Is Morgan Webb really a gamer?

Posted January 2, 2007 by Kevin

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We should have seen it coming - the inevitable backlash by all the Morgan Webb fanboys out there when they realized we excluded her from our top 10 hottest girl gamer list. Almost immediately after posting our original list, the hate mail began to trickle in. One of my personal favorites:

Morgan Webb is a gamer. She always was. Has been even since X-Play was on TechTV. The other two I don’t know about (except Olivia Munn has said she has a Wii and enjoys it).

Wait, what do you mean “always was”? You mean since the time she was born? Our mistake.

And Olivia … had we known she enjoyed the Wii, we for sure would have included her in our list as a gamer!

/sarcasm off

If you look closely there is a contradiction in this guy’s email. First he tells us she always was a gamer, then follows it up by saying she has been ever since X-Play was on TechTV. Time for a short history lesson on TechTV and G4.

Let’s flash back several years ago. Back before G4 bastardized TechTV and started sucking - back to a time when guys like John C. Dvorak and Leo Laporte actually gave some credibility to the network known as ZDTV. Some of you may remember shows like Silicon Spin, Internet Tonight, and Call for Help. Adam Sessler was the original and lone host of another show at the time called Extended Play (which actually stemmed from Gamespot TV which he hosted with Lauren Fielder). For a couple years Adam was the sole host. Finally, Kate Botello, who had spent the past few years hosting “The Screen Savers” with Leo Laporte, was moved over as a co-host with Adam.

After a year or so Kate Botello left the show and once again, Adam was left without a co-host. What to do? Well, TechTV decided to move over a girl named Morgan Webb who had been working as an associate producer and web researcher for “The Screen Savers”, and give her a shot in front of the camera. At the same time, the show was renamed “X-Play” … I guess to appeal to the MTV generation and sound more extreme. This all happened in 2003, which according to the email above, would only make Morgan a gamer for about 4 years now.

To me and a few of my fellow conspirators, Morgan never really came across as much of a gamer while sitting in the background of The Screen Savers. All she would do is make the occasional comment about some story or topic of discussion, and of all the girls on that show, she was the easiest to look at (what ever happened to the bleached blonde hair anyway?) - which is why we figured she got her job on The Screen Savers in the first place, and then later chosen as a replacement for Kate Botello.

Anyone who watched those first episodes of X-Play after Morgan got switched over will probably recall how awkward it was to listen to her try and force her way through a game review dialog. It didn’t exactly scream “gamer” when you listened to her back then.

Has she improved over time compared to those early X-Play days? Yes. But we still prefer to think of her as more of a person who was in the right place at the right time, and has since had to adopt a gamer persona in order to do her job.

But we could be wrong. No scratch that. We ARE wrong according to Guy Branum, the head writer of X-Play. A few days ago we received a little email from Guy setting us straight about Morgan Webb and our selection process of choosing the hottest gamer girls:

Dear Kevin,

I’m Guy Branum, the head writer of X-Play on the G4 network, and I’d like to question your methodology in the selection of the hawtesttt! girls in gaming.

While I cannot speak to the knowledge nor qualifications of any of the other hostesses currently employed by G4, your estimation of Ms. Morgan Webb as an aspiring actress using gaming to boost her career is entirely without merit.

You don’t have to sit through endless shoots listening to her discuss the intricacies of her Animal Crossing village, you don’t have to yell at her to stop playing Ratchet and Clank so you can go record a voice over with her. You didn’t have to listen to her for MONTHS on end talk about how great Okami was going to be, then, when it came out, listen to her talk about how great Okami is.

I’m one of the fat dorky guys behind the scenes at X-Play and I can tell you without question that Morgan knows loads more about games, and cares more about them than I do. We’re not a class operation over here, and editorial errors frequently get through to scripts, but the one final check we have on our whole production model is that she and Sessler know their shit. She corrects stuff in my scripts all the time, and when it comes to editorial or opinion stuff, she won’t LET anybody write stuff for her.

While I am a homosexual, and thus cannot speak to the Hawt!ness issue in question, I must most emphatically request that you correct your earlier assertions. Ms. Webb, like her co-host, is the real deal. Also, she regularly makes Red Dwarf jokes. You can’t argue with shit like that.

In conclusion, you’re wrong.

Love,

Guy Branum

So there you have it straight from the horses mouth. We stand corrected - Morgan Webb IS, in fact, a gamer! We have to admit, poor Morgan may have been slightly lumped into the same group as Olivia Munn, Kirsten Holt and all the other G4 actresses (am I the only one who can’t stand Beth Ostrinsky?). Guilty by association I suppose.

As to whether or not she’s hot? The jury’s still out on that one. ANYONE standing next to Sessler is gonna look hot. We think we’ll let you be the judge.

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