Are you HOT & CRAZY enough to be the one? Do you have what it takes to be every man's ULTIMATE FANTASY?
That's what IGN.com, MySpace.com, and Playboy.com are asking (literally) on the intro page to IGN's official Kane & Lynch: Dead Men contest site. IGN is owned by News Corporation's Fox Interactive Media, whose assets include GameSpy, Rotten Tomatoes, and Direct2Drive.
Who are Kane & Lynch? Try a "flawed" mercenary and a medicated psychopath on a "violent and chaotic arc of redemption and revenge," i.e. "shooter spree" for the PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360. Make that all guys (and no women) in a "brutally realistic, character-driven third person action shooter."
But just in case you're a female gamer who's into K&L anyway, IGN and MySpace and Playboy want you to know:
We're hunting for a dangerously sexy vixen with the goods to make us moan, so if you think you're it we dare you to prove it. Send us your most seductive, creative, and craziest photo and make us believe there is a higher power.
(Yep, that's also lifted verbatim from the contest site.)
A female response? Respected for-women game news and editorial site WomenGamers.Com is beyond mortified. Writes contributor "GeekWoman" in an editorial today (her emphasis):
Here's another contest to boycott ladies. It is sexist, exploitative, and it has absolutely nothing with gamer skills. The game contest is designed for a male dominated target, and it has nothing to do with the Kane & Lynch game. Apparently there is no female role in the game at all...
...Additionally the advertisement for the contest has a topless woman on it in a place where anyone can see it. She is topless and holding her ample assets in her hands. It's a softcore porno syle shot that you would expect on the cover of Playboy not on a game website. Images like that further engender the stereotypes that demean women to the next generation of boys. The next time people say ?the industry does not objectify women? we will point to that picture and this contest.
Have a look at the rest of the editorial here for some disturbing comments about the contest's legalese.
oh crap wondering when someone would go a little too far
and uh that is too far
I have been seeing that as well on these sites and its rediculous to even call people like that "men" because all they are are sexist biggots that deserve to be executed in front of a mass audience in the most horrible of ways immaginable!