27 August 2012

Me so Halo. I frag you long time.

Looks like this site is still around, at least the discussion is so. Let us discuss Gamecrush.  GameCrush is a site where you pay  to play a game with a person of the female persuasion for 10 minutes.  You have to be 18 or over.  The girls set their gaming mood to either "flirty" or "dirty." Chat is completely open and while signing up is free,  you must purchase credits in order to play. A typical 8-10 minute game costs $8.25, 60% of which goes to the woman, all is paid in credits. Cost per minute is on sliding scale based on your chosen 'PlayDate's" popularity. The popularity is determined by ratings given to them by    And of course tipping is encouraged.   It was available only on  Xbox Live, and in casual Flash games on their site. The flash option will get you six minutes of face time through the girl's webcam, What goes on in the video chat is up to you and your PlayDate. GameCrush says it modeled its pricing structure based on the  the cost of buying a drink at a bar. In a bar, you're basically buying the opportunity to chat a girl up. GameCrush is hoping players will look at their service the same way.

When I first read about it I was like WTF! Who cares who I am gaming with?  But then I am one of those female gamers. A rare breed. A gamer that happens to have indoor plumbing. That was on advantage of the internet and games for me - no one had to know anything about me except whether I could blow your starship to pieces with the rest of my team.  Then I looked at it more closely. Seemed to me this is just another soft porn site. But they must be legit, right? The site even has a LIKE on Facebook button.  

  Jessica Rovello at The Huffington Post said it best when she said "Let's not mistake what this is. It's not gaming, it's simply a new spin on the phone sex lines of the 80s. It's light porn with a twist. If it wasn't, you wouldn't need to be over 18 to join, you wouldn't be able to have uncensored "Dirty" talk over webcams and you wouldn't be able to tip your PlayDate real cash after your session. "

Is it just that? Or could it be more predatory? How old are the PlayDates? How is their age verified, Tracey Lords claimed to be over 18 when she was younger.  In an article from the New York Times in 2005 it became very apparent how easy it is for predators to take advantage of people on the internet,  are the people using the service open to prosecution without their knowing? Are they predators knowing exactly what they are doing?  Why did IGN and techCrush seem to support it?  The main reason seem to be that the owners say they are not a porn site.  So if I say I am not over 50 does that make it true?

We all know sex sells. It sells games, it sells cars and it sells newspapers. But this concept seems a bit backwards.  Seems games sell sex.  If that is the case I dread the future of the human race.

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