Video game ad offensive to female gamers

By Matt Jones
Updated November 6 2012 - 2:45am, first published November 10 2011 - 5:26am
A screen grab from the video ad.
A screen grab from the video ad.

Video game retailer EB Games has come under fire for an online ad many have labelled sexist and out of touch with reality.The cartoon-styled video ad, titled ‘‘A Man's Guide to Trading’’, shows a husband being nagged by his wife outside an EB Games outlet, before the man goes inside to buy a video game.A staff member then suggests the man trade-in old games rather than spending cash, which he instead spends on his wife. The ad closes with a scene showing the man’s wife doing housework while he plays video games as a reward for buying dinner.Wollongong game developer Rebecca Fernandez said the ad was a ‘‘massive step backward in the stereotypes of both men and women’’.‘‘The single worst part of the ad was at the end when the guy is playing games and his wife is dusting around him like some sort of terrible advertisement from the fifties,’’ she said.The suggestion that women disliked video games was incorrect, with recent research showing 47 per cent of Australian gamers are female.Ms Fernandez attended this year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo, the gaming industry’s biggest annual event and said an unfortunate perception remained that ‘‘core’’ gamers were male and women were only interested in ‘‘casual’’ video games.Others have taken EB Games to task via their Twitter account, calling the ad sexist and the perfect way to alienate female customers.The company responded by calling the video a ‘‘a light hearted joke’’ and promised there was a female-oriented companion ad on the way.It also pointed out that the ad was written by a woman and was not intended to offend anyone.

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