 | | Over the last few months, stories have trickled onto the intrawebs about the Miss Video Game Pageant, which has a goal of selecting one girl from all over the world to be an ambassador for girl gamers. This event, as opposed to the numerous gaming tournaments worldwide, has decided to have some basis in the appeal of the contestants in addition to their skills. Last week, the fabulous Faith Naked wrote an article about the scams of the pageant. I adore Faith and her articles, and agreed with some of it. However, my experience so far with Miss Video Game (MVG) has differed in some ways.
The opposition to this “heinous” event has taken a few forms. The most humorous were the ones that threw inflamed harassments at the MVG site. Blogs and sites everywhere declared how horrific it was to have girls post pictures of themselves as part of the public’s voting process. However, photos were only a part on which they were to base their opinions. From the start, girls were encouraged to talk about their gaming experiences through their profiles and webcams. MVG wanted the Internet community to have some say in who they felt would be best “to assist in the proliferation of females in gaming genres of all types and to help raise awareness of the female gaming audience among game publishers and advertisers”. When I saw the outrage I wondered, why all the hate?
The reality of the situation is that most role models are attractive. MVG stated the winner would be used in marketing avenues with publishers and advertisers. They are not trying to deceive anyone. When advertisers of a product choose a rep, they always choose someone marketable who is often attractive. This happens in most commercials and print advertisements. Generally speaking, people like looking at appealing people. I recall a story on NPR about the preferences and correlations between beauty and success and another one on BBC about how even babies prefer pretty people.
As far as gaming skill, one would hope the crowned cutie had a sincere passion for gaming. However, Miss Video Game would not need to be a phenomenal gamer in order to represent the majority of girls worldwide who often have very little experience with games. Perhaps in the upcoming decade, when girl gamers are much more commonplace, a high expertise in gaming would become more of a factor in selecting a representative.
 Another angle I have heard from haters of the pageant, as they proclaimed to be superior in motive, is their lofty proposal of “bringing something good to girl gaming.” This notion strikes me as slightly arrogant, in that I am curious as to what earth shattering reforms would someone feel they could spearhead as the feminist version of “Miss Video Game” or whatever title they would conceive? Would they talk to the developers and present ideas of how games, levels, and weapons could appeal to girls? Whatever they did would be counterproductive, in that it would only create chauvinism against girls when all that is truly needed is to promote equality. The physical interface of a controller and the mechanics of playing a game are the same for guys and girls. So to what end would a crowned female sway the developers? There are simply skilled girl gamers and bad girl gamers just like with the guys.
As far as changing the general perspective of the world towards girl gamers, I would not want to. I have received nothing but civil and considerate responses and treatment, whether it was anonymously in an online game or in person, like at E3. It seems that often when a girl is not receiving polite interactions, she can easily blame it on being the victim of “cruel girl gamer haters.” Most likely it is just a lack of courtesy on someone’s part.
A big disappointment to me and the source of many hate blogs, was the misconception by girls who did not enter because of the initial opening MVG homepage. It has since been changed, but there was a strong emphasis on looks and nothing on skill. The extreme importance on the physical appearance by MVG early in the process prevented a great deal of excellent, attractive gamers (like Candice from AMN) from even attempting to enter. Some girls felt like it was clear that their intentions were not truly on the skills of the girl, otherwise the first round would not be chosen by popular vote. Candice felt like the self-contradicting goals, prizes, and elimination processes were disconcerting, “They (at MVG) push you to think it's about something that is of interest to people in the gaming industry, because it gets attention. But in the end? It's nothing about gaming. It's about garnering interest in females, videogames and money.” MVG heard concerns and clarified through their page their interest in gaming skills.
WARNING: This next paragraph is a SPOILER. It is not the primary goal of any lucrative business, much less those in the video game industry, to be exceptionally high in the moral values department. The entertainment business does not have the noble goals of life saving surgeons or world peacemakers. It is commonplace for many girl gamer groups to dip their fingers in the marketing bowl and receive financial support. Without judgment, if you want to make a living in gaming you need to make money.
Although I can easily back almost everything MVG states, I did have a few concerns. First off, it is not really a pageant. A pageant would have judges who chose on several aspects (for example, Miss America with talent, swimsuit, and personality divisions of the competition). They chose to make it a tournament, though I am not sure why. They stated this a few months ago in a livejournal entry. Perhaps instead, MVG could judge the final girls on gaming skills, a favorite costume, PR abilities and so forth. As I understood an email from MVG, after the first round eliminations, it is all based on skill. Seems to me, an ability to actually be a spokesperson might be a good factor in the final decision making.
I am thrilled to see that MVG does actually care about the girls being into video games. Most gaming companies involved in showcasing females do not care at all if their representatives have any gaming knowledge or ability whatsoever. I wrote a paragraph on this in my article on E3 booth babes.
In my journey for the MVG crown, my heartache would come from the want to please the powers that be at MVG. I had posted several normal everyday pics of myself, but was finally convinced to post “hotter” picures. My mom (yeah, my ultra-conservative, bible-belt mom) persuaded me that my pictures seemed rather “lame” and questioned me as to why I didn’t post some of my better photos from my work. From the onset, the contestants seemed sure MVG is about beauty above skill, until we heard that later eliminations are indeed based on skill. The initial problem then became how to please the arbitrary surfer enough to get the votes, while remaining true to the “ambassador for the girl gamer” intentions of the pageant. My stupid mistake was leaning heavily on the idea that the girl to be crowned needed to be a role model, so I chose pictures accordingly. I was assured that people would not vote for va va voom girls, that they would vote for their friends. Yeah! That’d be awesome if I had 1,000 gamer friends! But seriously guys, whose profile or webcam would you rather look at a “role model” or fun, edgy, hot, cute, quirky, funny, or pretty girls? I don’t blame you. So would anyone.
Because this is the first time for an event like this, it is perfectly understandable that unforeseen logistical challenges would arise. For instance, votes. They chose to allow only one vote per IP. However, that did not sit well for those of us who had lots of friends on campuses. I understand they allow an email type of fix for that, but I am not going to go back and try to explain that to everyone. Still, better safe than sorry. MVG saw how contestants could spam their number of views and did not want that same type of cheating in the actual voting.
Another problem that MVG handled promptly was their opening page during the most critical beginning 2 weeks of the voting process. They posted the most viewed pics in descending order. It quickly became evident that Internet surfers clicked on the site and understandably misinterpreted most views as most votes. It seems clear, this affected the voting status considerably. However, because of MVG’s rapid attentiveness to solve the problem, I am sure the voting has not continued in the same erroneous or biased path. Except for webcam pages, which conveniently stay the same, ( I’m a page 3 girl), they have implemented a random presentation of all the girls providing equal chances in a more unbiased fashion.
Further trying to meet the needs of the girls, MVG also opened up some forums for the contestants to get to know each other, or voice opinions and questions. Overall, I think MVG is doing a spectacular job addressing a multitude of concerns of the over 400 girls. Knowing just one girl can be hard to please and appease, I can imagine that would be a tall order to fill.
My final thought would be this: If MVG wanted to straddle the fence in the beginning with looks vs. skill, straddle throughout. Why have the first round based on looks and popularity (mainly in the gaming community) and the rest on skill alone? Why not have Miss Video Game be based on what their objective was as stated, “To assist in the proliferation of females in gaming genres of all types and to help raise awareness of the female gaming audience among game publishers and advertisers”. Should not the winner fit all the requirements they have stated? They are looking for a girl who would do well on a photo shoot on the beach, be a good 3D character in a video game, be an adept spokeswoman who is “knowledgeable about gaming, has a good learning curve about games, is charismatic, and has positive views for the female gamers and the gaming industry as whole.” Now why would they toss all this out and crown the best player in a match, without considering the other factors as well? Of course, they have stated they are, “entitled to change their guidelines as they see fit” because well, it is their dang event! So this is how things are as of today, Feb. 7, 2007.
Fortunately, the idea of a tournament does not intimidate me in the slightest. I’d love to do it! If I make it to the tournaments, I want to play my best. Therefore, I will be spending my little free time practicing. It is also the reason why I will not be addressing hate or fan mail.
I would love to win this! As I am sure any one of the contestants would. So please peruse the randomly generated pages of over 400 fabulous girls , view the webcams, read profiles, vote (remember to verify your vote by email or it does not count), and check back here for the results.
Yvonna Lynn is the host of AMNtv.
| |
 |
