Miranda Lawson's curvacious backside took home the title
Best Ass in Gaming (BAIG) was a board project run by Yoblazer in the summer of 2010. It featured a traditional 64-entrant tournament whereby users voted for the characters they felt had the best buttocks. It was established early on that due to the clearly ridiculous nature of the contest, all results and participation should be taken in jest and amusement. Thus, unlike many contests, rallying (even outside Board 8) and joke entrants were encouraged. The tournament took place mainly in July; in the end, Mass Effect 2's Miranda Lawson was crowned the champion.
Pre-Tournament[]
The project's announcement was met with immediate shock and disgust, with some users questioning Yoblazer's state of mind and daily habits. However, this negativity was quickly overshadowed by a large wave of support. Many laughed at the idea and looked forward to one of the more original contests the board had seen in some time. Due to the abundant support, nominations were closed in less than a day, and the early naysayers disappeared, having clearly not expected the positive response and fearful that further hostility may hurt their reputations among the ass-loving masses.
Apart from a scant few male entrants (namely, Snake and Guts Man), the 64-slot bracket was comprised almost entirely of female characters. However, Snake and Guts Man did receive significant joke support (although in Snake's case, it may have been legitimate support from those who simply acknowledged an impressive ass for what it was, regardless of sex), and along with more expected front runners like Cammy and Bayonetta, amassed the most nominations in the field.
Tournament[]
Jill Valentine (above) lost to Miranda Lawson in a rousing final
Votals were immediately impressive. Matches routinely received 50-70 votes, far eclipsing the host's modest predictions. Despite their impressive support in the nomination stage, Snake and Guts Man, who had earned top seeds, were dispatched early by female entrants. In spite of the tongue-in-cheek humor and ridiculous tone of the contest, voters were taking their booty rather seriously.
Some large emphasis was placed on the in-game quality of a character's posterior. This, in turn, led to dominant performances by more recent characters such as Miranda Lawson, Bayonetta, and Jill Valentine, who was bolstered by a cheeky appearance in Resident Evil 5. Of particular impressiveness was Miranda's 62-24 rout of contest-favorite Cammy in the quarterfinals. Voters argued that Cammy was being carried by her fanart and simply did not have the in-game butt to contend with the Mass Effect bombshell. The final match was contested between Miranda Lawson and Jill Valentine, with Miranda winning 94-78. The final drew an incredible 172 unique votes, a feat rarely achieved in any Board 8 contest.
Post-Tournament and Reception[]
Miranda was lauded as a worthy winner, and the project itself was praised for breaking the monotony of more traditional user and character contests. During its short duration, BAIG was regularly covered on the Serious Business podcast. The show hosts would comment on match results and the contest itself despite rarely voting. The reason for this has not been made clear.
Months after BAIG ended, it was learned from Lisel that users in the Board 8 Chat had kept a list of BAIG voters from the first match. When asked why, Lisel said that the list could possibly be used at a later date to poke fun at voters. Yoblazer was proud to discover that a group of users had taken such a keen interest in BAIG - far more interest, in fact, than most of the actual voters. While it is generally understood that not everyone possesses the self-confidence to vote in such a groundbreaking contest, interest - in any form - should be appreciated and was.
Yoblazer has expressed disinterest in running further BAIG contests, claiming that future iterations would lack the ridiculous, humorous, "are we seriously doing this HELL YES WE ARE" tone that defined the first one. He has kept the door open, however, in the event of great Board 8 interest in a sequel, of which there surely is none.