http://www.gamecritics.com/feature/report/e3expo2004_babes/page01.php
http://www.joystiq.com/2006/04/06/booth-babe-gamer-tells-her-tale/
These are a couple of links to interviews with booth babes. I'm not sure if this fits in the topics for the next weeks (maybe under instances of virtual in the real?), but I've always wondered what E3 was like in different people's perspectives. While the articles are about the booth babes, you can still get an idea of what visitors and developers are like at E3.
In the GameCritics link, a reporter asks several booth babes (and one that wasn't and was offended that she was mistaken for one) what it's like being a booth babe. The Joystiq article goes into the perspective of one booth babe, who is also a gamer/actress/model.
Here is a link to what E3 was supposed to enforce in 2006.
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2006/01/70075
I personally would go to E3 to see the games, not the girls (or guys, if they would ever do such a thing). It wouldn't hurt to go there for both games and girls, but it seems maybe the girls were becoming more the focus and more the reason to go to E3 than the games.
On a side note, the game industry seems professional and yet not so professional at the same time, if professional is taken in the conventional meaning. E3 is a serious place for game exposure, and yet it seems like a huge spring break cosplay party. I understand the developers work hard to get their best latest work up and have to compete for attention, and using a sexy model or two would turn some heads. But if I were a developer, I'd feel inept as a developer if I have to rely on something that probably has nothing to do or very little to do with my game to market my game.
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4 comments:
I've noticed some of the things she mentions when I went to E3 2006. The edgier companies and the newer companies seem to prefer to use "babes" to attract gawkers. Tecmo, of course, had a full team, Namco-Bandai had a dance team as well as martial artists dressed up as characters from Naruto. They did a choreographed skit. The Conan game booth had its own trio of "barbarian wenches." Nintendo opted for the more normal booth babes.
Normally, companies put in a lot of thought when doing things like this. Trade shows are generally a big deal and require large amounts of money. There are several questions they might ask themselves before committing to an E3 booth:
1. Does a scantily clad woman support our brand image?
--for games from Tecmo they obviously do. For Pokémon or Zelda they obviously don't.
2. Will the display of scantily clad women diminish our brand equity in any way?
3. What do consumers/ onlookers expect from our company?
4. Does our product have an inherent draw, or does it need external factors (i.e. Booth babes) to draw attention?
5. WHAT WILL BE OUR RETURN ON INVESTMENT FROM THIS MARKETING ENDEAVOR? (This is important.)
As a side note, in many technology companies their is a separation of marketing and development efforts. Many hi-tech companies have tried to revolutionize their communications networks to start with the customer. That said, there is sometimes a different perspective when it comes to maintaining the image of the product/ brand.
I don't know a lot about E3, but when you hear it mentioned the booth babes seem to be more talked about than the games. Were the rules from 2006 enforced very well? They seemed fairly vague and easy to get around.
I think G4 is a good example of the game industry being professional and unprofessional at the same time. Granted G4 is not a direct specifically part of the game industry, but it is about as much as the marketers who decide to add booth babes to their set-up at E3. Plus you would think the industry itself would show a more vested interest in making things like G4 or Spike's video games awards show more respectable. That thing is gaudy as fuck.
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