There seems to be a trend at the moment of female-related gaming articles going out, be they “Boobplate” references, female rights in gaming, even how to make gaming more accessible to the fairer gender. Keeping with theme, here’s something with a little twist to it.
There often comes the occurrence when you are playing a video game and you see a female avatar, and a guy playing it. Many of you are very susceptible to wondering why this is the case, so I will go rather in depth on the subject to the best of my ability.
I am going to show various quotes on the topic, from sources on The Escapist Forums for reference material. I found it to be quite the discussion.
Reason One: Aesthetics
I won’t lie, as a male gamer the often over exaggerated female forms in video games are, more often than not, very pleasing to the eye. Many a game developer tries to make their games more pleasing to the eye, and often it works for their characters and avatars too.
If we take a well known series for example; say, World of Warcraft.
What would you rather stare at the back of, with a /played of 30-100 days?
I can see the logic behind it.
Reason Two: Game Mechanics
More often then not in most fighting games, the male counterparts have the strong combinations–and the females tend to have the faster styles and some funky acrobatics, for some reason. Again, this depends on moods, and play style and character preference over anything. There is very little psychology behind this reason other than: “I want to play a fast character.”
Although the video is relevant, the song in it is scaring me.
Next Part! *Runs from video*
Reason Three: Psychological Warfare
Well, we all know this reason. There seems to be some sexist stigmata held by those in the gaming community that say women are bad at playing games (Yesterday on Black Ops I saw a gamer-tag similar to “Rud3 Girl” get top score on my team!) And because of this, when a male plays a female, he’s assumed, whether consciously or not, to be a girl. Because you see that female avatar, your mind, as programmed, thinks “female.” Until you tell it that a man is hiding behind that character, and that’s if you even know that a man is playing that avatar. So when that person beats the living bejesus out of you–immediately: “Lol, you just got beat by a girl.” Perhaps it’s sexist and a view I don’t agree with, yet to some extent, I find it hilariously ironic. In this example, a player’s sexism is deliberately being exploited and used against him! In some cases I have witnessed voice changing software from my friends on XBox Live and all manner of things to exploit this.
And I’ll be honest, It’s freaking hilarious to watch.
But if you are prone to offense over some disgusting topics, do not watch this. Else-wise, this video had me on the floor.
Reason Four: Exploitation
Now then, I added this one after psychological warfare, as it is a similar topic. In many games, especially MMOs there are different kinds of people, but the one I am going to address now is that 15 year old basement dwelling antisocial type of guy who’s never encountered a girl in his life. Perhaps I could have explained that better, but trust me, you get some seriously desperate guys online. How do I know this? The girls I do know who play WoW are often getting whispers of; “Will you go out with me (despite not even knowing your real name)?” or “Cam?” and other similar strange things that you wouldn’t say to a girl you’ve just met in real life unless you were a sociopath. These guys are so desperate, it opens up a market. In the past, on a female avatar I had (Blood Elf healer on WoW), I was getting whispers myself. The best part of it is, the majority of the daft guys out there will do anything for that attention from a girl, so much so that I had one man buy my G.I.R.L a Mechengineers Chopper that I didn’t even ask for! That’s 16,000 golds worth of awesome on my server, and as it was The Wrath of The Lich King Expansion, it was worth a lot more than it was now. The amount of gifts you get from desperate guys is insane.
The best part was, I never told them I was a girl, or even a guy. I simply didn’t bother correcting their assumptions. But oh, it gets better. If you have read my previous articles, you’ll likely know that I am somewhat a troll and a half. You can only imagine the reactions of these guys after all that. The best part is, I didn’t have to lie. Their assumptions had them lying to themselves. so when I did come out after they had bought those things, Their reaction was priceless! Probably some of the best trolling days I have had as an MMO Gamer.
Reason Five: Escapism
This is by far probably one of the easiest to explain by far of all of the categories. Often many a time people play video games as an “escape” from real life. For example, you come home from work, knackered, tired, and you just want to sit down and get away from it all. So by playing as the complete reverse of what you are, it is almost as if you are completely forgoing reality by being that female character. Thus, more escapism by being that little bit further from the truth.
I.E “I am a man in real life, but if I play a female avatar it doesn’t relate to me and my life in any way, Thus it is a completely immersed escape.”
See how that works?
Reason Six: Relation
It’s no secret that some men are more feminine than others, some are homosexual, others just a little camp. I’ve met and enjoyed the company of quite a few men who bat for the other team–who play female avatars because that’s the best reflection they believe of themselves, or in other cases to escape from the reality of being a man for a set period of time with all of these expectations of what men are. Instead they go into a game world where they can act how they feel behind a female avatar and not have other people perk brows, question, make them feel self conscious or alienate them. In-game, if you see a female avatar chatting up a man, you’d think little of it, right? Because woman + man = natural. It’s just a way of these people to act how they want to without being penalized for it by homophobia. That’s exactly the reason I endorse this, although I would prefer to have them play as a man and know they swung that way as I don’t like being lied to, but I understand this can be a reason for them to express themselves in ways they would likely be judged for in real life.
So, there is an article on reasons men play as women in gaming. There are hundreds more. Hundreds against them too! I just thought I’d elaborate as to why people do these things. Now you know the most common reasons!
