As the years have passed more and more companies have seemed to use sex and woman to sell games. This trend was started with Eidos Interactive's Tomb Raider. In Tomb Raider the games protagnist, a female named Lara Croft, featured abnormally sized boobs. Though the games creator claimed it to be a glitch(lies) it drew in lots of male gamers to try it out. In just a years time, the developers at Core Design recieved over a million marriage proposals for Lara Croft. Lara Croft then went on to be the cover girl in several teenage magazine covers. Recent games like DOA-Xtreme continued the trend, as it features only woman characters dressed in skimpy bikinis. The main emphasis on such a title is to draw in immature minded male gamers. With the new capabilities of system graphics more and more games such as this are coming through the pipe. Virtual Sex PC games are selling tens of thousands of titles, and video games are starting to come out with female leads with big busts size to attract attention.
The marketing ploys don't stop just in the games itself but in advertisements. Several commercial or magazine related ads have been showing pornstars, cheerleaders, and models in their exerts. In the two biggest game shows in the world, E3(Electronic Gaming Expo) and the Toyko Game Show have been using models at their booths...convienently named booth babes in order to display their games and draw guests to the expo to their booths for pictures or autographs. A few days ago Spike TV hosted, the Spike Video Game Awards, the first ever TV broadcasted video games award event. Despite the fact this was supposed to be about games, only about 10 minutes of this 2 hour show featured gaming footage.
Game Developers weren't even allowed to make acceptance speeches, nor were any runner-ups mentioned. What was the draw of the show? Advertising and marketing of course. Who were the main people at the giving away the awards and making the speechs? Pornstars! Yes featuring the likes of Jeena Jameson and several other cheap unknown dits the VGA show was termed a mockery of gaming and a true sign of whats wrong in this industry.
Exert from Gaming-age's Patrick Klepek's thoughts on the show:
"Sex sells, but the Video Game Awards managed to underline the immature attitudes of our industry’s leaders. You’ve seen companies roll out dozens of booth girls for E3, but the amount of blatant sexism displayed in this program was incredible. Jenna Jameson and some no name former TV star strutted out and cock teased the crowd, Jameson by grabbing her breasts and the other girl unzipped her shirt low enough to display her chest. The Dead or Alive girls were spotlighted early in the show, and there plenty of other cheerleaders to keep all viewers occupied as the disastrous show unfolded before their eyes. "

What are your opinions on this subject? Do you think this is an acceptable marketing campaign by companies to use, or do you believe it's downgrading the video game industry. Post your view ;)!

:riding:

Pathetic. It's a downgrade to me because I am a female gamer. I find it rather offensive to be staring at female figures with the motive of seduction, a lure. They know they don't have much to lose except to turn away a majority of the female gamers. If males had any sense at all they wouldn't be so easily attracted to a sexist game. But...

Future developers will learn that it isn't the main attraction. It's the game itself with a bonus that may or may not be offensive to some players. Halo is at much better success, and it doesn't involve large-breated females... and the result? Lots of female gamers play and love the game as well as males.

If you're worked up (as in being harmonely driven) about pixels, then you're just as pathetic as the developers who use this method against the people. Not despising the game itself, but rather the components and certain elements of the game that can break it.

Very true my love :love: Companies have tried to target female gamers to get them involved in the industry to open up more market to a broader audience, but methods like these will only discrimate them and turn them away. Did Mario or Sonic ever need Jenna Jameson dancing around half naked to sell their title? of course not because, gameplay is everything. If a company needs to stoop so low into trying to draw in audiences through sexual related campaigns then their game must really suck *cough* DOA Xtreme*cough* As you pointed out, a game will sell on its own merits alone. It's a disgrace to the industry that companies are trying to add woman with big busts or have lesbian protagonists ( Fear Effect 2) to get gamers attention. I'd much rather stick with chicky playing Halo then look at a bunch of polygons shaped boobs =/
For all those male gamers who get turned on by this stuff...Like you Spartan...get a life and find a real girl you pathetic low lifes :D

If it were vice versa, it'd be the same... It's quality and depth that counts. Stare at your screens long and hard because keep that up and that's as close you'll EVER get. Bitches who sell themselves for money have nothing to gloat over. Companies who arrange it have no respect. Bring it on!

lol. I kind of find this ironic, because I never really liked tomb raider but my girlfriend use to love to play that. Also, it was her who started playing DoA XVB.

Come to think of it, I know one who loves to play DOA extreme volleyball... and all I can do is *sigh* and a sudden urge of beating their head in comes to mind... ahhhhhhhh

developers of tomb raider, made up this story to try and promote female gamers with their new game. showing them that yes a girl can be an action hero. which isnt true...much.

well i just like to point out... men (could be any age) gets turned on if they c a hot pretty girl, or cute girl. i know that alot of guys dun admit that they get turn on, but however 9 out of 10 of them do get turned on, n this is totally normal... also i think that a game is a game, buy it, look at it, play it, whever, its totally the gamer's choice, n ther are always some other games.. say like anime for instance, ther r lots of different kind of animes, such as action, fantasy, n even hentai. it is up the the viewers to watch it or not, n ofcoz ther r ratings for anime, n games too. but then i think if "sex" in games, r fine, as long as it gives gamers a good time, n ofcoz i'm not saying its a 100% good thing to do.. but like... for those those of u who disagrees, pretty much just 2 words "who cares" (no offence intend) if u think too much for this, this could not just gives urself a hard time, n could also give others a hard time, i think this waste time.. just have fun n enjoy ur life while u can ! ^^ btw saying this a bit late but.... MERRY X'MAS EVERYONE !
EDIT: forgot 1 thing, b4 tombraider, ther r already games that "sell sex" such as some chinese n japanese games about mah jong or big2. those games r sorta stupid to me, but.. if u win a round in the game, the others who lost will take off 1 of their clothing, such as jacket for instance... n it could end up naked.... so ya

i hate pr0n, yes im a boy and im 14 ::D: and i hate sex in games its tardy but i do like chicky :wub:

er. not quite sure alphas gonna mind that smiley...
oh and for third time I'M BACK!!!!

Hate pr0n eh gla andy? I guess you didnt hit puberty yet. sorry4u.

Im not much of a pr0n freak, but I do like the occasional.... *thump* :D

Actually, I've witnessed that icyunknown. The Poker or Mahjong part. Even my dad has the game and he's played it countless of times, but mainly for the game itself (I think). Hell, I'm not asking! What was a game that was coming out for PC, it's a pure game based like DoAX except minus the volleyball part. Whatever the name is, I don't remember... and honestly don't care...

Well I am have to agree with the for mentioned posts for really you don't need sex to sell games. It's cheap. It's wasteful. And pretty much it's hoish. all games need is some bad ass gameplay. Ubnfortanately company leaders don't see it like that. The only way they see it is to make a profit through nay means nessasary, even if it means degrading the game (i.e. Steam, sorry i had to put it in thier). So in escence DON'T USE SEX IT'S WUSS AND PLUS MAYBE YOUR GAMES SUCK AND YOU AHVE TO GO TO THE FIFTH DEGREE JUST TO SELL THE DAMN GAMES!!!! :unf:

oh yeah, but banana sex0rz is different... hmmm??? o_o'

>.<" chiki accuse me of having the pr0n marchong game >.<" i dun have it arrg *smokes comming out from top of head* lolz anyways... hows everyone been doing, its been a while since i came hehe, lost inernet =( sill do... churrently at next door kekeke, hav funz