Before we get into the real analysis following last night's XBox 360 announcement, here's a bit of fluff:
It's almost the time of year when the hairs on the back of my neck stand up and I begin to shudder involuntarily at the utter foulness of the unthinking base level of promotional campaigns for computer games entertainment. Yes, it's almost time for the Electronic Entertainment Expo.
E3 is a trade event where eye candy, big announcements and over the top marketing rules, and one of the default "gimmicks" is to offer a bevy of booth babes for [primarily male] attendees to have their photos taken with/to gawp at. While there have been subtle attempts to subvert this in the past (the Women in Games Development special interest group of the IGDA had the novel idea of suggesting to companies to redirect their booth babe funding towards a scholarship for female games degree students. It never panned out), this phenomenon keeps growing and growing.
Being a gender-inclusive gamesblog, we'd like to celebrate notable attempts in campaigns to be more clever than simply stuffing a pretty face etc. in front of their product. Today's great idea comes from Namco who plan to promote their forthcoming We LOVE Katamari (sequel to the ever-inventive Katamari Damacy) by asking delegates to contribute "nutty and creative" items to their Katamari (giant sticky ball) throughout the show. All suggestions for gamesblog's Greg should be added below. Note the restrictions:
Items should be lightweight enough to be attached and as nutty and creative as possible. Items should NOT be x-rated in nature or include clothing, books, magazines, papers or garbage.
And yes, the Namco stand will be featuring booth babes for other campaigns. Tsk tsk.
from insertcredit, via boingboing
