Is GameCrush too tame for you? Might be time to check out StripGamer instead

Let’s face it. A lot of female gamers weren’t too happy when the GameCrush beta launched last year. The site has gone through so many facelifts and changes between now and then, maybe as a response to that — the credits system changed, and it even looks like they’re trying to do away with cash payments for the most part, allowing you to exchange what you’ve earned for physical items, instead. I wonder how many people are willing to play just to exchange points for a USB drive? One thing has always remained — nudity is expressly forbidden in the Terms of Service.

Now, I don’t have any numbers about how many PlayDates and customers actually stick to that, and no one ever will. The video feeds aren’t monitored. I can tell you from my own experience, however, that a lot of guys never really were that interested in reading that long document. And they weren’t happy when you tried to uphold the rules, despite the fact that some of the relevant information was presented in all-caps.

Now, it looks like they won’t have to get upset anymore. GameCrush owner Whamspot is poised to launch the much more “adult” gamer companion site StripGamer sometime in the future.

Right now, it appears to have the same basic setup as the original GameCrush site. For instance, noting whether you’re “flirty” or “dirty.” Video feeds still aren’t monitored. You’re primarily playing casual games. It’s still a problem if someone records them (thank goodness for that, but it’s not like they can find out). Instead of being a PlayDate, here, you’re a “Hottie.” Oh, dear.

However, there’s one huge difference. In the Terms of Service, there’s no ban on nudity or sexual material. Instead, we get a laundry list of sexual acts you can’t do on camera, all of them lining up nicely with the current legal definition of what’s obscene. You can read that yourself, I linked it and everything. Nothing else is forbidden, but the FAQ suggests that “it is a good idea to ask each Hottie what they are comfortable with prior to requesting a private game if you are looking for something specific.” There’s someone for everything, I suppose. A Hottie’s responsibility is, per the same document, to make sure that the customer is having a good time. Which is exactly like…well, you can connect those two dots.

Also, this TOS is entirely sure to note that anyone putting themselves on display is a “Performer.” In the same sense that girls on sex sites are “performers.” Because this site seems to be 100% intended to take the “gamer sex site” description away from GameCrush. Maybe it’s what Whamspot wanted to launch the entire time, but when the outcry was far too loud at first, this concept was taken away from GameCrush in order to create a second, more mature network.

“Hotties” are still considered independent contractors who’ll be paying their own taxes. StripGamer notes that they’re never actually employed.

Right now, we don’t know a lot of details — the pricing structure isn’t out there, it does appear that they’ll let men in on the action (bad choice of words?), and it looks like anyone who wants to participate can.

It will, at the very least, be interesting to see what this does to GameCrush’s userbase. If the pricing’s the same, I can see a giant influx of users to the new site, because they can get what they were looking for all along without feeling sleazy. But if the price is higher for the guaranteed “more than just a game” experience, I don’t know that things will change at the original mothership.

On the one hand, I appreciate that this might just be an effort to clean up the content at GameCrush, because there is definitely a problem there. So many Players sign up and visit the site expecting a lot more than it’s supposed to offer. But a problem also exists beyond the simple fact that some people think it’s necessary to pay to play games with someone of the opposite sex.

Sites like this repeatedly place female gamers on a pedestal. Like we’re some rare artifact. No, we’re not. Sites like this make it seem like it’s absolutely okay to fetishize people based on hobbies alone. That will forever feel wrong, whether anyone’s getting paid or not.

And I figured I’d throw this out in the open — I’m not going undercover on this one. (Sorry.)

UPDATE: I’ve received a note from GameCrush co-founder Eric Strasser. He has confirmed that StripGamer does function as a way to keep the GameCrush atmosphere a little friendlier. “We are committed in making GameCrush like a bar, where buying a drink for someone is considered a natural and friendly act of kindness…We hope that by [launching StripGamer] we can continue to focus on what we care most about – keeping GameCrush about video games and less about skin.”

The StripGamer site will run on the GameCrush architecture, but it won’t be run as a companion site, but as its own entity. “We realize some of our community members have other interests and that’s all well and good,” Strasser said. “Now there is a site for them, too.”

We will most likely be discussing this on our Weekly Roundup podcast, so stay tuned for that!