linguist & software engineer in Lenapehoking; jewish ancom trans woman.
since twitter's burning gonna try bringing my posts about language stuff and losing my shit over star wars and such here - hi!
We got a comment on our E3 2000 video that referred to the booth babes as "cosplays," and I realized this person has never known a world where booth babes were a thing at gaming events.
I am floored. We did it. We made a better future.
we looked away for a couple decades and other people fought and won in our absence :D
are booth babes just like a "sex sells" marketing technique? i am a young one i do not know the ancient history of the earliest 2000s
Yep. It was literally hiring female models to dress in skimpy clothing to lure the reporters over to your booth.
In the video, they're not even at booths in some cases, they're just wandering the show floor telling people to go to their booth! It sucks!
I remember seeing video of the Skyrim released, and then getting the sort of culture shock of "oh wow, times have changed."
Like, I remember when booth babes were just the norm when I was reading video game websites as a kid, but it had been years since I thought about it.
It's still one of the very few rules that makes it on to the public facing PAX rules list, and the only one that's explicitly exhibitor focused. Always a little surprising to see it because of how standard it is now.
I'm less optimistic. I've seen a few people who are too young to remember booth babes and/or that era of E3 who interpret that PAX rule as "police the appearance of all women at the show"
It doesn't help that the wording (for PAXAUS at least) is a bit vague about the difference between the policy for exhibitors vs for attendees/"in character" exhibits.
well - teaching this history is an important way to prevent recurrence. if we DO learn from history we are NOT NECESSARILY condemned to repeat it.
I am so glad that GoD Games' stupid E3 frat party bullshit and the like is dead and buried
Was that the one Hideo Kojima would show up to or did Kojima host his own frat parties?
Should be noted the comment is "i miss booth babes the most" by a user named "dooshbag45" (at least he knows he's trash)
Which shows we still have a long way to go to expunge the misogynists that lurk around to whom stuff like this was catering to.
