Gender in MMOs: your experiences

For example, some leading questions to guide your responses:
- How does your chosen avatar gender and manner of dressing affect your interactions with others ingame?
- Are there stereotypes for genders within the game? If so, do they reflect ones in real life?
- Gender also includes race and class ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender ) : how do you feel these are experienced or enforced ingame?

(If you want more discussion topics, I suggest checking out the articles on gender in gaming/game design here, http://paxvalkyrie.tumblr.com/ ; she reblogs some very interesting material.)


tl;dr version:
Talk about any MMORPG you have experience with in terms of gender and sex, and some themes that have stood out for you.

Your username, age, etc. will not be recorded, just observations on your responses.
If you would like to PM me your response that is also acceptable.

Oh, and if you could answer before Tuesday morning, that'd be swell... it's due then -3-;

Gender roles in MMOs are going to be twisted and unique. The vast, vast majority of players, in most games, are going to be young men.

Because of this imbalance, there are a number of players who would jump on the chance of winning over their new internet girlfriend. Women in MMOs will be given free items, money, experience, and will be treated above other player in some situations.

Because of this, there are also male players who will play female characters to get free stuff. So even in the pool of "female" players, only a fraction are actually female.

Some female gamers will avoid letting off their true gender to avoid this shitstorm of nerdloves.

In the end, I couldn't care less, I hoard all my money and items anyway.

Right.
If a woman plays a male character, then is revealed in voice chat to be her true gender, did players view her differently?
Were known males or females discriminated against (or favored) in certain ways?

Also, what game are you describing, just for my notes....

It's completely true that if the players think you are female you are usually given what you could define as special treatment. I've proven this myself several times, especially with a new game. I always create females characters (I'm a male myself) out of habit. (Not to get free stuff mind you, though that was always a nice bonus...)

And, at least at the time, if they saw a female character, they assumed a female player, and basically became a kiss-ass giving you items and whatnot.

Even now, several years after I started with the female characters, the same thing holds true.


On a different note, if you happen to dress your toon in...less then adequate clothing. (Think things that don't leave anything to the imagination) as is becoming increasingly easy in modern MMOs, then the opposite effect takes place. They see that scantily clad female, and come to the conclusion that the player is male now, as no female would willing dress like that, right?

It's quite funny really, and I have noticed this myself, as I've been playing MMOs for a number of years now.

In all honesty, that sort of thing isn't too common anymore, with most guilds and groups of players using VoIP and so forth, the whole gender thing becomes a moot point, and people stop focusing on it as much.

I agree on a lot of your other points, but this one stands out.
On VoIP, once sex is known (or assumed due to voice tone), are players discriminated against?
What kinds of slurs, if any, are used? Are words that demean either gender thrown around casually?

Hey Gizgal :) I've played WoW since it came out, and also guild wars. Just as stenta wrote, women usually are favored by the community and receive free items because of it. If a woman plays a male character and it's revealed shes a woman, people do generally tend to change the way they act around her--However it varies from person to person. Sometimes females ARE discriminated against, but usually in lame, sexist jokes. In guild wars more than WoW, Females are generally given lots of gold (the currency) and helped level up a lot (One of my friends was a girl who played, and she got carried through half the game, if your wondering my main source for that.)

I'll reveal to anyone who asks what my gender is, but usually if I'm relaxed enough to actually use VoIP to chat with the people I'm playing with, then I've gotten to know them in game, or they are part of my guild.

In that case, some friendly teasing has happened to me, just joking around why I make a female toon and all that.

Truthfully, the majority of female toons in MMOs are guys, and most if not all the people who play MMOs on a regular basis know this already and don't even pay attention to it.

I'm sure there are people who made a big deal out of that, but I've yet to meet one who was seriously bothered by it.

Generally not. It really depends on how new people are, how close the group is.
A lot of the time, when you have friends playing as a group, if a server shuts down, the whole group moves to a new place. In groups like that, the only people who are discriminated against are outsides, the gender is irrelevant.

I've played a wide variety of games over a few years, but it's been the same group of people with me the entire time.

To the players:

- Do you pick a male or female avatar usually? Why?

- Do you feel a player's sex will determine their worth in team play? Be honest: if you are offered two players of equal class, rank, and level, with same equipment and all, etc, but one is female and the other male, who would you choose to have join your party? Explain.

For me, sex has nothing to do with it. If everything were equal, game-wise, level, gear etc. I'd choose either those I were more acquainted with, or those who had more experience running whatever we were about to do.

As far as I am concerned, gender has nothing to do with it, either with the avatar, or of the actual player.

I play on Female avatars generally. I personally just find that female characters in general have a more appealing look to me (Not necessarily in a sexual way).

I would personally choose the male. It's not a matter of sexism (I don't think, anyways) but in my experience, most girls playing MMORPG's tend to have a giant ego and think themselves better than everybody (Which is honestly a somewhat understandable thing, considering half the people playing will treat them special)
BUT, if I knew both of them, then I would just pick whichever I knew better.

Interesting answers.

Just a question, what gender are you irl, respondents?
If male, do you consider your inherent male privilege ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Male_privilege )to be present online as well (if you are not blind to it in general)?

I am a male.
To be completely honest, I would say the male privilege is generally non-existant
when it comes to MMO's. Although there may be occasional favoritism/discrimination, if anything, females are generally given favoritism (Once again, in my experience, anyways.)

Either I've never noticed it, or I'm blind to it.

Honestly, I rarely play with females, simply cause there aren't as many as there are guys. But the couple (Maybe ten altogether) That I play with were never placed above or below me simply cause of gender. If Ms. Whatshername over there is better then I am at whatever it is we're doing, then she'll go instead of me, and vice versa.

It's been a really loooooooooooong time since the last time I played any MMO (I remember the last time I played was when I was in highschool, so... 2003 maybe?).
Can anyone tell me how is the development of today's MMO? Kinda interested here.

Recently all of the games I play are gender locked so there really isn't much of a choice for me. Though in S4 League, I play as female characters because they are visually more appealing and rumored to have faster speeds while using the countersword. Males only get the good looking clothes out near lvl 20. Sometimes I make characters according to what gender they are on the promotional art or what I name my characters as. For instance I'd never name a male character Hyakkaryouran nor would I ever name a female character GaonGenocider. Even so in all of my experiences while playing as a female character, I have never received special treatment in anyway. For some strange reason people tend to think I am female even when I play as a male character. Must be my virtual speech habits -_-

I still play WoW to be honest. I am an officer in my guild and a fellow officer is a female. She might get treated differently outside the guild, but inside she is just like one of the guys. Sort of. We are almost always on vent and I still make perverted jokes that I normally would with guys. She is a very confident woman and doesn't act all "girly" and sensitive about it. She jokes around all the time about how worthless and unmanly I am too. She also yells at idiots in our guild a lot.

MMORPG = Many Men Online Role Playing Girls

Back on to a serious note.
-From my experience, Players tend to act nicer to female characters. In some chances I tried playing as female characters and "acted as female as I can" and most of the time I got more help and it was easier to join groups, compared to when I was playing a Male character. And in the past, I also tend to be nicer to female characters if they act what I think is "girlish/feminine".
-I don't think those stereotypes can really work IRL, since there's no anonymity IRL.
-I honestly don't like when Class/Jobs are forced into genders. For example from DFO, I always wanted to use the fighter, but the only gender available is the female, and I want to use a male character as my avatar.

Ah, from my experience playing MMO's with my sister, when they know that the female characters are controlled by a "real" female, somehow the nice treatment level doubles.

This really needs more research. Good luck on the research Gizgal, (I'm also doing a College research about Online games, with Consumer Behavior)

Myself, I always prefer to use Male characters, since it's supposed to reflect myself.

I've been active on quite a few Ragnarok servers over the years, and even been to one rather active Roleplaying one that I was not aware was a dedicated-RP server until I joined (guess I should read more, Haha.)

Anyway, point is their "dedicated" RPing ended up delving a lot into couples cybering all over the place, and even having an open area where people were flirting and cybering. Immediately I questioned if any of them had any idea of who the person was in front of the screen. There were several occasions where I played as a female character, and some of my reasons actually were related to the game mechanics changing pending on your gender (e.g. Dancer classes).

Aside from that sever, I've seen other characters with female avatars that type with their smilies and their <3s and what not who are asking for items and what not like a... well, a prostitute. I can't help, but feel like a great deal of the community are guys. That isn't to say there isn't girls playing RO, but if one were to take the statistics of male to female avatars, I'm willing to bet my life that it doesn't match the actual statistics of male to female players.

That said, I'm not so much complaining because I've done it too. The handful of times I've played as a Dancer, or a Gypsy or a Wanderer, and have had male avatar characters come up to me, I have sometimes led them on, particularly if they are the ones who start treating me as though I were a female. >.>