The Fragdolls - A month late. A buck short.

[schild]

What's up with the hate that's been tossed at these people? They are gamers. Paid and hot. But still gamers. If the hate is a result of total jealousy, that's one thing. But that's not the vibe I'm getting. My stance?

+ = Win.

Some of you may need .

F13 does not endorse using roofies to get a fragdoll. Or any girl for that matter. YMMV as Bloodlines tends to crash. That's where we suggest you make your "move." Said "move" should not be recommending a rousing session of Ribbit King or Links 2004. Pic of girl links to full size. This is the kind of shit I post at 6:15am. Don't be surprised if I lock it in 12 hours. Now that I think about it, hasn't UBISoft gotten enough recognition this week with the shill wandering around our forum. Oh, and girl not necessary to enjoy bloodlines. But who knows. It might make her hot. Unless UBI no likey Troika. Bloodlines > Halo 2. Four and a half million people may disagree with me. But they're wrong. To sum up, Bloodlines is the best game from this past November. Not Halo 2.
 K?

Anyway, I'd like your opinions on the whole thing.

[Trippy]

Where's the hate coming from?

[schild]

I didn't think much of it when I saw the Corp thread. But then I saw the article Sachant wrote, and the forum thread there (at Gamerifts.com) and said to myself - these are girls getting paid to game and I bet they wouldn't forget an index in a $30 strategy guide.

Edit: And I was surprised someone didn't start a thread about this a month ago.

[Big Gulp]

Honestly, who cares?  Unless they're sitting on my cock while we play a coop game this doesn't affect my life one iota.  If you can make a buck selling sex to sweaty geeks I say more power to ya.

[schild]

Unless they're sitting on my cock while we play a coop game this doesn't affect my life one iota.

They're? More than one at a time?

[Calantus]

I read the corp thread when it went up but it just didn't really excite me any. I mean yeah, Ubisoft got them together because they are hawt, not because they are trying to promote gaming to girls. On the other hand, this is a game publisher. I'll be shocked and surprised when they start killing puppies to promote their games. Maybe.

It does annoy me in a way though. Any time a company in the industry is doing something other than improving their business practices, working on a game, or just trying very hard not to fuck up it annoys me. GET BACK IN THE CAGE YOU MONKEYS. You got alot of work to do, especially on that last one.

Oh, and John Romero wants to make you his bitch. Seriously schild, I know you admitted you know it's old but really...

EDIT: Okay okay. Constructive mode now. Am I the only one who finds this isulting? In the same way that "X-TREEEEEME" on shit I buy is insulting? It doesn't say much for us gamers, or men in general that they feel that paying these women to play games and such would raise sales. I mean sure, I'll look if it's pleasing to the eye, but I've never bought anything because a hot chick I haven't met said it was cool, was into it, or who's picture was on it. The whole idea that sex sells just disgusts me. Not because I'm a prude but because marketing thinks that I think with my dick. And I don't. Really.

[plangent]

I think the main point to the Corp thread was watching them squirm under the barrage of verbal assault that was unleashed.  I have nothing against them, but it was fun watching the show.

[Trippy]

Okay, yeah, I don't see what the problem is here. I actually think it's a good thing a gaming company is actively supporting a group of gamers to promote their products. I don't see this as being any different than if, say, Valve decided to sponsor Team 3D to promote Counter-Strike Source, except for the fact that FragDolls are all women. Things have been progressing for a while now in terms of promoting online gaming as a competitive "sport" with things like CPL and WCG -- heck in Korea they have televised StarCraft matches. There are already a lot of sponsored online gaming clans and it looks like Ubisoft is taking it to the next level with their creation of FragDolls -- i.e. more direct corporate involvement -- and again I think that's a good thing. Sachant's editorial sounds like a lot of sour grapes cause she wasn't picked so now she's questioning the motivation behind the entire thing where I'm sure she would be defending them if she was.

[Ironwood]

I think what annoyed people is the fact that, at first, they claimed total objectivity in their 'gaming mantra.'

They were just a bunch of girls that gamed and wanted people to know it.


Then it became clear that the forums were full of praise for a certain company and their games and that other companies and games weren't being covered as much and then it turned out that the whole thing was being paid for by certain companies and it was a BLATANT FUCKING MARKETING SCAM.

You see, in this day and age of people getting defrauded, ripped off and generally abused due to stupidity, people have started to really, really dislike BLATANT FUCKING MARKETING SCAMS.  I myself regularly take a wander into my Marketing Department and crash their printers and machines just to redress the balance of hate that they bring to the world with thier BLATANT MARKETING.

But hey, that's just me.  That's why it annoyed me.  The 'hawt girls' were pulled together entirely so that the 'target market' (teenagers with more cum than sense and STRONG wrists) would fork over more cash.

Blatant.


Kill all Marketing and Sales people.  Everywhere.

Or, you know, whores at 3am in dark alleys...

[schild]

The show became a mockery of itself by page 3. Lum derailed it quickly enough that any insults brought against the Fragdolls were brought on by themselves.

Calantus, I'd rather them sell me with sex than whatever else. I mean, sex is probably the only way I'd play Shadowbane again. Gameplay videos don't show off gameplay. E3 demos show a perfectly pre-made demo that will very rarely show anything realistic of the final product. Trust me on that. E3 demos are by and large total bullshit.

That said, I don't think with my dick and it never told me to buy anything. Frankly, when would I ever have the time to read anything when I have to catch up on the fragdolls blogs everyday? They should have just slapped them on posters in Times Square. It's definately a case of "Keep your mouth shut and play the games, that's what we're paying you to do." I guess jumping on the blog bandwagon makes them seem more human. Or something. Though, if I wanted to read a girls blog, I'd read the ones at SG.

Any time a company in the industry is doing something other than improving their business practices, working on a game, or just trying very hard not to fuck up it annoys me. GET BACK IN THE CAGE YOU MONKEYS. You got alot of work to do, especially on that last one.

None of this matters if they can't sell games. /me points at Black Isle.

[schild]

people have started to really, really dislike BLATANT FUCKING MARKETING SCAMS.

Marketing scams with tits and pretty faces don't bother me. This one has both. That and they weren't trying to sell you v|c0d1n. They were trying to sell you Halo 2 and the like. Which you or someone you know already bought. I'd say the girls did their job quite well. Though, if they hadn't been there, I bet there would have been no decrease in sales. They should have saved these girls to market whatever the next pooper to come out of UBISoft may be. The new SB Expansion came out today, right?

[Ironwood]

people have started to really, really dislike BLATANT FUCKING MARKETING SCAMS.

Marketing scams with tits and pretty faces don't bother me. This one has both. That and they weren't trying to sell you v|c0d1n. They were trying to sell you Halo 2 and the like. Which you or someone you know already bought. I'd say the girls did their job quite well. Though, if they hadn't been there, I bet there would have been no decrease in sales. They should have saved these girls to market whatever the next pooper to come out of UBISoft may be. The new SB Expansion came out today, right?

So, essentially you're asking 'I don't think this is a big deal, so what's the big deal ?'

Answered your own question there hoss.

[Soukyan]

Frag Doodz

[SirBruce]

Schild, taking your last couple of thread comments into consideration - you're a shill for UBI, aren't you? A/S/L?

Bruce

[stray]

Yeah, it's marketing on Ubi's part, big deal. This is an industry. Not Punk Rock. Direct your righteous anger to something worthwhile. Games are about as noble as Oreo Cookies.

Also, just because it's marketing doesn't necessarily mean the chicks themselves deserve so much shit. It'd be different if they were Booth Babes/fakes, but they are in fact real gamers. Naive of the consequences or opportunistic maybe (hey, sounds like a good job to me too), but I find it hard to believe these girls were intentionally trying to scam anyone. Maybe Ubi was, but they weren't.

[schild]

Schild, taking your last couple of thread comments into consideration - you're a shill for UBI, aren't you? A/S/L?

Har har. 12/F/Azn ^_^

Don't push it.

[HaemishM]

There were plenty of things wrong with the FragDolls thing, none of which is really worth getting apoplectic about. Gamers get paid to shill products. Frankly, I'm more insulted by that "TheInsider" turd coming around here trying to shill Shadowbane than a bunch of quasi-goth poster girls for anorexic heroic chic models pimping UbiSoft games. I'd rather they have come right out and said "We R paid to shill UBI(BUBIES)" than anything else, but whatever.

The biggest problem with the whole FragDolls thing is that its not really representative of "gamergirlzzz" or whatever marketing term they want to try to label it with. It was done in such a hamfisted way. It was blatantly using moderaly attractive skinny girls to market to the EXISTING FPS MARKET. There's the problem. It could have been a wonderful opportunity to actually market not just to horny, undersexed, over-pr0ned single males, but also to female gamers. You cannot market to female gamers by putting only skinny, pretty chicks in the thing and over-emphasizing their sex. Where are the chunky FragDolls? Where are the not over-airbrushed FragDolls? Where is any FragDoll that looks like a normal gamer girl, as opposed to the really small segment of gamer girls who look like they could have stepped off of a photo shoot ten minutes ago? Where are the black FragDolls?

The FragDolls won't open the market to new, non-traditional game audiences, just like Elf Boobie ads won't open NWN to new markets. Which is fine if you just want to max out the current market, but does shit for the future. It's short-sighted and stupid, and the web site looks idiotic.

It's the same stupidity as TechTV displayed when they put that stupid twat Morgan on X-Play. She's a total dud as a host, and she made that Adam guy look even more stupid than he already did. Instead of what it used to be, which was a decent if sometimes silly show about games to an always silly, always going for the low humor show that happened to show game footage every once in a while.

It's easy, takes little to no marketing thought, and doesn't explore a wide open new market.

Grade: D

[Paelos]

Just to clarify, only two or three of them are attractive. The others are ok, and the blonde chick is scary.

In any case, yes, its the marketing to your pants objective, and my pants don't buy games. My pants care about porn and free porn at that. So, if you want to market a game to me try finding that ellusive fun factor that makes me feel like I should fork over my $50 to your team. Pirates, you get my money. KOTOR, you get my money. WoW, you get my money. Fragdolls, you get a stiff one.

[Margalis]

All marketing is BS, if it's going to be BS, might as well be BS with hottish chicks. I give it an A+.

Look, it's better than giving Thresh his own column in PC Gamer where he talked up Quake 3 every month. (Yes, Thresh really did have a PC Gamer column basically devoted to fellating Q3)

[Ironwood]

 
In any case, yes, its the marketing to your pants objective, and my pants don't buy games. My pants care about porn and free porn at that.

Winner.

[sidereal]

The problem is always the same problem.  There are a large number of females who love and play video games and deserve to be respected as gamers as much as any guy, but now when any dude thinks about female gamers they think about those glorified pole dancers.  So the problem is most men are libido-driven idiots.  A fact which is certainly not the Frag Dolls' doing, and you can't fault them for making a buck on it.  But it's sad anyway.

[Joe]

The problem is always the same problem.  There are a large number of females who love and play video games and deserve to be respected as gamers as much as any guy, but now when any dude thinks about female gamers they think about those glorified pole dancers.  So the problem is most men are libido-driven idiots.  A fact which is certainly not the Frag Dolls' doing, and you can't fault them for making a buck on it.  But it's sad anyway.

How about respecting yourself enough to be able to see the Frag Dolls for what they are and keep them from molding your perception of women into an airbrushed ideal that can't and won't ever be attained?

Personally, I respect anyone on the Internet until they start using their sexuality for things other than, well, until they start using their sexuality, period. A lot of the girls I've run across are particularly bad about declaring their femininity and then reveling in the attention they receive. A lot, not all. It's just like an overactive furry, or an overactive male talking about all the sex he's getting. It's stupid and should stop.

At the very least, the Fragdolls kept their shit in one place that I never knew about. The fact we keep bringing it up just validates their effectiveness. Good for them, I say. Unique advertising is fun.

[d4rkj3di]

I'll have to agree that part of the immediate dislike for the Fragdolls stemmed from their original claims of being "just a bunch of like minded girl gamers who got together strictly by chance" when in fact they are paid employees of Ubisoft.

The continuing dislike came from the extremely poor showing in the threads at various sites calling them exactly what they were.

All of that has now slipped into indifference, as they have used up 14 min and 45 sec of their alloted fame.  If they would like a fame extension, they could file suit against Ubisoft for sexual harassment or something equally feministic.

Most of my personal feelings for the Fragdolls are based on the knowledge of the true inner workings of said group, seeing as how I am close friends with one of the people who answered the "cattle call" and over the course of 4 months had several phone and online interviews for one of the positions.

It got a little creepy about the time that one of the questions was "Would you be willing to install a webcam at your computer and in your living room to broadcast your image as you played online?"

[El Gallo]

Can I hate them because the name "fragdolls" is so damn stupid?  Because it is.

[Morfiend]

The hate is comming from the fact they are paid employees of Ubi, but they tried to come off as a normal clan of hot 'gurlz' who play games. When in fact they applied for the job and are paid by Ubi. Not to mention they review games, and again, it wasnt loud and clear that these 'gurlz' are paid Ubi employees.

Oh, it came out quick enough, but at first they tried to deny it.

[schild]

What if they were a clan first and UBI saw them at a lan party and approached them. We don't know the WHOLE truth. Fuck, I'd love to get paid by UBI (or anyone else...) to pimp my shit and talk like a moron on a blog.

[Shockeye]

Fuck, I'd love to get paid by UBI (or anyone else...) to pimp my shit and talk like a moron on a blog.

You're halfway there.

[d4rkj3di]

What if they were a clan first and UBI saw them at a lan party and approached them.

Then they would be deserving of at least a shred of respect.

We don't know the WHOLE truth.

I don't need to know the whole truth.  I know the facts.

[HaemishM]

Can I hate them because the name "fragdolls" is so damn stupid?  Because it is.

Nah, hate them for those "Nanny" inspired drawings they plastered their site with.

GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYY.

[Mesozoic]

What if they were a clan first and UBI saw them at a lan party and approached them. We don't know the WHOLE truth. Fuck, I'd love to get paid by UBI (or anyone else...) to pimp my shit and talk like a moron on a blog.

They were approached by Ubi individually and "assembled" by Ubi.  This from a fragdoll posting on their site in response to the original corp thread.

Since the response in question has no dedicated URL, 'ere ya go:

It has recently come to our attention that some believe that our connection to Ubisoft has not been sufficiently explained on our website. This has resulted in accusations that we’re nothing more than an insidious stealth marketing ploy. Since I’m the one Frag Doll who is also a full-time Ubisoft employee and, thus, have been around from the beginning, I am probably the best to help make this connection more explicit.

First, I have one point I’d like to clarify before I get into storytelling mode: we have never tried to conceal the relationship between the Frag Dolls and Ubisoft. In fact, the Ubisoft logo intentionally appears on our website, we use and communicate via ubi.com forums, and we’ve shared openly that we were recruited by Ubisoft. Neither we, nor Ubisoft, anticipated that some folks would be confused by the information that was (or apparently wasn’t) on our site. In order to avoid future misunderstandings and properly educate site visitors, we are putting together an FAQ that will include the following information and more.

The Frag Dolls are a group of girl gamers brought together by Ubisoft to play and promote games. It’s much like a sports sponsorship in which a company helps the athlete do what she does best. Ubisoft asks us to be informed about certain games so that we can talk about and play them well. In exchange, we’re supported in playing video games, competing, going to events all over the country, writing our own editorial blogs about whatever, being involved in online communities, and generally representing girl gamers by being ourselves. Because this is a community outreach effort on Ubisoft’s part as much as it is anything else, we have a mutually beneficial relationship.

The recruitment process was straightforward. The Craig's List “casting call” for girl gamers was posted. Respondents went through a multi-stage interview process in which the coordinators and candidates discussed the project’s overall goals and direction. In the final interview stage each candidate’s gaming skills were tested via Xbox Live. The competition was intense and final offers were made to the cream of the crop.

From the beginning it was obvious that the team’s success would be dependent on we girls contributing our own passion and purpose to the project. It’s definitely nice to get a paycheck for playing games, but all of us see this as more than just a fun source of income. Being women who have been gaming for years, we have plenty of experience with the stereotypes that run rampant in gaming communities. By working in tandem with Ubisoft, we’ve gotten the opportunity to break down those misconceptions and show everyone from the hardcore gamers to the mainstream that girls not only enjoy games, we kick ass at them.

If you’re looking for more details, keep an eye out for the FAQ, and remember that there’s always an open invitation for people to come find us in-game.

[Paelos]

What if they were a clan first and UBI saw them at a lan party and approached them. We don't know the WHOLE truth. Fuck, I'd love to get paid by UBI (or anyone else...) to pimp my shit and talk like a moron on a blog.

You're just softballing them now, aren't you? Put it on a tee for people next time.

[UD_Delt]

Fraggles?

[Morfiend]

What if they were a clan first and UBI saw them at a lan party and approached them. We don't know the WHOLE truth. Fuck, I'd love to get paid by UBI (or anyone else...) to pimp my shit and talk like a moron on a blog.

If you read the thread on Corp, or Ubi, you would know that Ubi actually put out a application, and put the team together themselves. So no, its not just a clan getting sponsored, it makes them Ubi employees. Thats what the whole big dead was about. Anyway. Dead Horse.

*Edit* Guess I should read the rest of the thread before swinging at the "T".

[schild]

Hmmm. Ok, maybe I just don't see the problem. I was expecting better input than the other threads, so thanks. But yea, I just can't muster up enough hate to care about this kind of shit. I mean, if I were a hot girl - I'd love the job. Assuming I liked video games. Which, if I were a hot girl, I probably wouldn't. I think...nevermind.

[doubleplus]

Selling out is the new being hardcore. Doesn't everyone know that? It's just a shame Ubi sucks.