BOOBIES ARE BAD! [Author: myschyf]
“Gathering of Developers would like to extend its apologies for offending anyone with its T-shirt giveaway at the recent CPL event. Though we hired security to check IDs for 18+ during the length of the giveaways, Gathering does acknowledge that the giveaway approach was inappropriate for the event. None of the CPL event’s sponsors had any prior knowledge about the giveaway and Gathering extends its apologies to them as well.”
Ummm……. bullshit. Being under or over 18 years of age had nothing to do with this. You’d think we were all complaining that defenseless vulnerable underage geeks were being tempted by bare tits to sell their souls to the dark side. I believe no one has mentioned age, with the exception of G.O.D. Games.
Above and beyond that though, this type of behavior is par for the course for this company. They’ve never worried about offending anyone before, why worry now? I don’t especially care if the company if full of misogynistic sex addicts that jerk off to Penthouses strategically placed in the men’s bathrooms during their breaks. But if that’s what you are (and that’s about what they’ve demonstrated so far) — then be proud of it and don’t feed us some type of lame apology. They aren’t sorry. They’ve never been sorry. Hell they’d forgo having their games on display completely in their E3 trailer in favor of showing pornographic films or, better yet, live sex shows, if they thought they could get away with it.
Is it inappropriate? Hell yes its inappropriate. Does it make a genre already somewhat unfriendly to women even more unfriendly? Yeah but we’ll get over it, we always do. Women will probably outnumber men as players of computer games in the near future (oh wait — we already do) so our dollars will probably go to more women-friendly companies but hey! — don’t let that bother you. If sex is what you want to be known for then go for it. Don’t send us apologies. Stand up and be proud of what you are. Proclaim it loudly to the world. Demonstrate it on every street corner and have newspaper articles written about it. If I were a game developer I’d rather be known for making kick-ass games. Games that didn’t need some topless chick to sell. Some folks are different — to each his own. I guess its a matter of what one wants to spend his or her money on — topless chicks or developers who can design decent games. I know what I’ll be spending my money on.
We join our regularly scheduled comment thread, already in progress