Someone’s finally put their foot down about booth babes. Well, kind of.

This E3, Agetec, a game producer, has started a campaign to fight back against the shallowness and objectification of booth babe-dom and to put real gamers back in the spotlight. In an attempt to even the score, Agetec has refused the assistance of beautiful ladies; instead, they’re attracting E3-goers to their booth with the help of ten “unattractive” women and free granny panties.

That’ll show all those hotties who’s boss, right? Umm…

There are two ways of looking at this: One, as a publicity stunt. Two, as an earnest attempt to inject E3 with some equality. (Or three, which seems the most likely, a little bit of both). As publicity stunts go, this one’s in pretty bad taste, if not bad thinking. Booth babes, for a lot of guys, are one of the highlights of the expo. Agetec knows they’ll cause a stir by pitting themselves against the “girls of E3.” They’ll get attention. Of course, it’s attention at the expense of women, but that’s nothing new in the industry.

On the other hand, if this is an earnest attempt to knock some sense into booth babe-lovers, the idea has serious holes. Sure, it’s nice to see someone trying, but maybe they should have consulted actual women on this one. If they hate booth babes, why fight them with more booth babes, unattractive or not? If Agetec really wanted to put the E3 emphasis back on gaming, why didn’t they hire gamers to advertise the booth? And if we’re talking female equality, this thing definitely does not hold water. Putting women on display for being ugly is just as hurtful as putting them on display for being beautiful. By doing so, you turn women into spectacles, and by association label all things female as secondary to true gaming. Not cool. Definitely not cool.

Agetec, if you really want to turn the attention back on the gamers, but can’t get over needing girls to do the work for you, maybe you should seek out female gamers for your booth. Whether they’re cute or not, they know their stuff. And while they might not make a giant splash, their presence really could shift things at E3. In the end, that’s bound to last a heck of a lot longer than a pair of granny panties.