Hey EA!
If you were looking for a quick avenue to lose the respect of a good lump of your customers, you hit the nail on the head with this Booth Babe contest you've devised for this year's Comic-Con. The contest, which involves attendees committing "acts of lust" with EA's booth babes in order to win "dinner and a sinful night with two hot girls... and a chest full of booty", more or less encourages and rewards sexual harassment on the showroom floor.
It's hard to imagine that someone on EA's behalf didn't realize how offensively sexist this marketing contest for their upcoming game Dante's Inferno is. It's bad enough that game companies are still stringing lines of half-naked booth babes at their shows to bait oncoming nerds to check-out their products, but it's absolutely the worst that they would actually facilitate an avenue for this kind of assult. Poor move, and absolutely tasteless.
Update: Bully cites several incidents of sexual harassment he heard about on the Comic-Con floor. The nature and tone of this contest only supports incidents of this kind of behavior. ++ Yet another write-up regarding sexual harassment at the con, thanks Brinstar!
Update 2: The Dante's Inferno team responds to the commentary (old link was taken down, here's a new link collecting all the coverage) about their contest, but miss the point as it spins the contest to be more about the seven deadly sins than addressing the faults of the underlying message it conveys.
Update 3: Gay Gamer.net's correspondent PixelPoet get's randomly selected as a winning recipient of one of the contest's prizes, but responds to EA's offer with a terrific letter that summarizes what many of us have felt about the situation.
Ars Technica via Brinstar
wow
Posted by: Garth Webb | July 24, 2009 at 12:21 PM
It's like EA wants us to hate them.
Posted by: Adam | July 24, 2009 at 01:53 PM
Wow, they picked the 7th-best Deadly Sin to base this contest on. I, for one, wouldn't mind proving my sloth to win. Except by entering you're actually not being lazy. But with this contest, I wouldn't be surprised to see them raise more wrath than lust. Hopefully EA doesn't have too much pride to apologize for this, though.
I can't figure out how to include gluttony, envy and greed into this comment; additions encouraged)
Posted by: Brilliam | July 24, 2009 at 02:20 PM
By the way, the fact that I am joking doesn't mean this doesn't piss me off-- I'm just in shitty joke mode after the unpearable fruit puns the other day
Posted by: Brilliam | July 24, 2009 at 02:20 PM
I wish that fruit pun thread lasted forever.
Posted by: .tiff | July 24, 2009 at 02:23 PM
Did the thought of eating contest for gluttony not cross anyone's minds?
Posted by: Jeffrey Matulef | July 24, 2009 at 05:48 PM
To quote Demetri Martin:
"I think an eating contest is really just the beginning of a shitting contest. Congrats, you're the winner, but in Round 2 everybody loses."
Boy, I hope we're allowed to swear in the comments.
Posted by: gggritso | July 24, 2009 at 07:18 PM
They deleted that "apology", but I found it again in their archives. There's a link round-up here, which includes a screen-cap of it.
I think it's really telling that EA decided to run this contest the year after there were a lot of complaints about sexual harassment at last year's Comic-Con. The Con Anti-Harassment Project was created in direct response to last year's SDCC sexual harassment problems.
Posted by: Brinstar | July 25, 2009 at 07:39 AM
First the "Christian demonstration" at E3, now this - makes me wonder why they are not talking about the actual game.
Also, hi, I'm the writer guy that hitched a ride with all of you at last year's E3, from Japantown to the Nintendo non-briefing. :)
Posted by: ro | July 25, 2009 at 10:52 AM
Oh, I'd like to point out that the Bully post is from last year (here's another post about it). Sexual harassment at Comic-Con is a continuing/historic problem. This is why the EA competition is so troubling, given this context.
Posted by: Brinstar | July 25, 2009 at 12:04 PM
So glad you brought this to the attention of the internets. Have you considered writing a piece on this and submitting it to Bitch Magazine?
Posted by: J | July 27, 2009 at 11:46 AM
I'm flabbergasted and dumbfounded. Who the f*** at EA thought this was a good idea?
Worst. Marketing Campaign Idea. Ever.
--
Furry cows moo and decompress.
Posted by: WyrdestGeek | July 30, 2009 at 10:02 AM
It's not just EA... this kind of stuff happens in other parts of the nerd community, too. The infamous pornstar presentation was just in April at Golden Gate Ruby Con, though maybe not quite as ridiculous...
Posted by: Todd | July 31, 2009 at 11:13 AM