Will Luton Wednesday 11th April 2012 Share this article Share

Companies in this article Virgin Gaming

Getting noticed and rising up the ranks in an industry as competitive as gaming is tough. It takes hardwork and dedication.

One young hopeful is Katrina, who has a games marketing and promotions background and is in her second year of a graphics and animation degree. Currently she is looking to break in as a concept artist and then as creative director. As a creative director myself I'm backing her ambitions.

However Katrina is taking an unusual step by entering Maxim's Gamer Girl competition. The contest is sponsored by Virgin Gaming, indie dev Twenty First Street Games and digital agency Zaah (who appear to have now pulled out of proceedings).

The premises is this: Upload some photos and write a little about what makes you the ultimate girl gamer. The public vote for a few winners, then those winners go through a more formal process to decide who is the ultimate winner. There are prizes, including the pleasure of having your scantily clad body photographed for the magazine.

My face's intrinsic beauty is never on the agenda for a board meeting. My body neither. It hasn't even come up under AOB.

Virgin Gaming tell me, via Twitter, that they are looking for: "Looks, confidence on camera AND gaming skills" and "not just looking for a gamer, but a host with cred for industry events, media features".

Now, I am a moderately handsome man, probably about a six if you were to take a poll in your average Wetherspoon. However, I don't recall having to ever have that publicly tested as part of my career, including any of my public facing responsibilities.

My face's intrinsic beauty is never on the agenda for a board meeting. My body neither. It hasn't even come up under AOB.

The profile of TradeChat (a colourful WoW geek) offers rewards for meeting voting milestones, which includes posting videos of her in various outfits dancing around. Plus a bikini photoshoot should she win.

She is offering titillation in return for progression and is leading the public vote.

So let's get this clear, Maxim Gamer Girl is a beauty pageant for an outmoded notion of a videogaming demographic - geeky young boys. The site is a tawdry offering, with row upon row of women clad in bikinis or underwear sprawled across things. Like an Argos catalogue of low level smut.

Now, I am not attacking low level smut (LLS?) and the entrants are clearly complicit, in effect condoning the competition, so "what is my problem", right?

My problem is that is that Maxim Gamer Girl has implied values. Values that a female employee of our industry, in this instance a spokeswoman, should conform to a notion of beauty and should be sexually desirable, ostensibly to young heterosexual men, for them to gain employment.

I'm not seeing Cosmopolitan's Gamer Boy, with bemuscled hunks in trunks licking an Xbox controller in race to be a spokesman for some misguided folly.

I'm not seeing Cosmopolitan's Gamer Boy, with bemuscled hunks in trunks licking an Xbox controller in race to be a spokesman for some misguided folly. That is because men, as women should be, are widely valued in games based on their ability and experience.

Virgin Gaming and Twenty First Street Games judging their potential (or current) female customers publicly by their looks is not a way to encourage women to become their employees. This kind of negative representation is a step back for all of the hard work being done to encourage more female applicants in to roles across our industry.

I'm a strong believer in the power of the disapproving tut, like you might hear in a village hall. So I want it registered that this is one big tut at Maxim Gamer Girls' sponsors.

Because I'm not angry with you, just disappointed. You've let yourselves down. Tut-tut.

If you would also like to register a tut then the event's sponsors can be found on Twitter under the accounts @VirginGaming and @21stGames