eGameFame: The Ubisoft Frag Dolls
In a world where “bitch, get back in the kitchen and make me a sandwich” is a common sentence to girls; the main question is, what did they do to receive such abuse? Well, simply put: they are girls that step into a mans world by, most of the time, playing games. However, more importantly some of them are girl teams — opposed to individuals — who play professionally. And yes, they will kick all our asses.
Awhile back we did a piece on Jonathan “Fatal1ty” Wendell, a professional gamer. Now instead of individual players, we’re going to be following a few teams over the coming weeks. This brings us to the main point on who are we dealing with, and how did they come about?
Formed, and backed, by Ubisoft — with the original founders being mostly employees from Ubisoft itself — we have the Frag Dolls. Rhoulette was the real founder of the American Frag Dolls team where after hosting an ad on Craigslist, the project launched. The initial team of seven started out playing in tournaments, and in different online leagues. The idea behind the team was for Ubisoft to obviously gain more media attention. And it seemed to have worked, as there are now three teams, the U.K team, the American team and the French team.
All of the girls are in their 20′s, and I do not want to go in to a description of their appearance — in fear that I might lose you for the rest of the paragraph. Let’s just say that they were selected on appearance, with gaming being their second best feature.
Simply put, the Frag Dolls are paid to play games, attend events and blog about their experiences.
So, just what do they do at these events? Well, frag people. Thereafter they make their opponent wish that they never challenged the pretty girl for her number. Financial backer, Ubisoft, uses them as ambassadors for gaming and this entails all sorts of PR stunts. But all-in-all, they are “booth babes” that rock a couple of games here and there.
The idea behind having a team of girls playing games was to raise awareness, which isn’t bad, but the problem appeared with how they went about it. Some might say, it’s well — unfair, evil or damn — she’s hot!
In the original advert they sent out, Rhoulette actually asked applicants to be good at gaming but also include 15 pictures from varying angles. Obviously the founders are after the marketing, but come on, trying to get the best women they can get, versus, an average women who’s better? That’s not fair.. Unless your project is all about looking good.. and not really gaming? Well, looks like sex sells after all.
The original team has mostly broken up and moved to other ventures. For example, Eaglemeare and Vixen went off to their former team which was gender-neutral. These two always made a concerted effort to actually upload pictures and videos of themselves, so that’s cool.
As I conclude this piece, I just ponder over the effects of the idea and driving force behind the group. Will it actually bring the two genders together, or will it make us just objectify them all the more?
Now. Where’s my sandwich?
Full image link here.. Just in case you want a closer look.
Name: Husain Haffejee
Location: Johannesburg
Position: Author
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