17:30 11.05.2006 | All news from "Tech News and Articles"
Video game "booth babes" forced to cover up (Reuters)
The video game industry's annual trade show in Los Angelesopened its doors to its exhibitors on Wednesday with organizersordering women staffing the booths to cover up or face a $5,000fine.
Banned are nudity, partial nudity, bikini bottoms or anysexually explicit or provocative conduct, according to thehandbook from The Entertainment Software Association, or ESA,which owns and operates the E3 Expo.
Pauline K, who declined to give her last name, wore a whiteshredded tank top with an exposed midriff, short mini skirt andknee-high leggings as she handed out fliers for a company thatmakes custom face plates for Microsoft Corp.'s (Nasdaq: - ) 360 game machine.
She said another of the models received a warning from showorganizers for showing too much skin. "Apparently her cleavagewas a little too distracting," she said.
In January, the ESA outlined tough new penalties to enforcedecency rules. Exhibitors get a verbal warning for a firstviolation and a second violation carries a $5,000 fine.
"Last year there were a lot of complaints about how themodels were beyond, in many cases, what was decent," said ESAPresident Douglas Lowenstein on Monday.
Despite the new rules, there was no shortage of exposedskin, patent leather and knee-high boots. Many exhibitorsdressed women like video game heroines and there was a group ofwomen wearing sexy nurses' outfits.
"They're wearing slightly more clothes this year," saidGail Salamanica, an exhibitor at the show, "But not much."
http://us.rd.yahoo.com/