Scop’s Blog

“Sin to Win” is a new promotional contest being run by EA to promote Dante’s Inferno.  In this contest you enter by submitting as many pictures as you can of yourself being photographed with a booth babe at Comic-con.  The grand prize?  You get yourself a night of paparazzi, access to an exclusive event, a limo ride, a “SINful dinner”, and the supposed hook: you get to do all this with two booth babes.

Despite encouraging acts of lust, I’d like to put the morality of the issue aside.  I say this because when I first saw this contest I thought with my head, “Aww yeah!”  Then I thought with my other head, “Wait, this is a load of bullshit.”

Because how is this really in any way a legitimate video game promotion?  I pitched their idea as unbiased as I could to the first person I saw who I knew wasn’t in any way a gamer; my dad.  He replied, “So….it’s a video game promotion that doesn’t net you any video games?”

The Grand Prize is vague at best, getting invited to something called “The Event” escorted by two booth babes.  Despite the estimated retail value for the grand prize only being a lackluster $595.00 the grand prize doesn’t even give mention of a video game prize!  That’s right; the runner ups are the only ones who get mention of video game memorabilia.  Interestingly enough, actual contents of grand prize seems to differ from advertisement to official contest rules.

So I’m trying to figure out what EA is marketing.  Sex appeal is one thing, but they’ve effectively separated the sex appeal from their product.  Is EA a company for sexually repressed men and boys?  Is that the gamer affiliation I’m supposed to draw from this?  And what’s the incentive to female gamers for this….to shoot for second place?

If you stop and think, or fantasize if you’re like me, the grand prize really isn’t that appealing.  I mean, these women are like Geishas except they lack culture.  If you honestly think these women give a damn about video games beyond the fact that it’s a paycheck your fantasies are far less realistic than mine.  If you’re optimistic in that there will be more than a few lines of conversation between you and the booth babes the conversation can only go one of two ways:  1)You talking about video games and them tuning you out while nodding idly.  Hey at least you aren’t groping them anymore! OR 2) them talking about how tough it is working as a booth babe, especially having to let people like you invade their personal space.

And let’s be honest here.  One of these options is blatantly rude.  The other option implies you have the courage to talk to these girls in a social setting in the first place, which EA clearly doesn’t think you do or they wouldn’t be trying to give you a $600 pick-me-up conversation with two of them.  Let’s face it this grand prize is cheap: both morally and monetarily.  And if EA isn’t just trying to use the hype from such a lewd idea, they’re trying to send a subtle message of what they really think of you — their sheepish consumers.

“Pathetic.”