Remember when booth babes were a thing in the games industry?
I remember going to Gamescom 2011 and being at this big and crowded World of Tanks booth to check out the game, when suddenly a bunch of booth babes who were hired to do promotion for the game went onstage and began gyrating to music. Every nerd there then attentively watched these women doing the most generic and boring ass moves on stage for like 10 minutes, because
Gaming outlets like IGN also used to do articles in which they'd rate these booth babes after a convention.
I don't know about cosplay babes, but booth babes became more controversial in the early 2010s, and then PAX and Eurogamer Expo banned booth babes because they wanted their conventions to be more family friendly and welcoming to everyone. Since then, they fell out of favor at gaming conventions in the West.
It still feels like cosplay babes are a sort of loophole around that because some of the costumes they wear are more revealing than what booth babes wore.
At the very least, cosplay babes fit into the overall scene. Booth babes were just a weird thing to have and none of them looked like they wanted to be there.
Yeah, that is a good point. I haven't been to these conventions in over a decade, but it does sound like cosplay babes essentially serve the same purpose as booth babes did in terms of promotion and titillation, but in such a way that they can get away with it.
Most cosplayers who make money doing it are influencers working for themselves, so it's at least a bit less exploitative than the old way when companies would hire for the role. Plus the ones who go all in on having a sexy costume are a subset of the community, not the whole thing.
Remember when booth babes were a thing in the games industry?
I remember going to Gamescom 2011 and being at this big and crowded World of Tanks booth to check out the game, when suddenly a bunch of booth babes who were hired to do promotion for the game went onstage and began gyrating to music. Every nerd there then attentively watched these women doing the most generic and boring ass moves on stage for like 10 minutes, because
Gaming outlets like IGN also used to do articles in which they'd rate these booth babes after a convention.
I thought they kind of still were a thing? Just cosplay babes now filling the spot they used to.
I don't know about cosplay babes, but booth babes became more controversial in the early 2010s, and then PAX and Eurogamer Expo banned booth babes because they wanted their conventions to be more family friendly and welcoming to everyone. Since then, they fell out of favor at gaming conventions in the West.
It still feels like cosplay babes are a sort of loophole around that because some of the costumes they wear are more revealing than what booth babes wore.
At the very least, cosplay babes fit into the overall scene. Booth babes were just a weird thing to have and none of them looked like they wanted to be there.
Yeah, that is a good point. I haven't been to these conventions in over a decade, but it does sound like cosplay babes essentially serve the same purpose as booth babes did in terms of promotion and titillation, but in such a way that they can get away with it.
Most cosplayers who make money doing it are influencers working for themselves, so it's at least a bit less exploitative than the old way when companies would hire for the role. Plus the ones who go all in on having a sexy costume are a subset of the community, not the whole thing.