Pay For Play? GameSmith Takes on GameCrush

First off, the site works this way: you can choose a "PlayDate" to play either a casual Flash game (Chess, Battleship, etc.) or a few of the more popular games over Xbox Live (Call of Duty, etc.)  with you and you can interact with the ladies using a webcam and a mic. Initially there was a set price for how much you paid per minute but recently the site has changed to let PlayDates set their own prices. 

I chatted with "Nerdress' (whose real name is Jamie) initially, a gamer girl who once graced the home page of the site and found her to be both smart and engaging. We didn't actually a play a game because she was visting her family and had sketchy internet connection, but we had an enjoyable conversation about GamerCrush.

Jamie said a lot of guys who use the site would rather just chat than play games and that she only makes about $20 a day. She said most of the guys are pretty respectful though and don't merely expect her to strip. 

Not all of her experiences have been positive:

"I got one guy from France ask....Are you a bitch?" said Jamie.  "The word translated to "slut." So I said, 'No, I'm not a whore.'"

Jamie says that as a self-proclaimed feminist, she's torn about participating in GameCrush. 

"I understand women participating in self-exploitation. It's kind of weird, because I'm technically contributing to my own exploitation," she said.  "But I think being a feminist is about choice and equality. I choose to do this, or I could choose to have kids and a family. It's my choice. (GameCrush) is nothing compared to other really bad shit going on."

After my conversation with Jamie, I went off the grid a little bit and decided to check out "The Edge" zone to see what it was like. 

I entered the room of a 21-year old Californian girl who went by the name Cupcake, which sounded innocent enough. We chatted for a few minutes in her gamer lobby with polite conversation. She told me she was hungry, I said I was trying out the site.  I started a game with her of Battleship, but it got disconnected almost instantly. A window popped up and told me the game had ended. Do I want to give Cupcake a tip? I don't think so, I didn't even get to play a game.

I went back into Cupcake's chat room and she apologized and she said she was having some problems with her laptop and needed to reset it. She came back a couple minutes later, but said she having mic troubles. I started another game of Battleship and it launched a simple Flash game of Battleship. In the left hand of the screen there was a live video feed of my Playdate. Her mic still wasn't functioning, so we basically were just looking at each other and typing. 

"Hi!" she typed, and then smiled.

"Hi!" I said, and smiled back.

"Your cute," she then typed flirtatiously.

The game was, well, Battleship. We both pantomimed exaggerated expressions when we got a sunk a ship or missed completely.

About halfway through the game, she adjusted her webcam to focus exclusively on her rather ample breasts. 

"Big boobies!" she typed.  "Sure are!" I responded.

I noticed something written on her right boob. 

"What's that say?" I asked.  She pulled down her shirt to reveal a tattoo that read "Steven" in cursive letters. 

"Who's that?" I asked.

She winced. "A mistake." I winced back. 

Shortly after that, the game was again disconnected and I was asked again if I wanted to leave a tip. I was sent back to Cupcake's chat room and she came back and said "Sorry."

"Is it your connection?" I asked. Meanwhile, another gentleman enters the chat room "WHATSUP?!" he announces. Within a minute, the new guy starts a game with Cupcake while I'm just sitting there. And I didn't even get to sink her battleship. A strange, confusing experience to say the least.

I had way better luck with Ieva Vashkus, a 24-year old college student from Seattle, who had just signed up as a PlayDate a few weeks prior.

We played about an hour's worth of Team Deathmatch on Call of Duty: Black Ops for Xbox 360 together. While she never completely dominated, she held her own - averaging about one kill for every death.  Not only that, she was a good teammate - telling me where to some of the enemies were hiding and she waited a couple of times for me to join her so that we could take down people together. 

 I was initially skeptical that she was more of a spokesmodel that didn't really game, Ieva proved me wrong.

It's a reaction that Ieva is used to.

"I'm obviously tooting my own horn here, but I play at such a competitive level that I tend to be far better than most of the men, so they stop viewing me as such a sexual object and more as a peer," she said. "I'm someone who they can count on, someone who is going to get the hunter off of them in Left for Dead, or picks everyone up when they're down. The sexuality is an added bonus, like - she's my gamer buddy but she's...well, a lot of my gamer friends say, I'm pretty attractive, so you know."

So, after a couple of hours of using GameCrush, my verdict is - it can sort of be whatever you want it to be. It certainly has a sleazy side to it with certain ladies willing to get naked under the guise of playing a game, but if you're willing to find them, there are also girls who are there strictly to play games.