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Picture this ad in a gaming magazine:
Black and white, classic colors, a young man with
a beautiful, obviously naked, woman draped over
his side, pressed against him. The satin sheets
cover what you'd rather not see, leaving it to
your imagination - perhaps her leg is draped over
his . . . nevermind. In any case, the young man is
not holding his beautiful naked companion, he is
holding a handheld game. LO! It is backlit! This,
as a friend pronounced, is heaven:
ME: Buy a Game Boy - get a gorgeous babe and satin
sheets - and she won't say a thing if you play
right after sex . . . and she'll love Mario foreplay.
Him: I think the point they were trying to make,
other than advertising the backlight, is that the
Game Boy is more entertaining than a naked girl.
I'm mildly tempted by the new model Game Boys, but
they are $150.
ME:Any guy who thinks a Game Boy
is more entertaining than a beautiful, naked
girl . . . deserves the Game Boy because the naked
girl ain't going to put up with it.
Him: It worked in Mall Rats, for the most part... at least for a
good while
ME:Okay, works for 15-17 year old
girls . . .
Him: Right. So as long as one moves to
Thailand or someplace where they don't have those
silly and pesky underage laws . . .
I remember when I hated Nintendo. I was a Nintendo
widow. I was not interested in two player games.
Besides the fact that I had to compete with three
males in my house who were all naturally better at
all of these games ( purely given that they spent
much more time at them than I did - with the
exception of Tetris, where I ruled, but who wants
to play Tetris all day?), I didn't like chopping
off heads or smashing mushrooms. For a long while,
it seemed like my husband WAS more interested in
the games than sex. With two small boys there to
cheer him on while he played video games, what did
he need a wife for?
I could complain to friends, but it felt silly to
call the Bishop to complain that my husband
was spending all his free time playing video games
- made us both look kinda silly. Of course, things
evened out once I got a laptop and was introduced
to the evils of the internet. Our house evolved as
many do - from Nintendo, to Playstation, to
Gamecube. Still, the computer has been the focus
of the children's interest. Not MY computer of
course, since my computer is set up for Word
Processing and IM's. No, DAD's computer is set up
for sound and gaming. The lovely justice that
ensues in my house now, with the invention of
computer gaming and the addition of 2 teenage
children who only want to try out the many new
games my husband buys for himself instead of the
games they get for the Gamecube, makes me believe
there IS such a thing as divine justice. The boys
quickly tired of Diablo II (the only game on my
computer) and opted instead to try the new things
like "Sacred" and "Baldurs Gate."
My husband and my family are typical, believe it
or not - and the gaming community focuses their
time and advertising money on us. Strangely
enough, gaming has surpassed the film industry in
financial gains. As an industry, it reaches fewer
people, but makes more money. Advertisements are
more limited, but the target audience hasn't
seemed to spend any less because of it. Gaming
geeks obviously have money to spend. If new
Hollywood films could hit their target audience as
often as new gaming productions did, Entertainment
would become America's number one product. Close
as we are to that reality, video games are still
targeted to the 14 - 25 male crowd. High school
and college students are hit with the ads such as
the one mentioned in the introduction of this
little rant. Really, who would have thunk that you
could appeal to a hormone ridden teenager to put
off the pretty girl at his side and play the
Game Boy? But such is the case, all too often.
How will females in the 21st Century deal with
this challenge? Less clothing hasn't seemed to
work. Advertising their availability through
various methods, including pasting the words -
HOTTIE - on the rear end of their jeans, sweats,
shorts and underwear has not seemed to tear geeks
from their Game Boys. Sales are up and births in
the gaming target audience are down. HEY! We've
solved the teenage pregnancy problem! Give every
boy in the US a Game Boy and watch that teenage
birth rate plummet. Maybe it IS true - maybe you
CAN save the world with your Game Boy.
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