"Sin to Win" Snub FTW

Last Friday, I wrote about a contest being held at ComicCon by EA, in which participants were asked to be "sinful" by taking "lustful" pictures with "booth babes" at the convention in order to win dinner and a "sinful night with two hot girls, a limo service, paparazzi and a chest full of booty."

Shaker Selasphorus just emailed me a heads-up about a gay gamer, PixelPoet, who subversively submitted a cheeky pic of himself with a hot guy, blogged about it, and was "randomly selected" as a runner-up contest winner. He was offered "a $240 gift certificate to the EA Store and a limited print t-shirt for being selected," but instead of taking the winnings, he emailed them to decline.

While I'm grateful for the team 'randomly' choosing me as one of the runners-up for your #Lust contest, it seems as though the internet has once again made it difficult to relay tongue-in-cheek humor to the desired recipients. I became aware of your contest through one of the many blogs decrying it. I think the contest was somewhat sexist, misogynist, and exploitive, especially since you were sending fans upon ANY booth babe at SDCC; however, as a gay man, I also saw this PR stunt as missed opportunity that resulted in what appears to be a narrow minded view as to what your game's audience can truly be. While I'm not sure if it was intentional or not, this stunt projected a view of your target demographic as lustful heterosexual males, when in reality a larger and larger portion of the gaming population are women and LGBT people.

...I sent in my photo of me with a burly man that I took at PAX last year as a humorous portrayal of how your contest is not only misogynistic and demeaning to the women that attended the conventions, but also to anyone that doesn't follow the hetero-normative ideal. I know booth babes (and guys) get paid to man those booths and deal with gawkers, but there are also PR, production, and development people at those booths caught in the crossfire of dealing with people trying to do "acts of lust" with them to win your contest.

Again, while I am grateful that you have chosen my submission as a runner-up, I feel I must decline your free t-shirt and $240 gift certificate to the EA Store. Instead of giving that $240 away, I would prefer the money to be used in the following ways:

1) A new sexual-harassment training video/seminar
2) Another PR team to try to spin this whole debacle of a contest into a positive light
3) A direct phone line to EA's legal depart to use before you try anymore PR stunts
4) Six copies of your game when it releases, since I know you've lost at least that many fans with this stunt
5) Or the next time you go to Hooters (for the wings, of course), leave a $240 tip for your waitress in a karmic way of balancing out what has been done to the booth babes of SDCC due to this contest

...Thanks for the response though, and there is a part of me that hopes I wasn't just "randomly chosen" and that you guys wanted to include my picture to help save face. That maybe on some level all the negative press and feedback actually got back to you guys and you were trying to include more than just guys drooling over girls; however, I have to decline use of my image or name for the contest.

Rock on, PixelPoet.

[Previously: Still Not Wanted: Girl Geeks (& We're Not So Hot on Gay Guy Geeks, Either), What More Could a Girl Want?, Again Let Us Contemplate Why There Are Not More Girl Gamers, Still Not Wanted: Girl Geeks, Over at Shakes Manor..., Liss Isn't the Only One Who Writes Letters, Fat Princess Greatest Hits, "Women are treated better than men online," says NerdBoobLoot-man, Rape for Sale.]