Earlier this week, Sony published a bunch of promotional shots that guarantee you will become a 100 percent more attractive person if you buy a PS Vita. That, or this is a marketing campaign targeted toward those who were once extras on Friends. Whatever, I smell a 'Shop Contest, and it smells like Drakkar.
You guys know I'll level with you about the quality of our base images, and we didn't have a lot of great exploitables this week. I thought about the Half-Life onion ring, but the possibilities are way too limited. Male Model No. 1 up there on the soccer field, though, fingering his Vita, should result in a lot of inappropriate 'Shops, and it's certainly better than using a two-year-old shot of Mario grabbing Samus' ass. I learned my lesson with last week's base image. So here we are.
Source Gallery: Attractive Young Men Smiling at the PlayStation Vita
Run over to that story, browse it, and fetch one that you think will win out. If you're looking for the Soccer Field Fingerer, here's a direct link to him. Joey from Friends' Stunt Double is the first image.
You know the rules: The 20 best will get rounded up and published at the end of next Saturday. Meantime, I and the rest of the starred commentariat will approve and promote as many as we can so folks can see them and pass judgment.
This is your no-frills step-by-step procedure to participation in the Kotaku 'Shop Contest.
1. Create your 'Shop.
2. Upload it to a free image hosting service. I suggest imgur. It's stupid simple. No account is necessary.
3. This is very important: You must use the URL of the image itself. In imgur, this is the second URL it gives you after you upload the image. It's under "Direct Link (email & IM)"
4. At the beginning of the comments roll, click "Start a New Thread"
5. To the right of your name, select "Image."
6. Paste the imgur URL in the image URL field. It's the field that says "Image URL."
7. You can add editorial commentary if you want, but then just hit submit and your image will load. If it doesn't, paste the image URL as a comment.
8. This is important: Keep your image size under 1 MB. It will not upload to comments if it is over that size. What's more, we're getting reports that if your 'Shop is more than 1000px tall (vertical), it won't upload. If you're getting the broken-image icon, try resizing to a smaller dimension.
Now, Gentlemen, start your 'shopping!