I often get asked why it annoys me so much and my usual response is “Head On. Apply Directly To The Forehead”.  Sometimes I emphasize it in CAPS, sometimes I use exclamation marks.  Either way, you get the picture that something so short and really giving no additional information or giving you anything to really talk about is just annoying.  Head On is a product that is supposed to relieve headaches, however, it’s advertising practices often induces them.

After talking about my unfollowing several friends and publicly criticizing the contest holders, my friends and I thought we should post about this practice.  In the middle of trying to assemble the article, @mtn_dew posted a contest that we just couldn’t leave alone.  The difference with @mtn_dew’s contest is that they decided to throw in some official rules.  This could have justified their contest if it wasn’t full of legalities that prevented anyone from actually winning.  Requiring a Tweet of 154 characters when there is a strict limit of 140 characters makes following the rules of typing it EXACTLY as shown impossible.

After everyone had a great chuckle at their expense, we decided it would be best to create a blog and let everyone see what exactly was going on.  So, the blog is now available for you to read at http://rttolose.wordpress.com .

Hope you enjoy it!

In his blog, Justin states the following:

… when it was suggested that we go play something else I was amazed at how quickly the group latched on to the idea for fear of splitting the party. … The odd thing was, no one seemed to care they weren’t playing their brand new, hotly anticipated $70 game because we were all still together.

This is something that I have noticed with the Xbox Live community more than any other platform’s players.  The ability to stay together as a group, just as you would do in real life, fills the experience gap of not actually being all together.

Back at my birthday party in early April, we had several games sitting out, many of which some of the guests had never played.  Although we played a couple of the games (and in standard format, everyone teamed up against me) there were many that were left aside as Justin had loaded Chat Roulette onto our main screen and everyone wanted to see what he was doing. This is proof positive of Justin’s recent experience since we also had several expensive games sitting around to be played, but since the group wanted to share their experiences as a group, when one member tired of the current game and started doing his own thing, everyone followed.

However, I’m not fully in-line with Justin’s closing observation:

It got me thinking about how everyone rushes out to get the latest multiplayer game for fear of missing out. It’s not really the content gamers are excited about, it’s the people.

I don’t often rush out to buy games, but I think this is because of my play style.  I often get to experience games prior to their release and I usually only purchase games that really clicked with my personality during my play.  That’s not to say that I haven’t made a few purchases solely on the whim of “everyone else is playing it”, that’s actually how I ended up with Dragon Age and Fallout 3.  My experiences with those games were lacking, as I was unable to play with a co-op partner, or jump online to a multiplayer world. They now sit in my room collecting dust in favour of some older games such as Gear of War 2 and the Halo series. 

Although it is not entirely on the same topic, I think these lyrics from Spitalfield’s “So I heard you joined a convent” sum up my thoughts regarding Justin’s statement:

It’s not where you are-
It’s who you’re with.
It’s not when you’re here-
It’s what you’ve missed.

Let me leave you with this final question – would you ever stop doing what you’re doing if you were able to do something else with friends?

I am fully in support of their ban, and had even given my feedback to the survey.  This feedback also helped them further define their ban on booth babes by adding the following:

• Rep needs to be trained/educated about the product
• Cos-played characters are allowed to wear revealing outfits, assuming it is true to the source game

I am not saying I came up with these ideas, however, I fully supported them and provided verbiage in my response that specifically called out items regarding these new rules.

There were two other rules that were also added due to others feedback:

• Anything that is considered “partial nudity” is banned
• No messaging that specifically calls out body parts

I think these changes prove something about those wanting to attend these expos: we aren’t all sex-crazed and sex-obsessed shut-ins that would want to just stare at something that resembles a person in a magazine such as Maxim or an equivalent.  We truly are there for the experience, and these booth babes don’t add anything to it.

However, these aren’t the only expos previously known for their booth babes, they were just known for their most extravagant.  Booth babes still attend car and other trade shows.

Do you think it is time to retire the Booth Babe and instead focus more on product knowledge and bringing people that want to be there to talk about their product?

Leave your comment below and I’ll add it into the discussion.

Luckily, I was in the process of moving, and at the end of my vacation I had the first ever PAX East to look forward to.  I was looking to restart the blog, but, wanted to make sure things would be cool at the new job with me being social.  As it would turn out, my bosses are actually looking for me to do more of this stuff for them.

With being on hiatus from writing anything other than technical manuals and release notes for such a long time, I think I need to practice my writing before taking on a corporate blog or doing anything company oriented.

So, over the next few weeks this blog may be a little rough;  it may need a little bit of editing; it may even need a better writer. I’m going to try my best to get back into the swing of things and improve my writing over time.

I thank you for your patience and I hope you are willing to participate in the various discussions, polls and conversations that this blog will encompass.  This will not be the only place for this conversation, however, as it will live across several platforms including LinkedIn, FaceBook, and Twitter.

Please feel free to give me feedback and I look forward to getting back to you.