For Pleasure, or “Playin”

The views expressed in the op-ed section belong solely to the author of the respective post.

While looking for some great forums to surf, in hopes of finding lady gamers to join the ranks of PCP. I stumbled upon just that, something RANK! Normally, I am not so quick to pass judgment, but this is getting out of hand. Thanks to Gamesradar.com, I found a true discredit to the female gamer population. Eric Strasser and the other cofounders of Gamecrush.com have single handedly launched the advancement of female gamers, back to the times of the Suffrage movement. I am aware of the potential unpopularity that will likely greet my opinions, but I ask you to first read what I have to say.

Gamecrush.com was launched earlier this year and greeted with the same cheeky pomp and circumstance, that every “next big thing” with snide prepubescent millionaire backing receives. Don’t get me wrong, I am sure he is an intelligent, shrewd business man. This is not a low-blow jealousy thing. This has become a stereotypical exploitation of female gamers, masqueraded as a “dating” site thing.

It has been hailed as a glorified online dating service. Writer Matt Marquez tagged it as an “awkwardly contrived platform with an adultish marketing plan.” Pretty smart huh? Mr.Strasser thinks so too. Its not a bad idea to allow the public to brand this as a dating site, to make it seem more socially acceptable.

So why all the hate and premenstrual moaning you ask? Its simple, really.  I am sick of the stigma attached with being a female gamer. Unfortunately, female gamers as a collective fall into two, recognizable, categories.  I am here to say that there are many more than that. Why do we have to be categorized at all actually?  I am a proud Mama, Gamer, Cook, Tech Support, Trekkie, and I can change my own oil, so I guess that makes me a mechanic too… HEAR ME ROAR!!!! However, in a recent interview at PCWorld.com Mr. Strasser had this to say, “When I say female gamer, people instantly have the image of either someone who is completely nerdy or in some cases rock’ n’ roll Suicide Girls, or the Pro-Gamer Frag dolls.”  I suppose he feels that pimping out these young women, in some cases men, but very few, will expand the stereotypes. Umm… No.

Pimping I say? Oh yes, isn’t that  what you call it when someone offers a service in lieu of someone else’s actions, and then the participant, rendering said services receives only a percentage? Lets see what our good friend Dictionary.com has to say about that…

Here it is :

pimp

–noun

1. a person, esp. a man, who solicits customers for a prostitute or a brothel, usually in return for a share of the earnings; pander; procurer.

2.a despicable person.

3.Australia and New Zealand . an informer; stool pigeon.

Stool pigeon, that sounds fitting. The site Gamecrush.com promises free chat and interaction with the site patrons. When you join the site you join as a player. Eventually if you like you can become a PlayDate. In which, you then make a percentage of the site’s revenue. The site makes its money off of gamers who are looking to find company, for what ever need they are looking to fulfill, much like a 1-900 number line. And the site is just as ridiculously priced. Trust me I signed up, like every good writer, I did my homework. For $8.25 you can purchase approximately 10 minutes of your PlayDates time. The money you spend buys you credits. For a dollar you receive 60 credits, and 36 credits equals about one minute of gaming time. Credits are used for the private gaming. PlayDates are paid approximately 36 credits a minute, but it takes 100 credits to equal a dollar earned. Wow! Girls making sixty percent of a site’s profit share… Some speculate, that is slightly more than the percentage that porn sites pay their female cohorts, and what they do is much more naughty. However, during my research I couldn’t find documentation that supported a even a ten percent share, based on the 2.84 billion dollar adult website industry.

Caramelbread, a PlayDate, states in her bio “If I’m in the Edge I don’t mind playing in my skivvies, bikini, or dressing up for you but I’m not going to get naked…EVER!!! Don’t ask because it ain’t gonna happen and I don’t want to have to upset anyone. But, with that said , what you do on your side of the camera is completely up to you and I wont stop you”.

I thought this was a dating site? I never knew this was the kind of stuff Match.com was into. Yowzer! In all fairness, the site is divided into zones. But the zones only came into play after the beta launched. It was simply rated as “Flirty or Dirty” and even now the rating system works only on scale. The zones have circumnavigated the raunchiness, just a little. The zones are: The Arcade- simple and relaxing; The Arena- butt kicking in high gear; The Academy- let the ladies teach you a thing or two. Then there is the final zone, Edge. Edge was simply describe in an ad on YouTube as a girl wrapped in a sheet blowing you a kiss.

The site repeatedly claims to be non pornographic, yet in the Terms and Conditions of the site it states “GameCrush does not monitor, moderate, or otherwise control the interaction between its users”. Then it continues to declare that it isn’t porn, in its very own terms and conditions. I find it questionable that you have to defend yourself against allegations of porn in terms and conditions. But I ask the question if it is not porn and just a social networking site, why does one have to be eighteen? Facebook doesn’t require an age of eighteen anymore.

In conclusion, I find that this guy is a genius, truly. He has found a way around the laws of prostitution, and I use the word prostitution loosely. In which the term meaning the act or practice of engaging in the act of sex for money, and sex defined as perceptions or bearings that indefinitely satisfy the urge to appease the inherent animalistic behavior.

Basically the site works like this, the gamer pays the site for the opportunity to play a game with a pretty face, and instead of being in a restaurant or movie theater, you’re playing a video game online with a PlayDate, and then the PlayDate gets a percentage of the revenue. Isn’t that what an Escort service does, provides dates for lonely people, then pays the employee a portion of the proceeds? Why even good ole boy Eric Strasser had something to say in an interview with Spandas Lui of Game Pro in  Australia, “The site is really intended to be an online experience and not a dating site.”

Now tell me I’m wrong.

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