Expo Organizers Say No to Scantily Dressed Models

Nothing reflects the video game business’ new maturity like the edicts imposed on this year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo: Turn down the music and, for Pete’s sake, put some clothes on!

For years, the annual trade show, called E3, has played out at the Los Angeles Convention Center like a teenage boy’s naughty dream: acres of video games accompanied by ear-splitting rock and impossibly proportioned, navel-baring women pretending to like you.

But the $25-billion game industry passed puberty long ago. So when E3 starts today, the show floor will be patrolled by hall monitors to ensure that the sound system doesn’t deafen attendees and models -- the decorative “booth babes” -- don’t reveal too much.

Specifically banned: nudity -- full or partial -- and bikini bottoms, along with anything that might be considered sexually explicit or provocative. Violators can be fined $5,000.

Entertainment Software Assn. President Doug Lowenstein said the show has long regulated sound and skin, but “it was apparent that people were not abiding by the policy.”

E3 “is a show that people of different tastes and values attend,” he said. “At some point you say, ‘Where’s the line?’ ”

Not, apparently, three inches above the knee.

Mika Kelly of Namco Bandai Games America Inc. said the company had its costumes vetted by E3 beforehand. Particularly worrisome was the bare midriff on one model dressed as a mistress of dark arts from the game “Hellgate: London.”

“She has, like, leather pants on and real big boots, lots of metal and stuff on her,” Kelly said. “But she does show skin -- that’s just because that’s how she is in the game.”

Approved.