Good Riddance To Booth Babes

Colin Campbell has an editorial at Next Generation in which he applauds the decision to fine risque outfits worn by the traditional 'booth babes'. From the article: "Exhibitors at E3 employ a whole range of human beings to attract attention to their booths and excitement to their live events. The ones who attract the largest crowds are either celebrities (fair enough), well-loved industry-creatives (quite right) or so-called 'booth-babes', often behaving in ways that at least mimic the lowest sort of strip joint. People do not dress this way in normal life, not even in Los Angeles. There are some companies that seem more susceptible to this kind of technique than others. It's difficult to imagine, say, EA or Sony or Microsoft or Nintendo bothering with this nonsense."

Conventions should move to private property

[dada21]

I've been dealing with convention centers for a long time -- I used to perform IT work for some of the largest convention fixture companies (they build the displays you see). I was always amazed at the mess of union guidelines and government mandates that came with setting up at convention centers. I knew it would only be time before they started jumping on morality, too. Government loves to try to control morality.

I don't have a problem with scantily clad women at conventions and at shows (car shows). They're part of the reason some people go to these events, and then they stay to actually look at the products being sold or promoted. It is a marketing tool.

If women have great bodies, why shouldn't they make money with them? I could care less if they're clothed, naked, whoring themselves out -- it is their body to use as they please as long as it is voluntary trade with another consenting adult.

It blows my mind that this Colin Campbell guy would prefer to see regulation over clothing. Clothing is expression. Expression can not be controlled per the 1st amendment. Of course, our governments can also control expression on private property, which is a bigger atrocity than the regulation on public property.

If a private convention center wants to regulate clothing, they can. A government-run convention center (subsidized by taxpayers usually) should stick with the law that controls their powers. The 1st amendment tells government they have no right to control expression, it is a freedom every human has, and no one should worry about a law abridging this freedom.

For the rest of his article, I'll give you a secret about E3: the real industry insiders don't care anymore. E3 is a consumer show now, no matter how much they try to say it isn't. The industry wants schmucks to go there, gawk at the hot scantily-clad babes, and crow about the next big game. E3 years ago was a blast when it was real insider scoops and communications with industry heavyweights. Now it is just another festival to get drunk, get laid, and then go home and tell everyone about the great new gadgets and games that you saw. The girlies are just a great way to get the geeks to come and take part in the festivities of consumer marketing.

(Disclosure: I am currently working on a convention center so my opinion might be skewed by the lack of steady payments by the customer)

Boo!

[Golias]

Games are entertainment. Cute girls are nice to look at. Is that so wrong?

If you want things more family-friendly, why not just apply the old anime-con cosplay standard of "30% coverage minimum, inlcuding all the obvious places", instead of applying an ambiguous rule that outfits can not be "too risque"?

Not that new of a decision

[F_Scentura]

The rules have always been in place, they only recently decided to start "enforcing" them.

More important is the press day...

[Godeke]

Considering that in reality E3 is supposed to be an industry event (I have attended the seminars wearing my game programming hat) and yet recently it has become a giant circus similar to Comdex right before the collapse, I think this is a good move. The press day in particular will be helpful (more so that the clothing requirements): the poor people in the booths are besieged by loser fan boys while the real interviewers can be recognized by the desperate looks of someone under time pressure they wait for a bunch of store clerks to stop hassling their interview target. Or they just get pushy, which I don't blame them for.

Reducing the booth babe exposure (literally) won't prevent people from hiring pretty young women and placing them in the booths. I don't think that practice will ever end (check any other convention and see who is most prominently displayed in each booth: the best looking women of the company or some "spokeswoman" who they hired because the women at the company refused to be so exploited). It will hopefully reduce the circus like atmosphere and restore the event to something that industry actually interacts at.

(On the flip side of the coin, the private parties are even more outlandish than the show floor. Make of that what you will.)

Re:Boo!

[to_kallon]

If you want things more family-friendly, why not just apply the old anime-con cosplay standard of "30% coverage minimum, inlcuding all the obvious places", instead of applying an ambiguous rule that outfits can not be "too risque"?

it's simple politics: if you don't specify what you mean, when you have to justify actions later you can use your earlier ambiguity.

Re:Conventions should move to private property

[Anonymous Coward]

Except these rules have been in place for years in the convention center, they just never enforced them.

well this will come as quite a shock to you

[Matt Ownby]

Well, dada21,

This will come as a shock to you, but I agree with Colin Campbell's take on the booth babes. I do think that they are silly.

My problem with booth babes is that while hiding behind 'free expression', these companies are trying to push their moral standards upon me trying to tell me what I should be looking at while going to a game show. I don't associate games with scantily clad women at all and resent these companies trying to merge the two. I say, get rid of the booth babes and make a product that can stand on its own feet. If people want to see scantily clad women, they can go to places that specialize in that.

Re:Conventions should move to private property

[Anonymous Coward]

Is there no social position you don't color through the lens of your pet theory on "anacro-capitalism"? That organizers and many participants find explicit sexual behavior at a public trade convention distracting and unrelated to business should be enough. The issue of a woman's right to strip and prostitute herself is actually "OFFTOPIC" and not "INSIGHTFUL". Please go away.

Re:I fully applaud

[publicworker]

from TFA: Try tapping 'E3' into Google Image Search. Out of the first eight images, six are of models. That's. Just. Great.

That was plenty of pics for me ;)

Re:well this will come as quite a shock to you

[dada21]

Hey, I agree with you that I don't care much for booth babes. I don't go to conventions so that I can get a sneak peak of something along with 100,000 other people. The market already provides for guys like us -- it is called alpha testing, private screening and buyer tours.

When it comes to the industries that I am in, I expect my sales people to give me a preview of items before the masses get to see them. I don't go to industry conventions, and I buy first from the sales people who give me dibs on seeing a new product. Girlies in bikinis do nothing for me (if you want nudity, just go to European beaches).

Yet my problem with Campbell is his desire to enforce morality by LAW. If a private convention center said "we don't allow bikinis in our center" I have no problem with it. I have a problem with giving someone the right to use force against another. Voluntary cooperation is fine, force by mandate of the law is not.

Re:well this will come as quite a shock to you

[Anonymous Coward]

these companies are trying to push their moral standards upon me trying to tell me what I should be looking at

And how is banning them no imposing your moral standards on people?
Just because you don'y think it's fitting, doesn't mean to say that everyone else agrees with that.

Re:well this will come as quite a shock to you

[Gojira Shipi-Taro]

Ah, so you're OK with pushing YOUR moral standards on others then?

Hypocrite.

Many people do consider such things "part of the event."

Just Get Around It

[blueZhift]

I'm sure the more creative types will find a way around the booth babe restrictions. There are plenty of ways to be sexy without showing a lot of skin or behaving in obviously lewd manners. But if E3 is hoping to somehow clean up the image of the games industry by "cleaning" up the trade show, forget it! As long as violent games like the GTA series and others grab the spotlight, what happens at the trade show really doesn't matter. And it certainly doesn't matter how people are dressed. I mean really, if the adult film industry held high class swanky industry events where everyone was impeccably dressed and behaved with the highest manners, would that gain adult films any more respect than they get now? I doubt it. Window dressing is nice, but ultimately it's the product that matters the most.

Re:Conventions should move to private property

[kevin.fowler]

I'm sure that wearing the outfits that the companies tell them/pay them to wear is "free expression".

Re:well this will come as quite a shock to you

[jovetoo]

Then express your opinion in a suitable manner. Don't buy their products.

Forbidding something has never made it go away. If the marketing guys think near-naked women makes things sell, then they will find a way to use near-naked women. Video, pictures, sexy voices, whatever,... you can't forbid everything. If necessary they'll put a booth babe in the game and have a "game-character" show up. Then what?

However, if they notice that too many people find their ways undignified and take their shopping and attention elsewhere, the booth babes will magically disappear.

What about the other new regulations?

[wedgewu]

I've had about 20 people link me about the new booth babe regulations, but no one seems to be talking about the other changes that have happened to E3 this year. To me, it doesn't seem like this is some arbitrary regulation that they just happened to start, but rather just a part of an overall restructuring of the event. For example, one of the other rules that I know which has changed is that retail folks can no longer get in just by being your regular Joe working at a game store. They are only distributing a certain number of passes for those involved in retail companies, and the upper management in said companies gets to choose whom they would like to attend. This will hopefully limit the number of gawkers and people who have a very loose connection to the industry, and keep the place less crowded. There are probably other changed rules, how come we never hear about them? Oh, because... sex sells. ;-) Or the lack of it, in this case.

Re:well this will come as quite a shock to you

[TopShelf]

"My problem with booth babes is that while hiding behind 'free expression', these companies are trying to push their moral standards upon me trying to tell me what I should be looking at while going to a game show."

Thanks for that - I needed a good laugh this morning. By that definition, anything anyone does in a public space is "pushing their moral standards" on everyone else in the area. Settle down, already! If you think you're going to turn into a pillar of salt for looking at a booth babe, just don't look!

Re:well this will come as quite a shock to you

[rholliday]

My problem with booth babes is that while hiding behind 'free expression', these companies are trying to push their moral standards upon me trying to tell me what I should be looking at while going to a game show.

Oddly enough, that sounds like exactly the opposite of what's happening. "Moral" standards are being forced upon the companies who make up this game show.

I don't associate games with scantily clad women at all and resent these companies trying to merge the two.

I don't associate cars with scantily clad women. I don't associate football with scantily clad women. I don't associate beer with scantily clad women. It's advertising. Most companies do associate the male demographic with scantily clad women.

I say, get rid of the booth babes and make a product that can stand on its own feet.

I can agree with half of that.

If people want to see scantily clad women, they can go to places that specialize in that.

Yes, if all you wanted was to see scantily clad women, you could go to a strip club or some such establishment. What's next? If you want beer, don't go to a game, go to a bar? I don't want to sound like I'm making a slippery slope argument, but saying that because some people don't think two items have a strong and appropriate bond they should not be used jointly is kind of ridiculous.

The games themselves

[phorm]

Given the turn in many of the games I've seen lately to produce "larger" more realistic (visually if not dimenensionally) boobies, I'd say that booth babes are rather representative in ways of the games being advertised.

For that very reason, FFX-2 sits uncompleted on my shelves to this day...

Balance the booth babes with booth hunks

[Morgaine]

There's nothing inherently unethical about booth babes. It's their chosen profession and they're being paid for their looks and their "marketting skills", ie. bringing the customers to the stand. It takes a lot of effort to stay looking that way, and courage to do it.

Where is might be said to be on shakey ground is if both sexes aren't fairly represented, because then the do-gooders start talking about "objectifying women". Bring on the booth hunks, too ... I'm sure it won't be just the girls who check out their assets.

Post up directional signs for "Booth Babes here" and "Booth Hunks there" and increase the merriment and general fun by clearly laughing at ourselves for doing it.

Vive la diference!

Re:Boo!

[MikeFM]

As someone that lived in Las Vegas for a while and went to many conventions I'll say that this change is enough to make me much less likely to go. That was half the fun of conventions. Without the girls you're left with a lot of tired sweaty people who look like they aren't enjoying themselves. Not a nice enviroment. Seriously conventions are just not very fun to go to. I'm constantly unimpressed with the 'new technology' being shown off so the shows really need something.

Re:Conventions should move to private property

[flooey]

If a private convention center wants to regulate clothing, they can. A government-run convention center (subsidized by taxpayers usually) should stick with the law that controls their powers.

It's not the convention center that's regulating the clothing, it's the (private) company that puts together E3. They're saying that if you want to be a part of their convention, you need to follow a set of rules, of which this is one, so it seems entirely appropriate that they have that power. The fact that they may be using a publicly-owned shouldn't infringe on their ability to choose the rules by which exhibitors participate.

-1 OFFTOPIC

[Guppy06]

"Government loves to try to control morality."

No government intervention involved or called for. RTFA.

You have your own blog in which you can bemoan government as much and as often as you want. This isn't it. Fight the power somewhere else please.

Bullshit

[1WingedAngel]

It's difficult to imagine, say, EA or Sony or Microsoft or Nintendo bothering with this nonsense."

You mean like when Microsoft brought in the Laker Girls? Or when Sony got Denise Harris to dress up as that half-nekkid elf chick? Please.

Re:well this will come as quite a shock to you

[iocat]

It's a private show, run by an industry association that can form its own rules. Given that the industry association is trying to improve the image for games, banning booth babes is entirely within its rights. If you don't like it, don't exhibit, or don't attend. So what's your problem with it?

Longer lines

[mackman]

Booth babes had the wonderful effect of attracting lines of single guys wanting a photo or autograph. That means shorter lines for the game and hardware demos the rest of us want to see. Without booth babes, everyone will look at the games, which ruins it for the rest of us.

Ah, a kindred spirit

[SmallFurryCreature]

Yeah I agree, this stuff is pretty tame. I helped with the rigging off several erotica conventions in europe and this guy would have a heart attack if he saw what went on there.

Then again it is hard to imagine an area of public sales where a pretty girl won't do the trick. Wether it is the stewardes or the receptionist a pretty face works better.

As for it being sexist. Advertising aimed at women either uses the most perfect male or a mental retard. "Normal" men need not apply to sell products to women.

Hell a lot of ads aimed at females use pretty females themselves so what is wrong with ads aimed at men using sexy females.

This guy probably got a serious case of the right wing nutter disease and starts enforcing his own impotentency on the rest of us. Just because he can not longer enjoy looking at a pretty girl he must ruin it for the rest of us as well.

Booth babes are a way to dress up your booth, to get eyeballs on your stand and then once you got them there you can make your sale. It is very old, it happens in every industry and it won't go away. I seen these kinds of restrictions being proposed before and they are always worked around. When you are selling the next DOA game you can hardly have it being advertised by a couple of guys in suits.

What's the point?

[Anonymous Coward]

This sounds like some newbie geekboy's plan to "go legit"

I think one year at E3, it was in the same building as a real porn, err excuse me, adult entertainment, conference
It's kind of fresh, e3 knows who they are selling to and don't hide from it.

I've worked from some of the legitest, straight shootingest big companies in the world and it's just a fact of life, looks matter. Our presidents are picked in part based on looks, you think there have been many short presidents? You think Ms. Zeta-Jones is hocking T-Mobile services because of her mad GSM skillz or because she is one of the sexiest women in the world? Go to any conference or convention you want and you'll see companies with mostly men in their engineering groups and an incredibly disproportionate number of women representing their work. Not always overtly sexual but generally attractive women. Never big fat ugly women, almost 100% nice looking, fit, attractive ladies.

You think Lara Croft is a real female role model? With her oh so realistic and common anime like proportions? Come on. Men and boys like big tits, hot chicks, long legs,all that stuff. We will buy products if you have that.

Re:Boo!

[jchenx]

Seriously, if booth babes are the only thing you look forward to in a convention, then I'd argue you don't belong there. Let someone else from your group or team go instead. The "new technology" may not interest you, but I'm sure there's someone who has a vested interest in the product, who doesn't need a gaggle of booth babes just to be attracted to the conference.

Re:how can I make an informed opinion?!!

[Ray Radlein]

Wait a minute -- you clicked on a link promising relevant pictures for an article about inappropriately-attired women acting in sexually provocative ways, and were surprised to find results that were Not Safe for Work? What on earth did you expect to see when you clicked that link?

I mean, I agree as a rule with the concept of labelling NSFW links, but this seems like a fairly slender thread on which to hang your response.

Where are we?!

[peter1]

Are these shows in Las Vegas (aka the USA for those that forgot it) or somewhere in the Middle East? Last time I checked we had Freedom of Expression and Speech in this country and we do not dictate what our women can or cannot wear!

If somebody is willing to pay a beautiful woman to wear a skimpy outfit, and she is willing, then hey so be it! As for those that do not like it, do not look at them or go to these shows! Remember freedom of choice applies to you as well!

Coming out article

[TheSkepticalOptimist]

I guess this is Colin Campbell's coming out article as any warm blooded hetero male (i.e. the audience many of these companies often target) are drawn to the booth babes like flies on crap.

This guy also knows nothing about trade show exhibits. Its about getting the audience to your booth so they can see your wares. Offer some gimmick (free something), contests, flashing lights and babes in tight clothing and your going to attract the crowds. Attract enough of a crowd and the audience is perpetual, more are drawn to the congregation to find out what is going on which draws more people. Eventually, some of them are going to look at your product as opposed to your competitor's who are sitting alone in the corner with their bow ties and morals intact.

It may be garish or immoral, but its marketing at its finest!