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Study Claims Men Play Female Avatars to 'Win'
mytrip writes to mention a News.com article about the rationale behind male players playing female avatars in online games. The article says that, while some players are probably exploring 'gender roles, many just want free stuff. From the article: "Kathryn Wright, WomenGamers's consulting psychologist, earlier this decade found that 60 percent of male players who don female avatars, or on-screen personas, do it to gain an advantage in game play. An enthusiast with the online handle Jackpot649 nailed the zeitgeist in his response to the About.com query: 'I'm a guy, but if I gotta look at an avatar all day, I'd sooner look at a female avatar. Plus, people give you more free stuff.'"
On SA, there is a column, "Art of Warcraft." Recently, one of the editors has been posing as a female character not only to get massive amounts of gold, but also for the simple pleasure of humiliating gamers.
See Part 1 and Part 2.
I have freaks! I did something right...
Its been going on in Chat for ages.
Men like to look at female avtars. Whats new?
Wincopy
i for one welcome our gender bending.... *sigh* (you can fill in the rest)
-or-
1. sign up for online game
2. assume female identity
3. ??
4. profit
-or-
in soviet russia, female avatars play games as you
-or-
well... you get picture....
I give free stuff to people occasionally, but I don't think I've ever given something to a player because of their onscreen gender. I happen to know one of the people I regularly game with is a guy who plays female avatars, and probably a good percentage of the other 'women' I game with are really men. So, I really don't give a crap about someone's gender in game, because chances are, they aren't what their character is anyhow.
My Credo - I play games to have fun, not to meet girls. Doesn't mean I'll never meet a girl in game, I just don't *try* to meet any girls in game. Put another way, I just try to treat everyone equally - all with respect, and trying to be the best teammate I can if I team with them, and I form friendships without caring the gender of the person. I suppose in the process of that, some of the people I become friends with will be female, and some male.
The reason I mention this is, from time to time you see 'articles' on the internet about people who've met wives/husbands through an online game. While I'm sure this has happened occasionally, these 'articles' seem to be more marketting vehicles for the game in question than anything else. Someone who goes into the game trying to find a girlfriend (girls looking for guys would probably have a reasonable level of success finding guys - but maybe not guys they would really like, I dunno) is probably going to open themselves up to foolishness like giving gifts to impress a girl that is really a guy.
Are these people crazy, flirting with/giving gifts to those with female chars? Is there some slight chance there gonna get them to take off there Armor and /sleep with them?
If you want to find rendered nudeness there's far better ways than through MMOs
Shameless plugs and inaccessible site design FTW! - www.mistletoestreetmusic.com
For many in the non-stop-gaming demographic, a female avator is the closest they'll come to having any personal influence over where, and up to what, a relatively large pair of breasts will be.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
I'm a man. I play female characters because I wish I were female, and get no other chance to express myself. I don't do raids in WoW because of Ventrilo.
but if I gotta look at an avatar all day, I'd sooner look at a female avatar.
That's the beginning and end of it for me. I don't consider myself to be the characters I play. I'm more of a puppeteer pulling the strings.
Spin my nipple nuts and call me Sally.
eTrade SUCKS
This should be no surprise. About half a year ago I went to one of the BarCamp gatherings where a couple of people presented the results of their study of MySpace, where they found similar behaviour. But they found a lot of other interesting stuff. Here is the link: http://ejohn.org/blog/tags/barcamp/ (there is some actual code there) - scroll down to "Presentation 2: Subverting Social Networks (4:45pm, Sunday)" or just hit the slides directly: http://ejohn.org/files/social.pdf .
Simpy
That's what MMORPG is:
Many
Men
Online
Role
Playing
Girls
Nah, but the chick models in AQ2 were skinny and harder to aim at than the guy models.
M0571y H@rml355.
I played WOW until 60. My policy was exactly don't ask don't tell. That's why I hate using things like ventrilo because then you hear the big raspy voice coming out of that hot looking priest avatar. But in end game at lev 60, if you want to do raids, you have no choice (ventrilo becomes very useful) and that's when you realize how many women are not women :). I admit that instinctively I felt compelled to help and protect the chicks avatars even if I knew that there was a good chance that she was a dude. Still, personally, I would not be able to play a women. I like role playing and when I was playing it was a total immersion for me and taking the role of a girl is not my thing. No matter the reward. Why? because I am a man man!
Yahh, hiii haaaaa! -Major Kong, from Dr. Strangelove
Female players have been known to play male characters to avoid being hit on. Who wants to be hit on in a game while in the middle of a battle?
\
Interestingly, I'm a girl in real life, and since I don't act super-girly unless I'm really bored and actually want free crap for my character (which is pretty rare, especially since I can't keep the cute persona up very long), people often assume I'm male. My male friends, on the other hand, know exactly what the average gamer guy expects a girl to sound like, so they roleplay it to the max. Needless to say, they get guys fawning all over their female avatars with no questions asked.
As a rule of thumb, if a person says they're female and acts normal, they probably are. If, on the other hand, they act sickeningly cute and helpful and otherwise girly, it's typically a safe bet that you're dealing with one or more of the following: a man, a pre-teen girl, or a really fat/ugly girl who acts cute on the internet to get the attention she so desperately needs.
You are missing the point:
Females are mean, nasty, egocentric furies bent of World domination
The reason why girl-avatars get more stuff is because males are generous to females. The reason male-avatars do not get more stuff is because females are stingy and treat males like shit!
Online gaming has helped uncover the century-old conspiracy: females wish to exploit male generosity to climb to the top, giving little in return for our help.
What can we do about it?
Obama likes poor people so much, he wants to make more of them.
First of all, who gives items away in game simply because the character standing before them is female? That's just stupid. Secondly, I've leveled male and female characters to level 60 in World of Warcraft (Amazingly I still find time to work and have a family life, imagine that. Stereotype destroyed.) No one has ever given me anything based on my avatar's gender and I would never expect anyone to be stupid enough to do so.
You want free stuff? Roll a dwarf priest.
Yeah, screw Neverwinter! That "maybe you should talk to one of our male employees" line in the brothel thing was just bullshit! It's not like I was lost; freakin' close minded faux medieval sword-and-sorcery epics...
sic transit gloria mundi
Agreed (for the most part); I too am female, and my WoW-mains are also. I've always been somewhat bemused by the whole "girls get free stuff" line because, hell, I never have. Interestingly, when I'm grouping with people I don't know personally I usually find myself being referred to as 'he'; even after I correct people they often still don't believe me. I've got no idea what people think when I'm playing my male characters and I start talking about my boyfriend (or worse, partner).
Conversley, my boyfriend plays a female toon and flirts it up whenever he thinks he can get away with it. We had a few people in our raid almost in tears once because they were so confused as to his gender (people started refering to him as 's/he' and 'his/her'). He's also humilliated several of the resident server tools by playing the 'flirting bimbo' card (for loot, raid spots, gold, anything). Said tools have only later found out they've been had by talking to one of the people in our guild. Often it's me. I hear nothing breaks a gamer's spirt more than hearing, "Oh, 'her'? Yeah, 'she's' my IRL boyfriend."
Perhaps this should be a warning for all you, er, 'hopeful' male gamers out there.