Miss Video Game
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L337Lauren tops other gals on road to Miss Video Game crown
We know what you're thinking, because we're thinking the same thing. There's a Miss Video Game competition? How did such a thing fly under our collective radar? The event, part of the larger 2007 Arcadia Festival in Montreal, aims to find and award one female as this year's most accomplished gamer without a Y chromosome, and who better suited for this task than our neighbors to the north? After the first day of events, the pack is currently led by EB Games assistant manager Lauren Berggren, aka L337Lauren, as she bested the other girls in both Mario Kart 64 and a series of 1-on-1 matches in CounterStrike. Now she and four others move on to fight for the crown while rocking out to Guitar Hero and testing their noodles in Brain Age 2.Impressive, sure, but like female-only gaming clans, this sort of thing strikes us as odd, especially since video games, unlike sporting events or beauty pageants, don't favor skills unique to either sex. Still, playing games is seen by some as a bit of a boy's club, and something like this could possibly help break down a few stereotypes, which is a positive, though being the lecherous types we are we can't help but hope for a swimsuit or evening gown competition to follow.
Losing Faith in Miss Video Game competition
Faith, of The Girl Gamer, has lost faith in the Miss Video Game competition and decided she can no longer be a part of the "farce and possible scam." After being an early supporter of the competition, which is billed as an event to raise the profile of female gamers, she began digging up information on the company involved and became concerned there were legal issues with the contest.Faith describes that things were suspect from the beginning for the simple fact this competition has no contract or release to sign. Originally the contestants needed to be 18 and over, this rule apparently was ignored as contestants started showing up on the site who were under the age of majority. Faith could not find a business license for the company to operate, eventually she received one from Miss Video Game Inc. stating that the license was issued Nov. 29, 2006 -- two months after the contest began. MVG also informed her that a company called Titan Gaming would handle the online portion of the competition, no such company exists. When attempting to contact the company with the information MVG provided, the email bounced back.The lengthy article goes on to describe increasing evidence that caused Faith to remove herself from the competition. The pageant doesn't require sponsors because they are "backed by a privately owned company that wishes to remain anonymous." She describes numerous problems with the MVG website itself and wonders how if this company can't coordinate a website, how's it going to run a live event? The questions surrounding the event are plenty and we here at Joystiq have also been researching our own concerns regarding the competition. Gamer girl beware.
Miss Video Game competition [update 1]
missvideogame.com/index.phpmissvideogame.com/index.phpmissvideogame.com/index.php The four day Miss Video Game competition will be held from June 10 -14 2007 in Montreal, Canada. Yeah, another Canadian gaming event! Why are we telling you about it this early? Registration is due by midnight December 31, 2006. Event organizers say 50 women have already agreed to step into the virtual ring. Allegedly Becky Young of Video Games Live and Faith Naked of The Girl Gamer are ready to lock and load.The competition will test the players across various game genres. This isn't some wimpy one genre FPS fest, no sir, these ladies have to be good at it all: FPS, RTS, strategy and anything else the organizers come up with -- along with having gamer spirit and attitude. Invariably a fair amount of you are saying, "But I'm a guy, what do I care?" This is where the sick/fun part comes in. Between Dec. 31 and Jan. 20 the rest of us are allowed to vote on the ladies we want to see in the competition based on personality, creativity and gamer representation. The competitors will be allowed to upload videos, interviews and audio clips during this time to sway our vote.The pre-competition will determine four finalists and one additional finalist will be picked by the celebrity judges. No word yet on who the judges will be. The finalists will be flown to Montreal next June and battle for three days. The competition will be broadcast across the interwebs. The winner receives $1000 USD, a trip to Mexico and a gaming system. No word yet on whether Miss Video Game gets a tiara.[Thanks, Faith][Update 1: Updated contest homepage link]
