...oddly sexualized culture of China’s game industry

[Mister D]

SHANGHAI — China’s rise as a gaming nation was best captured at ChinaJoy, the huge expo that drew more than 250,000 attendees to more than 100,000 square meters of exhibit space in Shanghai. The event was a huge spectacle, but it bore little resemblance to the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), the big game-business showcase that drew 48,000 people to Los Angeles in June.

Rather, ChinaJoy was a beast of another kind. The obvious difference is that ChinaJoy caters to consumers rather than game-industry people.
Nearly every booth had stages — and not for showing off games. They were for the show girls, or booth babes, in skimpy costumes. In the back of the booths or off to the side, you could find demos of the games. But the mostly male audience was there to take pictures of the women and to get free swag.

https://games.yahoo.com/news/unique-...190056943.html

The women are gorgeous at least.

[Peter1469]

That is Asia.

They don't think of sex as we do in the west. When I was stationed in Korea (second time as a JAG) I had 9 days off in 14 months. I went to Thailand for leave, women in dance clubs got in line to dance with me. It was a great time.

I didn't bring any of them back to the hotel; they probably thought that I was gay. Sex isn't a big complication in the orient. There is no judgement about it at all.

At the time I was with 3 different female army officers so I thought that I should be faithful. Silence.

[KC]

What kind of journalist actually writes "to get free swag" in an online news article? This is why I avoid Yahoo!

[Mister D]

What kind of journalist actually writes "to get free swag" in an online news article? This is why I avoid Yahoo!

Fine! Last time I contribute the this game room!

[KC]

Fine! Last time I contribute the this game room!

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo ooo!!

[Green Arrow]

LOL, you guys are funny

[IMPress Polly]

There's nothing "odd" about this. I've got news for the ignorant writers of the article in the OP, who obviously haven't been paying attention to the industry for very long: E3 always has "booth babes". It ain't just China. The global video game culture always been that way. In fact, Anita Sarkeesian recently dedicated an entire video to this very subject. Duly note that pretty well all games highlighted in this particular video are Western titles.



For those who don't know who Anita Sarkeesian is, she heads up the group Feminist Frequency and has become the single most well-known and visible feminist culture critic out there in the last year. She earned her fame last year by publishing an online video series called Damsels in Distress (that I posted in an earlier thread in the Gender, Sexuality, and Race Room, and also on my blog), which broke down the many varied ways how video games often unnecessarily relegate women to the status of the prize you win for beating the game or for accomplishing a big feat in the game. The series took off because it was really the first serious critique of the video game industry. Though most well-known for that series, the viewership of her other culture critiques subsequently increased qualitatively as well. For her work, she was viciously attacked with death threats from the more reactionary corners of the Internet, and especially from the gamer community. Though the video game industry, observing this persecution and seeking to save face (fearing that persecution of critics by the gamer community might rightly give the industry a bad reputation), went on to give Sarkeesian an award for her work this year, the extent to which things remain the same nonetheless was palpable at this year's E3 in June, which I duly noted at the time. The above video is new series she's started doing in June. The new series focuses on addressing the commonplace sexual objectification of women in video games. Only part one (above) is available as yet, but it's every bit as good as the typical episode of her Damsels in Distress series and comes as recommended.

Anyway, the transparent message that this kind of rampant sexual objectification of women's bodies presents to female gamers (e.g. yours truly) is that video games are for guys, so I'm not welcome. This culture is just slightly more extreme in Asia because Asia is a more chauvinist part of the world. (Not by that much though.)

[donttread]

https://games.yahoo.com/news/unique-...190056943.html

The women are gorgeous at least.

Well that's got to be a first. An indictment of American marketing for not being sexualized enough

[Captain Obvious]

That is Asia.

They don't think of sex as we do in the west. When I was stationed in Korea (second time as a JAG) I had 9 days off in 14 months. I went to Thailand for leave, women in dance clubs got in line to dance with me. It was a great time.

I didn't bring any of them back to the hotel; they probably thought that I was gay. Sex isn't a big complication in the orient. There is no judgement about it at all.

At the time I was with 3 different female army officers so I thought that I should be faithful. Silence.

Japanese sex culture is really bizarre.

Wasn't the fad there for a while selling school girls panties out of vending machines?

I'd google it but I'm at work.

[IMPress Polly]

Indeed there was (in Japan), but that era appears to be slowly drawing to a close. Japan recently at long last outlawed possession of child pornography for example, albeit with the gigantic notable exception of animated child porn, which remains legal, being such a huge market. The directionality of the law and culture may be slow to change in a country like Japan, but the direction in which things are fundamentally moving is clear.