Welcome to GTFO Part 1.  GTFO means Get The F Out in case you were wondering.  It’s a Truth Serum series on celebrities, publishers and other people giving a bad name to gamers.  You don’t want to miss this series as it plays out.

I’m calling for a movement and I don’t care if it’s a movement that will likely never happen.  I think it’s about time that game companies reinvent themselves and stop all the celebrity pimping!  At least stop the celebrity pimping of those who don’t play games.  I don’t need to remind everyone of the Jamie Kennedy experiment that Activision tried at last years E3 do I?  Well, that’s what happens when you waste money on a “face” or “name” who couldn’t care less about your game or gaming period.  Paris Hilton receiving a free Xbox 360 anyone?

I understand the business side of it to have a Paris Hilton or some other celebrity pose for the camera.  It sells your product but it’s just so “wrong” and nearly makes me gag.

What could be so wrong about wasting dollars on gamers who actually know and care about what you’re selling?  It would be a hell of lot cheaper.  They wouldn’t have to pay a PR person to tag along at every interview to make sure details about the game were accurate.  Why aren’t gamers the likely choice to sell games?  One could reason that if it’s celebrity status that these companies are after, then a normal gamer would eventually become a celebrity from the exposure would they not?  Two birds.  One stone.  You have a face and a name that’s selling your product who actually knows and plays games.  Elementary, right Watson?  A lot of these publishers talk about how making a good game is the most important thing but I’d argue against that with the methods used to pitch these games to people.

She's hot but a gamer she's not

I could go down a long list of celebrities who participate in the development of certain games by voice acting or face mapping sessions who don’t even bother picking up the games they do the work for.  If not for getting the games for free, you’d be hard pressed to find any who would actually bother to even buy the games or even play them.  Do you seriously think that Michael Rosenbaum (yep he’s still my fave) would bother walking into a store to purchase Dark Sector?  I wonder if he’s even played the game beyond  his sessions with the developers.  It’s no wonder they all have generic Gamertags that go unused.

Is it really too much to ask from these companies to incorporate a little bit of responsibility with whom they pay to sell these games?  Turn gamers into celebrities if you have to because I’m on gag standby preparing to see yet other celebrity interview about a game or an award show about video games that have no gamers in the crowd.  I’m looking at you Spike TV.  Yes, the boobies are good on the eyes but how do you have a video game award show yet the entire audience is made up of celebrities and people whose only response it seems is “Oh yeah, been playing since Mario.”

I’m so sure that Tila Tequila is worrying about how she’ll snag a copy of Gears of War 2.  Does Vida Guerra even know about the new Xbox experience?  I love Kristen Bell but let’s be serious about the odds of her having finished or played Assassin’s Creed.  You think Don King is worried about how poorly Prizefighter plays?  But these award shows and companies aren’t concerned at all about gamers it seems.  Not anymore.

Part 2 is coming as I dig deeper into the disease that is spreading within the gaming sector.