booth-babes posts

Big Download has now come to the end of its coverage of E3 for its 2010 installment. We went to cover and for the first time to film tons of activities at or near the Los Angeles Convention Center. We saw some good game demos, saw some that, well, didn't wow us and saw some really odd stuff along the way.

While other web sites and media outlets like to give out awards to games at the show, our philosophy is that giving awards like "Best RPG" to unfinished products is a little silly, especially since very often the final game doesn't turn out as well as its E3 demo. So as we did last year, we are giving awards in categories that are a little different and also showcase what it's actually like to attend the event for those of you who can't go. As always we hope you like it.

Zombies seem to be the new black in games but in the mainstream world it's vampires who rule with movies like Twilight and its sequels and TV shows like True Blood. In this third day of booth babe coverage at E3 2010. we managed to find a booth model who was wearing fangs proudly.

While today is the last day of E3 don't be surprised to see some more booth babe action from the show floor later this week. Yes there were that many models at the Los Angeles Convention Center and they were ] awaiting their close up from us.

It's day two of E3 2010 but the truth is we are still going through booth babe pictures from day one of the show. There just seems to be a ton of models and presenters that have been hired. One product (for a mini-helicopter remote controlled by your iPhone) had 10 ladies going around the convention center promoting it.

We threw in some pictures of the atmosphere models that were at the Test Drive Unlimited 2 part that Atari held at the top of the LA Live building next to the convention center. The characters were supposed to all be that type of "new rich" folks (think Paris Hilton). We say to them, "Mission accomplished."

To give you an idea of how many booth models are here for E3 2010, we managed to start shooting pictures of them before we even entered the Los Angeles Convention Center. Yes, the booth models are plentiful and promoting pretty much everything you can think of: games, controllers, energy drinks, and more.

We got our first gallery of booth models ready to go now but stay tuned as we will have lots more to show you on day 2 and day 3 of E3. We might even have some pictures of non-booth babes. In fact check out the Dead Rising 2 picture up above. He's a lucky zombie.

With E3 2010 now just a couple of days away from opening its exhibit doors, companies are starting to reveal just what activities will be at their own exhibits. 2K Games will be showing off the demo for their upcoming open world action game Mafia II at the booth and will also be giving out Mafia II t-shirts during the show.

Oh, who are we kidding? You just want to know about the Playboy Playmates that will be there. Ok Ok. If you are coming to E3 you can get your picture taken with some Playmates (including Jaime Edmondson, the lady over to the right). The full schedule of Playmates and when they will be at the Mafia II booth is at the game's official web site. Happy now?

With just one more week and one more day until E3 2010 officially begins, we are wondering just how much skin we will see in the booth babes on the exhibit floor. However it looks like the booth babes at the Penny Arcade Expo's next show in September may not be showing as much as the above ladies did last year.

You may remember that PAX organizers launched a survey asking PAX fans what they though of its booth babe ban policy. The results have come in and 60 percent of those folks who answered the survey said they either loved or liked the ban. While it doesn't look like PAX will totally ban models at exhibit booths, they will ask them to be trained and/or educated about the product they are promoting. Partial nudity will be banned (although they don't define what that means exactly in this context) but cosplayers can still wear revealing clothing "assuming it is true to the source game". We should see how all of this works out in early September when PAX Prime launches in Seattle.

Unlike E3 which allows exhibitors a chance to hire models to smile and ignore advances from geeks as booth babes, the organizers of Penny Arcade Expo have limited booth models at their shows (although, as you can see from the image above from PAX 2009 a few have bended or flat out broken that rule).

Now it looks like PAX is asking its fan to voice their opinions on the subject in an online survey. Fans are asked if they like or dislike the ban and then asks specifically if booth babes should have, for example, wear pants or shirts). It's unknown when the final decisions on booth babes at PAX will be made.

Just like E3, PAX 2009 is filled with people dressed in costumes. While PAX's official policy is to discourage exhibitors from having booth babes, we noticed a few exhibitors who did bring in some ladies in costume. However they were vastly outnumbers by the regular PAX attendees who wanted to dress up like Mario or a Team Fortress 2 character class or a zombie nurse.

We went around the exhibit hall area to check out both the booth models and the cosplayers who showed up. Some of the costumes were very inventive and others . . . well, let's just say they need some work. Ironically we also saw people who wanted attention outside the PAX 2009 convention center. A few folks were standing around asking people if they could give up their PAX badges.

Well we can finally breath easy; E3 2009 will indeed be bringing back booth babes for its larger and revamped event in June. How do we know this? Because the G4 cable TV network is asking folks to pick which lady will get the honor for being their booth babe at their E3 2009 exhibit booth.

Their web site has posted up 10 potential E3 booth models for G4 Each lady gets a sexy picture and a biography which we predict will go unread. You are asked to rate each each model and presumably the one with the highest rating gets the "lucky break" of being G4's E3 booth model for three days in June. By the way the cable network plans to offer 22 hours of coverage of events at the show during E3 week.