Origins Photo Surveys

Origins '01: Stalking the Booth Babe

by Mark P., text by Sandy Antunes
July 16, 2001

Updates: "The Zorrow woman" is Celia Liang, a long-time gamer who helps out at Cons, not hired bait [thanks, John Nephews]. The lady in vinyl/ leather lady was with Third World Games, and likely was Kachiko of Cons past [thanks, several]. The Mad Royalty was pleased with being dubbed with that title. Despite this total lack of journalistic coordination on our part, our thesis remains intact: Gamer booth babes aren't just hired talent, but are gamers too!

One can measure of how serious an entertainment show is, simply by surveying the percentage of Booth Babes. This is, of course, utter nonsense propagated by a geek-run industry (specifically, a legacy of the computer game industry), but hey, we just cover the news.

So our intrepid photographer set out to survey the booth babe-ness of Origins '01. Then, he left me photos without labels to sort. So we break this into three categories to pretend that we're applying some sort of fair, scientific morphological scheme to this all.

As with all our photo surveys, click on the thumbnail image to see the full-sized one.

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Babes of the Booth

First mention goes to Looney Labs, who ran constant games and demos and had a mixed support team of men and women. Naturally, we photographed this plucky demo queen rather than, say, Andrew Looney. "Stay true to one's theme", that's our motto. In a way, since she was running games and not just looking pretty, it's questionable whether the 'booth' part of Booth Babe qualifies. (Besides, as an astronomer I have a thing for labcoats.)

Next comes the A-Z dancers, promoting Rein*hagen's new venture. They scored massive bonus points in our intangible ratings for: Being dressed like the game packaging Dancing Ditching their lame music for the better stuff Synister was pumping out next door to them Being actually connected to the publisher (i.e. girlfriend/friend), not just models-for-hire.

Booth Babes can max out with the 'classy' stat, as this Gold Rush Games/Zorro promo woman shows. She fits the definition: babe hired to be near the booth. Definitely relevant to the game's theme (and source material), so GRG scores bonus points for that.

In a similar fashion, a seller of medieval goods can-- nay, should have one or two obligatory busty medievals wench-like booth babes. Certainly, given the dominance of the fantasy genre, this is Con-appropriate.

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Art Babes

And then we have the classic chainmail bikini chick, seen in art area. Why the art area, I have no idea. "Look, gorgeous pictures, and in case you can't visually tell, we'll (barely) put chainmail on this woman." I can understand it as a cheap promo ploy for the publishing area, but in the art show, perhaps it was just her choice of garb.

Similarly, our photographer spotted this leather model from afar. I'm not sure if it was exhibit hall or art room so I'm guessing, but it does bring that fantasy gaming feel to the area.

And here in what looks like the art gallery, we have another medieval chick with nice embroidery. The outfit makes this picture (well, that, and the smile), and overall does give a more artsy feel to things, so I'd rate this Booth-i-ness as a positive gain.

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Artificial Babes

But hey, who needs to hire models? Apparently a life-sized and fairly pathetic Mageknight figure is enough.

Or just slap a set of wings on a mannequin! God we're pathetic.

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Wandering Babes

This is the category for "Mark gave me the pictures with no labels."

For example, this boothless scifi woman. Is she from Quake (judging by the rocket launcher slung over her pack?) Or freelance?

Is this woman a larper? Mad royalty?

Is Sean Jaffe trying to score? I swear, trying to figure out these pictures is impossible.

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Summary

Well, we're no E3. That's probably good, though. Overwhelming, the "eye candy" also had direct relevance to the actual material being sold, which I see as a good thing. That many of the models also were part of the game industry, and not just paid flesh, is heartening. So the next time you see a booth babe at a gaming convention, don't just think "Wow, untouchable sexy woman", think "and damn, she games, too!".