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Gender-Bending In Online Games Investigated
Thanks to Terra Nova for their article discussing the prevalence of gender-bending in online RPGs. According to statistics worked out in the piece, "[in EverQuest], every 1 out of 2 or 3 female characters is being played by a male player, while every 1 out of 100 male characters is being played by a female player." The article also notes that, according to the statistics, "The demographic that is most likely to gender-bend is not male teenagers, but men over the age of 25", suggesting one reason for this might be that "younger male players are probably less secure about their own gender identity."
"[in EverQuest], every 1 out of 2 or 3 female characters is being played by a male player, while every 1 out of 100 male characters is being played by a female player."
As one of the few women posting to Slashdot, I wonder what the ratio of "gender-benders" is here?
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... to me anyway, I usually just flip a coin on it. That said I don't go around soliciting things from other male players, that's where the line is drawn between playing a game and being sick.
Partly. From the commentary:
:-)
I see it like this. If Im going to stare at a butt all day, it might as well be female.
and
I've always felt female characters are treated a touch nicer, so I take advantage of it. Roleplaying a female is interesting and can be a lot of fun. Plus, I'd really rather look at the backside of a female character anyway.
This article (along with the player commentary) is several years old and has been floating around from place to place on the net. Interesting stuff but not exactly news anymore.
Maybe this guy accounts for a few of those characters.
...and that's all there is to it.
I played MMORGs for awhile, and I tried both sexes. Mostly to see how it would affect the game.
As you would expect, I was helped out by others FAR more when I played as a female. People were nicer overall, but there definately was an increase in harrassment. Of course, I always told them I weighed 750 lbs in real life, that tended to end any requests to meet in rl.
I could see why most gender-benders would be over 25. I don't see very many male teenagers being secure enough to play as a female character, I know when I was 16 I wouldn't have. Today its interesting to play as a female, to see how other react, and to compare that to how they react when I play as a male. It is really a good mirror on how society, and those in it, treat men and women differently just because of their sex.
I would guess that gender bending is less common there. "UNWEAR TOGA" wouldn't have quite the same effect.
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Requesting vote for gender-benders.
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I'm male, over 25 and have almost always choosen to play female characters in every video game I have played. Why?
Female characters in many games typically focus on attributes I prefer - such as dexterity, quickness and so forth. Example: Look at the Soul Caliber characters. Almost all are in the 100 pound range - they cannot compete with the male characters on strength. So, they are given other attributes to compensate, which, frankly I find to be more interesting in terms of game play.
I don't play online games - but would probably choose female characters in that forum too. Although, I think the advantages are different - namely, if it is more of a social game, you don't have to conform to male stereotypes and can actually get into playing the character more - and possibly more likely to avoid conversation, like who's in the World Series, that I'd rather not have anyway.
When EQ was fairly new (1 year old) I had a couple of buddies who played it 10+ hours a day. Building up characters and swag to sell to 'make a living playing EQ', etc.
They played chicks for one reason - they could get losers to give them stuff for free if they flirted a little, i.e. "Oooh she said she's 21 and dumped her boyfriend, if I give her this armor and sword combo I'll bet I can get laid at the EQ-con she wants to meet me at".
The utterly sad thing is they were right and it worked - in spades. These guys conned items that were normally very hard to come by (don't know the names though - I stopped playing after the first 3 months myself, never saw much of the high level stuff) on a very regular basis using the 'I'm a 22 year-old single hottie in real life who's playing a mostly naked hottie elf chick in EQ' scam.
A male friend of mine always plays as a female character, even to the point of using a female name in single player games. I've never understood the appeal.
But recently I've been thinking a lot about how much I'd like there to be a Matrix game that would allow me to play as Trinity, because she's my favourite character in the films. (In fact she's my favourite character in *all* films.)
So is it a gender thing or something else? I mean, I don't want to play as Trinity because she's female. I want to play as her because I like what she represents to me. So maybe all the guys who choose to play as a female characters are in fact attracted to the strengths and perceived weaknesses of females, rather than simply wanting to "be a girl" for a while.
Remember, men have an almost entirely positive, albeit somewhat idealised view of women. In a role-playing scenario, it is natural that you would want to play as a character that you like. Men instinctively like women.
Some guys tend to have played females in traditional roleplaying. I think it's like writing female characters in a book.
I have on occasiona played female characters, if I come up with a really good background for the character.
But then I tend to play light, fast characters, rather than big, burly fighters. So it makes little difference to me.
As for females playing male characters, part of me wonders whether it's to avoid men being all sleazy?
I always play female characters in games, even single player games. Why? It's quite simple. Female characters are not as common, not as well implemented, and generally need to be supported more often.
For every game you find where you have the option of playing a female character, you can find countless other games that force you to play a male character. And even those games that allow you to play female characters often do not implement the female options as well as the male options. Female characters will have fewer models/clothes/faces to choose from, fewer sidequests, etc. In the worst cases, other characters will accidentally refer to you as "him" even though you're female. To be fair, female options have gotten better overall recently, but they still aren't as good as they should be.
What better way to ensure gender equality in video games than to play games as a female character and complain to the developers about any problems you have with the experience?
I also don't like to play female characters in games where the main character is female (RPG/ FPS)and you have no choice. I'm a guy and I like to play a guy.
Please, keep the female characters restricted to the cooking / cleaning / dishwashing / ironing simulation games where they belong.
Well, if there's a graphical display, which do I prefer to look at- some cute/hot chick, or a big muscle-bound he-man? Sure, it might be fun to think of yourself as the guy with muscles, but playing with a girl on the screen is significantly more... aesthetically pleasing. :)
Of course, this is a different matter for games where you have a first-person view or in which you have a first-person view, or good old-fashioned textmode RPG games (Angband anyone?) I don't really care.
and in the case of Virtua Figher 4, I play Pai almost exclusively due to her attack set. It's fast, it's got quick counters, and it's not too hard to execute the manuvers.
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In other words, he's role playing as a Paladin.
If he acted any other way, he wouldn't be role playing as a Paladin.
You're engaging in Role Playing Games, people.
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one reason for this might be that "younger male players are probably less secure about their own gender identity."
I think it's because younger male players are the ones more likely to put up a "No Girl's Allowed" sign on their treehouse (if they actually had friends to share it with).
I don't see how any of this is really "gender-bending". I've mostly played male characters anyway, but I've really never seen my male fighter or thief as MYSELF, but rather as my CHARACTER. I would imagine that a lot of the guys that are playing female characters see it the same way. I don't see my characters as being any different from Dante, or Snake, or Ryu, or Moritsune... my MMORPG character is just the male character that I'm controlling. The so-called "gender-bending" male players probably don't see their MMORPG character as any different than Tifa, or Chun-Li, or Samus, or Athena.
Granted, I've heard anecdotal stories about male players experimenting with female characters to trick people or get free stuff from idiots, but I've known a lot of "gender-bending" male players and all of them are just doing the same thing that they've done when they've played as Chun-Li in Street Fighter or Kasumi in King of Fighters - choose a female character because they like them.
This entire article is based on the idea that playing a female character in an MMORPG is the same exact thing as dressing up as a woman and claiming to be one in real life, and from my experience with MMORPGs like Ragnarok Online, that's just way off base. MMORPG or not, most people do not consider their video game character to be a reflection of themselves. What's next, an article telling me that by choosing to play a Warrior in an MMORPG, I'm voicing my insecurities about my physique and fighting ability? Or that the 29% of Everquest players that play as Mages are indicating their desperate need to be the intellectual elite of the world?
Some of this MMORPG analysis just goes way too far.
... but I wasn't gender bending. I just liked lookin at her butt when she/I died.
"Derp de derp."
I'm not a big EQ fan, only played for a few months back in the day. My thing's always been pen-and-paper RPGs. Having said that... I've had a lot of male Pen and Paper players play female characters. In my mind, it is a stretch of one's personality to be able to play a wizard; is it not just as much a stretch to play a female wizard?
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I've done more than a little reading on the ideas of gender expression and how gender roles in society are shaped and expressed. I am NOT an expert in the field, and don't pretend to be, but may have more knowledge on the subject than the average /.er (And if someone who IS an expert, or even just more well-read than I am, sees me making a factual error, please point it out.)
The concensus among experts seems to be that society is moving towards a much more fluid concept of gender. This has been happening for some time now, with the easy beginnings statges being when women battled for voting rights and later, in the 60s, when equal rights became an issue across race and gender.
For a long time, this has been a one-way battle: women fighting for equal footing with men. There has been an obvious move in this direction. Equal pay initiatives, sexual harrasment policies in work-places, etc. On the more subtle side, women are now able to dress however the hell they want. While there are extremes that would still get odd looks (tons of piercing, lots of leather, etc), men would get the same odd looks if they dressed that way. But a woman wearing shorts and a t-shirt isn't going to get odd looks because she's "dressed like a man."
But there has been very little push in the opposite direction. Only very recently has there been a larger push for men to be able to dress and act in what has traditionally been 'female' gender roles. But, as I said, there has been more and more of a move towards a fluid idea of gender. That is, one that isn't directly tied to what's between your legs.
I think this is, partially, a reflection of that. I'm trying not to read too much into it, because I think it is partially just people fooling around online. But I think it's also a way for people to safely and (most importantly) annonymously experiment with fluid gender roles in a safe environment. This doesn't mean that ANY of the men who play women in online games want to go buy a dress and get a sex change. It just means that the current static gender roles we have in Western culture are outdated and people are beginning to feel constrained by them.
-Trillian
The one thing about RPGs I like is to be able to play as non-humans.
I want to be in another world. I don't want to hang out with the humans in Freeport, I want to skin them and hang their skulls from my belt.
If the game only has humans characters I usually play the one that is furthest away from me.
In fighting games I usually pick the Chun-Li character first, then the vamp.
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What kind of statistic is that? Honestly, it sounds like they haven't done enough research. Online games with a gender have been around a lot longer than everquest. Surely they could have had some more data had they asked muddev listers.
This topic has come up several times. Not only that, but kanga.nu polls would be the perfect place to ask this question. Or heck even a slashdot poll.
The commenters AFTER the article explain the prevalence of gender bending in moos etc. But the author really didn't have a whole lot. WAKE UP EQ isn't the ONLY online game!
I know they're not RPG's but when I play counterstrike or team fortress classic, I use a female nick just because its funny to watch guys flip out that a girl killed them. It's got absolutely nothing to do with bending gender or anything else. And on tfc and cs, nobody's nicer if you're a girl. They're usually much more rude.
1 out of every 3 people who claimed to be females pretending to be males were actually males pretending to be females?
every 1 out of 2 or 3 female characters is being played by a male player, while every 1 out of 100 male characters is being played by a female player
In order to draw the conclusions that they want to draw from this statistic, we also need to know the ratio of male to female players, and ratio of male to female characters. Otherwise, the skew is easily explained by a mostly male population!
Like nearly everytime, that's only a bunch of basic descriptive stats. Mostly frequencies. Waste of good material if they don't even search for and display what's significant.