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Study Claims Men Play Female Avatars to 'Win'

Posted by Zonk on Sun Jul 30, 2006 12:55 AM
from the not-sure-i-agree dept.
Role Playing (Games)
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.'"
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  • Autogynephilia [wikipedia.org]

    • This is why I treat all players in the game as men (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 30 2006, @01:07AM (#15809608)
      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.
    • My alliance characters are all female because quite frankly, I would rather spend my time looking at a pleasing female form. But contrast that with my horde characters, they're all male. I wonder what that means....other than I spend way too much time playing that silly game.

    • Re:Sounds like (Score:5, Funny)

      by megaditto (982598) on Sunday July 30 2006, @03:18AM (#15809996)
      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?
      • Females are mean, nasty, egocentric furies bent of World domination...females wish to exploit male generosity to climb to the top, giving little in return for our help. What can we do about it?
        The only workable strategy is to form an alliance with one of them.
    • If the article is correct that 60% of the men who cross-play do so to get free stuff or to ogle their pretty avatar, what about the other 40%? That's a huge percentage, given how vanishingly small the trans community is as a fraction of the total population....
  • 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 [somethingawful.com] and Part 2 [somethingawful.com].
      • If you're going to be so naive as to be taken advantage of, then expect to be taken advantage of... stupidity should have a personal price to match the price it inflicts on the rest of the world.

  • U need a study? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by in2mind (988476) on Sunday July 30 2006, @01:00AM (#15809583) Homepage
    They had to do a study find that men hide behind female avtars?

    Its been going on in Chat for ages.
    Men like to look at female avtars. Whats new?

    • I even do it on single-player games.

      Why?

      1. The visuals factor, which has already been discussed. I'd rather look at a chick's butt than a guy's.

      2. Even single-player RPGs usually give an advantage to female characters. Everything's a little easier, and there are a few more things you can do, in, say, Fallout II, if you play as a woman. Rarely can you NOT do something that a guy can do (i.e. sleep with a woman, though the guys, notably, can almost never sleep with other guys) and often you can do things t

      • Re:U need a study? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by owlman17 (871857) on Sunday July 30 2006, @01:27AM (#15809678)
        Yes, in Might and Magic I, your party had to be all-female if you wanted to survive, make it to the end. Without giving too much away, there's an important town there that drains your hitpoints per step for male characters. Not a few of my friends had to revamp their line-ups midway in the game. I started a bit later than them, so my party of six were all females right from the start.

        In that game, its not just an advantage to be female. Its essential.

      • 3. Since I'm already taking on a role completely different from what I normally wear, why not go all the way ? Most RPG main characters end up single-handedly saving the world, so they already have nothing to do with me - so why should they be the same gender ?

        4. Most female RPG sprites are better looking than male ones. This isn't as relevant anymore, since most polygonal characters are awfull-looking no matter their gender ;(.

        5. And of course, sometimes you don't have a choice - think FF6 or Valkyrie

      • 2. Even single-player RPGs usually give an advantage to female characters. Everything's a little easier, and there are a few more things you can do, in, say, Fallout II, if you play as a woman. Rarely can you NOT do something that a guy can do (i.e. sleep with a woman, though the guys, notably, can almost never sleep with other guys) and often you can do things that the guys can't.

        Not always. E.g., if you take games like Baldurs Gate 2 or Jade Empire - romance options for male characters are much richer

      • WoW has absolutely no gameplay difference between male and female. The stats and items are identical for both genders. Men can even wear the item "White Wedding Dress". =)

        You can also /kiss /flirt etc. to either gender no matter yours.

        Melissa

        • Re:Specifically... (Score:5, Funny)

          by glwtta (532858) on Sunday July 30 2006, @12:57PM (#15812123) Homepage
          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...

  • slash-summary (Score:5, Funny)

    by underworld (135618) on Sunday July 30 2006, @01:02AM (#15809590)
    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....

  • The Internet is for Camwhores (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Sarusa (104047) on Sunday July 30 2006, @01:12AM (#15809622)
    People even do this on text based mu*s. It's got to be nearly as old as the internet.

    You could almost say this is a step towards equality though it's inequality in exploiting uncomfortable (if true) gender stereotypes.

    I guess the only question left is whether women playing men are more likely to give stuff to female characters.
  • 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

  • It's just a matter of control. (Score:5, Funny)

    by ScentCone (795499) on Sunday July 30 2006, @01:21AM (#15809657)
    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 forget closet transsexuals (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 30 2006, @01:24AM (#15809668)
    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.
            • Just wanted to chime in on the surprisingly large (to me, anyway) trans slashdot population. I'll second the GP in that while I'm off WoW now, when I was playing I didn't use in-game voice chatting software even though I *know* it makes life eaiser. I enjoyed playing not only a female avatar but a female persona - while I'm taking slow baby steps to make my physical body match my mental picture of myself, it was seductively easy to click 'female' in WoW and be in an environment where people treated you as w

  • That's basically it (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Quiet_Desperation (858215) on Sunday July 30 2006, @01:26AM (#15809673)

    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.

    • Confirmed. Also, often female characters have had far more time put into things like animation - hoping to hook male gamers. This has the additional side-effect of making the female characters look a lot more 'smooth', and just generally makes for a more enhanced gaming experience. People read into things like this far too often for no good reason, it seems.
  • when I see people in the games I play, if they happen to have a female-ish name, I always give them the same thing - a clip of hot lead.
  • I've read this article, or similar probably a good dozen times. Why is this such a popular discussion? Is there some sort of stigma attached to a male roleplaying a female character that I'm unaware of? I've been playing MMO's for over five years, and in all of my experience I've never had a big-chested mage ask me for free items on the premise that they're female. It's always the female avatars going, "sup, wanna hunt?" and you immediately know their gender. Alternatively, "ekek ^^; brb my sis wants on the
    • It's always the female avatars going, "sup, wanna hunt?" and you immediately know their gender. Alternatively, "ekek ^^; brb my sis wants on the pc", you know it's female. There's really [no] question involved.

      Nice to know you're so shallow.

      The only women I personally know who play or have played MMORPGs are very much the "sup, wanna hunt" type. Those I met via the MMORPG who I know to be female are as good-or-better on average than the men.

      Women can and do roleplay, be it tabletop or PC, on a level just a

    • Re:I feel like... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Hannah E. Davis (870669) on Sunday July 30 2006, @02:36AM (#15809890) Journal
      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.

      • 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 boyfrien

  • Yeah... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Jesus IS the Devil (317662) on Sunday July 30 2006, @01:35AM (#15809709)
    Spin my nipple nuts and call me Sally.

  • No Surprise, MySpace Experiment (Score:5, Interesting)

    by otisg (92803) on Sunday July 30 2006, @01:39AM (#15809724) Homepage Journal
    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/ [ejohn.org] (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 [ejohn.org] .

  • Duh: (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 30 2006, @01:39AM (#15809725)
    That's what MMORPG is:

    Many
    Men
    Online
    Role
    Playing
    Girls
  • I mean, is there anyone who wasn't already aware of this?

  • I am a man man! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by ArcticCelt (660351) on Sunday July 30 2006, @02:07AM (#15809805)
    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!

  • On the other hand (Score:5, Insightful)

    by kahrytan (913147) on Sunday July 30 2006, @02:08AM (#15809808) Homepage

      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?

  • there are even better ways to win (Score:3, Interesting)

    by dario_moreno (263767) on Sunday July 30 2006, @06:32AM (#15810468) Homepage Journal
    Coming from the world of online poker : choose a nickname that will angry people, like "ILoveGWBush". That and a female avatar, and people will make plenty of dumb moves against you.

  • Or, in another reality (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Minwee (522556) <dcr@neverwhen.org> on Sunday July 30 2006, @06:44AM (#15810496) Homepage

    This is World of Warcraft we're talking about. The home of the ugliest male characters in any computer game since the Sinclair ZX80 port of Dig Dug. Why do people have to trot out the old "Durrr... it's because people give girls stuff!" argument when all they have to do is look at the character creation screen to see why many people choose female characters?

  • I call BS (Score:4, Interesting)

    by WapoStyle (639758) on Sunday July 30 2006, @07:13AM (#15810563)
    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.

  • Duh (Score:3, Insightful)

    by hcdejong (561314) <acme AT xmsnet DOT nl> on Monday July 31 2006, @07:46AM (#15816427)
    Old adage: this is the internet, where men are men, women are men and 16-yo girls are FBI agents.
    • I've played a female character once, ages ago, on a MUD. I can't for the life of me remember why - probably thought it was funny. I definitely put one over on one of my best friends...

      Anyway, when I first logged on, some high-level male character was in the guild. He dumped a bunch of gold on me, a nice suit of armor, a great sword, kissed me, and took off. It was weird.

      And no, I didn't like it. :p Well, I did. Not the kissing part, the equipment part. But it seems like, online, men expect something sensual

      • often with some bullshit defensive story about preferring to look at female characters' backsides.

        I call bullshit on your supposed bullshit. Honestly? That is exactly why I play female characters in Guild Wars. I mean, c'mon, which would YOU rather look at for hours on end? The backside of some burly male warrior, or the nicely curved backside of any of the female characters? Since there's no inherant gameplay advantage to a character being either male or female in that game (stats are identical and gender

    • So if i were to ever create a female avatar I wouldn't be running around with a frity name like daisy-sunshine, but instead I'd go for something more macho as to not deceive anyone.

      You'd have the fear factor going for you then, too. Women named "Butch" are just scary.

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