Booth Babes Are Bad!

Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half Life 1, 2 and 3

Introduction

I estimate that 99.99% of readers will disagree with this post, but hey let’s at least discuss it! I think “Booth Babes” are bad for the long-term image of the gaming industry.

Normal Male

Before anybody questions my sexuality, which by the way is none of your business, I am a normal red-blooded male. Looking at beautiful women is a nice thing to do BUT exactly what do they represent and how do they help the gaming industry?

Sex Sells

I have enough business experience to know and understand that sex sells. However, is it not confusing to those outside the gaming industry? With one breath we (The industry and community) say that we want to be taken seriously and have a valuable contribution to make to society as a whole, yet with the next breath we are all adolescent teenage boys drooling and fantasizing over scantily clad nubile young women.

Old Fart

There will be those among you who are probably calling me names similar to the title of this paragraph. And you are entitled to do that but if gaming is to be taken seriously we need to shed this juvenile image and encompass all the ages and types of games players. As more and more ladies discover the pleasure and benefits of gaming will we see Booth Hunks? Perhaps they exist already. I have never been lucky enough to visit a games convention, so I don’t know.

Supply and Demand

Of course it is simply a case of the publishers and developers giving us (The playing public) what we demand but in that case I demand something less insulting to my (small but valuable) intelligence and something more cerebral.

About this entry

Published:: 14th January 2007 at 12:40 pm

Category:: Phillip's Blog

Responses:: 27 Comments (add)

Mike S 14th January 2007 at 13:41 1

In an ideal world, manufacturers wouldn’t need to have babes draped across their wares, but those curves draw the eye and that’s all that counts.

As far as the image of gaming, I’m not sure it makes gaming look the domian of the adolescent, any more than F1 or MotoGP is brought down by the presence of brolly babes on the start grid. Gaming will always struggle to shake off that teenage boy tag, regardless of what the true demographic is.

But I take your point (no innuendo intended), some gaming magazines will use the babes as an excuse to fill their pages with totty and puerile captioning, rather than telling us what the games are like.
planetphillip 14th January 2007 at 13:53 2

I did consider making the comparison between booth babes and the umbrella babes in motor sports but for some reason didn’t.
Norton! 14th January 2007 at 19:19 3

Hello Philip.

After reading that I could only agree with that, since when the time evolves, so do us. It will not be taken so seriously these images if they keep in the way they are today, making from the female image smething common and, in the way it’s seen, displaying sexuality and teasing, almost non-vulgar, maybe even having cases more heavy than nowadays.
Fluffy The Hamster 14th January 2007 at 20:30 4

Booth babes don’t represent games. Booth babes attract people to booths where people can see those games. Other then that, they don’t do ****.
planetphillip 14th January 2007 at 20:33 5

planetphillip Said:

Other then that, they don’t do ****.

It’s not what they do, it’s what they represent.
Anonymous 14th January 2007 at 23:32 6

They don’t represent anything. Just because you see a booth babe in a Master Chief outfit will not trigger you to question the sexuality of Master Chief.

All they do is attract. If the huge sign that says “SPORE!” on it doesn’t attract you, perhaps the girl in the dinosaur outfit *will*.
dougjp 15th January 2007 at 00:32 7

I don’t see anyone calling you names. I’d just say its a non issue/a non ’cause’ - a tiny windmill to tilt at compared to pretty well everything else out there in life today.
Frederick 15th January 2007 at 18:47 8

I clicked on this link hoping to see more pics of booth babes! Instead you are talking about ideas and stuff. What a rip!
planetphillip 15th January 2007 at 18:56 9

planetphillip Said:

What a rip!

I’m sorry to disappoint you. I used “bad” in the sense of “not good” not as in “good”, if that makes sense.
Frederick 16th January 2007 at 02:54 10

I was just kidding with ya. Yeh, booth babes are stupid but so is showing off your thong off in public - been to the mall lately? The gaming industry is no worse or better than the rest of popular “culture”. And when you consider what is coming down the road in gaming - can you say “virtual ***” - it is only going to get worse before there is a flipflop in standards.
Anonymous 16th January 2007 at 04:56 11

Virtual *** already exists (Second Life) and it is doing nothing. Besides pornography, there’s nothing wrong with virtual *** and there won’t ever be until Net Neutrality is overturned by the *entire* world.

Just because women are being paraded for the sake of attracting the demographically single society of gamers to their products does not mean that the future of Gaming will be dominated by their image.

You should be worrying about other things, like over-advertisement in video games and console bias-ment then thin women with large breasts dominating the gaming world.
Goddess Alyria 16th January 2007 at 05:07 12

First of all, I don’t know what booth babes are, but reading & seeing the pic above, I can surmise. Secondly, you really don’t want a female’s opinion on this.
Fluffy The Hamster 16th January 2007 at 05:17 13

Why not? Do you approve of thin, large breasted women dancing about for the nerds to flock to?
Goddess Alyria 16th January 2007 at 05:56 14

Personally, I think it’s ridiculous. All I can think about is looking at pictures like that or thinking about Frederick’s comment above about thongs showing, etc. & all I can think about is my 13 yr old niece who thinks that it’s perfectly normal to dress that way wherever she goes. It makes my skin crawl because then it leads me to think of all the pedophiles & kidnappers out there. I guess this is what I meant by not wanting a female’s opinion.
andyb 16th January 2007 at 05:58 15

Nothing wrong with breasts.It’s all in thee eye of the consumer.Consumers need to change their habits to distinguish what is good and what is bad.
Goddess Alyria 16th January 2007 at 06:10 16

Goddess Alyria Said:

Consumers need to change their habits to distinguish what is good and what is bad.

That would be fine for adult consumers can clearly make that choice, but what about the pre-teens & teens who already think it’s part of normal culture & society?
andyb 16th January 2007 at 06:34 17

Then it’s up to parents to decide if they wish to monitor their kid’s habits.I refuse to do so myself because I think it limits expansion of their minds.Others may think different or just have totaly different kids.
Fluffy The Hamster 16th January 2007 at 06:59 18

Considering it’s becoming apparent that you can fully expect a sexual encounter at the age of 13 (Not me, obviously), pre-teenagers and teenagers should atleast already know about the right and wrongs when it comes to this sort of thing.

But anyway. This is about booth babes, not about how to raise children.
Goddess Alyria 16th January 2007 at 07:18 19

I agree. Nuff said.
Mikko Sandt 16th January 2007 at 21:38 20

Any excuse to get a view of beautiful women is fine with me. They can’t hurt the industry so everything else is pretty irrelevant.
planetphillip 16th January 2007 at 22:05 21

planetphillip Said:

They can’t hurt the industry

I disagree. That’s the point of the post. The fact that they are there is making a statement about the type of people who play games.
Goddess Alyria 16th January 2007 at 23:29 22

Really … what useful purpose do they serve other than eye candy? Do they actually help promote games or the people who create & distribute them? I would hope that my “man” would be man enough to not be stumbling over his left foot, trying to walk, oogling & drooling at the pretty lady with hardly any clothes on, in turn, making him look like a complete idiot. Would you buy a simple video game of ping pong just because the people who helped promote it were all dressed like Playboy bunnies? Or a virtual reality machine that zaps your brain every time you use it just because of the pretty ladies? I think when it comes to scantily clad women, men lose their brains entirely & resort back to their puberty years.
Anonymous 17th January 2007 at 02:02 23

They don’t help promote games. They attract people to the places where advertisements and such promote games.
Goddess Alyria 17th January 2007 at 07:12 24

Completely unnecessary.
Passerby 17th January 2007 at 16:46 25

I had the dubious fortune to have a gig at an international Cement and Concrete Convention the other day. You should have seen the booth babes there… (need I add that the concrete and cement industry is not known for its political correctness and good taste - Bob the Builder ain’t that cute and fluffy in real life and remember where Osama made his millions…)

However, not everything that is unnecessary is unpleasant.
Stef 17th January 2007 at 17:41 26

Passerby Said:

I had the dubious fortune to have a gig at an international Cement and Concrete Convention the other day. You should have seen the booth babes there… (need I add that the concrete and cement industry is not known for its political correctness and good taste - Bob the Builder ain’t that cute and fluffy in real life and remember where Osama made his millions…)

However, not everything that is unnecessary is unpleasant.

don’t use cement use lime!
Anonymous 17th January 2007 at 20:30 27

Goddess Alyria Said:

Completely unnecessary.

Go to E3 and say that. In a convention of an area full of flashing TVs, colours and music. What’s the best way to attract people through all that? Breasts, that’s what.