First, please read this article for the correct context:
I Can Be Just As Capable. Let Me.

.

.

.

Did you read it, or are you just going to guess at the topic and vent spleen?

.

.

.

OK. I'm not a video game player. I have no interest in them, other than mild curiosity. I do remember playing Master's of Orion on Windows 3 but not being able to get it to work on Windows 95, so I gave up. I tried a few games on my PC after that, but they were all too complicated and demanded too much practice and study to master - and I didn't see the point. If I was going to practice and study for something, it'd be something I could see tangible gains from. I'm not judging here, I'm just relating my position.

Anyway, it was my (outsider) understanding that video games attractive a large percentage of female players, in much higher rates that ttRPG's ever did. Maybe not at the very beginning, but certainly by the home console days. Today, it's pretty common to see people of a certain age drop down in front of the tv, pick up a game console and play - and have it be mixed gender groups, not just guys.

So, with this assumption which is certainly not scientifically validated or anything, I'm pretty well befuzzled when I run into articles like the one linked above. I guess you could just chalk this up to the "gamer guys are immature douchebags," which seems to be how many of these articles go. But, that seems like too broad a characterization and too many people here on the FtB forums play video games, and only a tiny percentage of you are douchebags!

So, I'm wondering if there is some other influence here, not recognized or acknowledged by the articles author. I'm not saying it's an excuse for insane levels of rudeness, condensending and just stupid PR (which is what she experienced) - I'm just wondering if it's also something else. Like maybe the 'boothbunny' marketing that also happens at these conventions. Is it possible that when you see an attractive young woman with an "I work for videogame maker X" tag and ask her a question, she just giggles and directs you at one of the male developers - because she works in marketing and her job is to get people into the booth and to hand out chatchkes while running the hourly give-away promotions, while he's there to demo the game play or answer the technical questions? Or, is it like the videogame press / reviews / tv shows that have attractive female gamers in front of the cameras but rely on an army of male testers, writers, and technicians to produce and publish each ep?

What I'm wondering (and this is non-ironic, because I actually do wonder and I don't actually think I know the answer to) is whether some of the "girls don't really game" pathos come from the way that women are used in marketing and promoting videogames? In other words (and playing Devil's Advocate, for a moment) is the poor behavior described in the article at least partially based on the actual experiences of the booth PR guy in dealing with PR and media women in VG's? Or, have I totally missed the boat and it's something else, entirely?

Explain why I don't know what I'm talking about and all the ways I'm completely wrong, below.

I've playing online with several women, and they've all been competent gamers. Heck, one of my buddies was asked to drop a WoW raid for his girlfriend, because she paid better attention playing his healer than he did.

E3 is a dinosaur. Also, E3 is more press venue than anything to do with gamers.

See also PA Report's Banning E3 booth babes isn’t good manners, it’s good business.

I think you're overthinking this. You see, this is not an issue that is unique to videogames. This sort of thing (and worse) happens in every other (sub-)culture out there and is caused by the fact that some men are just sexist pricks.

I wish she'd been less passive, and pushed back more. Not answering when he condescendingly, disbelievingly asked "But do you play shooters" would have been enough to sink her argument, if not for her noting that this happened throughout E3, across vendors, across booths.

The guy who pushed her aside in the first example was a PR rep, not a game designer, but I have no particular reason to think a game designer would do any better. The many examples of games designed to give players up-skirt glances and breast giggle don't inspire much confidence that game designers are designing for the whole potential audience (presumably, they're going for a high percentage of a market segment instead of going for the market as a whole, or they're just ignorant). Also, a couple recent examples of women being threatened and browbeat online simply for identifying as gamers doesn't reflect well on the consumers of the product, either (I hope it is a vocal minority, and a dying one). It seems pretty foolish to me to assume that if a person has boobs, that person can't play the hell out of a shooter. Good night, how sheltered was this PR guy?

The E3 jerks who acted purely on stereotypes/assumptions instead of treating her with respect (or at least asking and listening to the answers) are clearly in the wrong; acting on stereotypes is a brain short-circuit, a way to react quickly instead of intelligently, a simpleton's way to interact with reality. The world is complex and nuanced, and overapplying simplistic assumptions is just thickheaded. The more we are comfortable with accepting stereotypes, letting them go unchallenged/unexamined in ourselves, the more we are embracing willful ignorance as a way of life. Too bad for the makers of these video games that they hire simpletons to represent them to the gaming press.

As to how this relates to booth babes, I don't know. You'd be hard pressed to find a topic more complex, and more rife with presumptions and misinformation, than gender relations, so good luck drawing a causal line between booth babes and condescending PR guys. A nice counterquestion, just as unprovable, would be to ask if there is a relationship between the presence of booth babes and the writer's sudden passivity when faced with condescending PR guys.

Also, this.

Blaming-the-victim-mentality!
I'm joking. Don't worry.

Though really if I was in that situation and the PR guy had asked me that, I think I would probably be rather flabbergasted as well and would have stared pasively at him with a WTF?! look instead of putting him in his place.
So while I did raise an eyebrow when I got to that part of the article, I did not blame her for it.

Yeah, not blaming her either, but I'm a big fan of righteous rage. When you've got the saints & angels on your side, go ahead and drive out the money lenders, knocking over a few tables in the process (metaphorically speaking).

I would have been cheering at the end if she had shamed the dweeb and called down negative press unto the booth.

I think she needed to be more assertive. "Do you play shooters?" "Hell yes!" Then she gets some headshots in the game to demonstrate.

Also, its fair to rip into the PR guys for being sexist, but to also be fair there probably were more than a few female and male, reporters at E3 who had no idea about video games other than 'this is what people are into now so I have to cover it'.