advertise for, so they don't even bother.

[Aerozord]

Originally Posted by Donomni

It's cheaper and easier to advertise to more gullible gamers than anything else, and more likely to work.

this is true, this is why companies would rather focus on catering to the shallow minded teenage male then people that seek depth.

which is exactly why booth babes are counter productive. Without them they'll have to do things like, make a good game, then just appealing to the lowest common demoninator

[BitVyper]

Originally Posted by Donomni

A lot of gamers are still really fucking stupid.

Reading that article, I have to say something for Bayonetta: I haven't actually played it, but I've seen a pretty big chunk of it and I kind of was like "guys... damn it" at the start, but I started to realise that it's because she's offensively feminine the way over-the-top male heroes are hyper-masculine. It's interesting because action girls are always weak because of their feminine qualities and strong because of their masculine qualities, but Bayonetta is what Dante or Kratos would be if you held a girl-mirror up to them - no masculine qualities at all. I know of no other character that has actually gone that far with this concept, like right down to the awful one-liners. The difference is that people are terrified of femininity/don't have decades of movies indoctrinating them into this view of it, and the designers clearly tried to be as offensively feminine with her as humanly possible.

I'm sure this has come up elsewhere before, but I've never actually read any reviews or discussions except for a couple posts I made back when we just had her character model(which I still think looks terrible). Based on reactions I'm relatively sure Bayonetta is pretty much what quite a few girls see when they look at Kratos. Okay, maybe girls who haven't been playing action games for so long that they're already used to it, but still.

[Krylo]

Originally Posted by BitVyper

she's offensively feminine [...] action girl [...] no masculine qualities at all [...] awful one-liners

I do not think you understand what feminine means.

[bluestarultor]

Originally Posted by Krylo

I do not think you understand what feminine means.

I'd say it would be more accurate to call her offensively female, because while she flaunts her sex, I agree that gender stereotypes do not work that way.

[Premmy]

stuff about Bayonetta "being like a female Kratos!"

I'll field this one