Something as crazy as Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball is such an absolutely insane concept that it could only happen at the beginning of the century, when there was really an audience for this type of video game. In it, the protagonists of one of the most famous fighting games of all time set aside fighting to play volleyball in minimal clothing and… well, that was it. In fact, the only man who appeared in the game was Zack. This is the exact proof that, no matter how much it angers some people, games from the past were terribly sexist. It is what it is. And not only that: they also attracted masses of people who wanted to see flesh before the Internet became the standard.
Dead or Volleyball
What were the items you could buy in the game? Bikinis and swimsuits. What could you do besides playing a match? Gamble money in the casino and on the slot machines. Could you take pictures of the protagonists? Of course, in the most suggestive ways possible. Come on, Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball was everything that wouldn’t be allowed now, and rightly so. And the truth is that its development started in good faith: fans wanted Team Ninja to add a minigame of volleyball in Dead or Alive 2, and the team decided it deserved something more: a standalone game that would be exclusive for the fans (something that changed over the months).
To ensure that the game was a hit, the soundtrack was filled with songs from all the groups and singers that were popular in the early 2000s: Spice Girls, Christina Aguilera, Baha Men, Janet Kay… Anything to please the fans. Although they were more focused on what they called (anyway) “bouncing physics.” It was so anticipated that, in fact, it caused an unexpected uproar at E3 2003, an event that was already canceled but survived for years (too many years) despite criticism for using scantily clad girls as a draw for the games. Yes, this happened. They were called “E3 babes.” Ew.
At that event, to celebrate the existence of the game and attract the public’s attention, Tecmo decided to put on a show. A volleyball show? A wrestling show? A skill show with the controller? Of course not: a striptease performance based, in some way, on Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball. They did it several times, and each time, their booth became more and more crowded, until it reached a point where such a mass of people was uncontrollable. To this, of course, was added the fact that after the show, fans could take photos with the girls in costumes. In the end, fed up with everything, the firefighters cut the power, emptied the booth and tackled the disaster before it had worse consequences.
The thing did not remain a simple anecdote from other times, but had real consequences: in 2006, E3 decided to require video game producers to have the “babe” models dressed in less provocative and decent ways. Back then, I assure you, it was not so rare for video game events to have striptease shows for certain games. Fortunately, it belongs to the past: if it’s not done for decency and feminism, at least let it be done to avoid the firefighters having to intervene, right?
