Or it might be titled, "How EA acts like douches and profits". Here’s the deal. EA posted a new ad campaign right before Comic Con. That particular ad campaign suggested that people at Comic Con find a booth babe and commit an act of lust. I kid you not. Now, of course, in the finer print, they define that as taking a picture with a booth babe.
If you’re new to the video game culture, you might not know that at many major shows the game industry is involved in, they get hot girls to dress up in skimpy and/or tight fighting clothes as either a) some ridiculous character from whatever game they are promoting or b) just a hot girl in small clothes. Ok, booth babe defined. They are the girls that look good to bring in the geeks to the booth and the advertising for whatever game. Yes, it’s much like a car show in that regard. Usually the girls aren’t dressed quite as racy as car shows, but the idea is the same. Whatever your opinion is regarding booth babes, they do exist and they probably aren’t going anywhere anytime soon (they were banned from E3 for one year total before being brought back). Personally, I love me some beautiful ladies dressed up cosplay costumes. I’m not saying that makes it right or that women aren’t being objectified, they obviously are. And to be fair, LOTS of people are dressing up in costumes for these cons, so it kind of fits in.
Whatever the case though, the women working there have a job to do and from what I can see, a fair number of them enjoy it. It’s not like they are forced to be there…well, anymore than I’m forced to be at my job. I do like eating and paying my bills. So, we have these women working a show in tiny clothes with…not always socially well adjusted people. They get pawed, groped, etc from to time. I’ve heard bad stories and I’ve heard good stories.
Here’s where the problem comes in… EA just asked people to commit acts of lust targeted at booth babes for some dumb marketing campaign for their new game where they destroy Daunte’s Inferno (er, bring it to gamers). So now the women working these shows have to deal with added group of people that aren’t always particular socially adjusted and are looking to get pictures of themselves doing whatever they can for a contest to win…a pretend date with some other hot ladies. Great. Go fucking EA. Pretty much par for the course for you guys. They even tried to sound somewhat contrite when it was pointed out…not very convincingly.
Here’s the real problem… the fucking ad campaign worked. Just look around the web. Coverage from the big guys, to the little guys, everyone weighing in, most saying what jackasses EA are, some defending them. Some were so over eager in their defense, the articles they had up about mere days ago have been erased from the site as if it never existed. Yeah, I’m looking at you, BioBreak. No worries, it was an exceedingly dumb article anyway. My favorite gaming blogger (and he should be yours) makes some good connections and points. We’ve also got jackass comments from people claiming to be developers even though they haven’t released a game in 10+ years about how it’s not such a big deal…
What does it all boil down to? EA wins. That’s right, it all comes down to, no matter what booth babes had to deal with or whoever won the contest (best runner up…because he’s declining the reward), EA got exactly what they wanted out of it. Publicity and coverage. That’s awesome. Congrats EA, your marketing team really knows how to generate controversy. To bad your game dev teams can’t make good games (mostly) in the 9 month development schedule you give them. You’d think for all of the money they spent marketing and loving up on this damn game, they could at least make sure the game will be good. It being EA, and the source material considered, I call it now. It’ll suck. Too bad their PR machine is just starting up, this being only the second realm of hell and all… Maybe five different annoying campaigns from now people will catch on. Maybe.
What Would Matt Do: I’ll play along obviously. I’m doing the same as everyone else, promoting EA’s bullshit. I even play their games from to time. Doesn’t mean I’m going to get all crazy on their marketing tactics or really care about the game. I think that’s the thing EA doesn’t realize. By doing all of this, they aren’t just keeping the game in the minds of most gamers, they are making themselves, and their game by extension, look cheesy and juvenile. Could, just may be, potentially, that the game won’t get enough development time and has a very low chance of being a good game. Nah, that doesn’t matter, lets just pimp it and push it out.
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