Majority of women, men swap gender in MMOs

Smirk all you want at Eddie Izzard, but keep in mind that some of your closest gaming cohorts are likely e-transvestites, if they're in to MMOs. A recent study called Gender Swapping and Socialising in Cyberspace revealed that 70 percent of women and 54 percent of men swap their genders when playing online games. For men, it's reportedly a way to get special treatment from males. On the other hand, women prefer to play as men so their characters aren't so frequently distracted by handbag sales and America's Next Top Model marathons. We kid.

For our part, we play World of Warcraft as a gnome warlock who looks exactly like former presidential hopeful Dennis Kucinich. His name is "Kucinich." ... We have no idea what that says about us.

[Via MEGATONik. Thanks, Zizzy]

Reader Comments (64)

i don't believe the scale of these statistics. every single girl i've ever played an MMO with played as a female character, and about 90% of the guys played male characters.

So just because your situation is different you say you don't believe it? These studies usually gather more input than what you have in front of you. Plus, what you say doesn't rule out that they haven't chosen or enjoyed it in the past.

Anyway: "A self-selecting sample of 119 online gamers ranging from 18 to 69 years of age (M = 28.5 years) completed a questionnaire."

So unless you questioned more than 119 people of various ages on the matter, I'd be more inclined to believe their results than yours.
_______
Now to go against my argument and say: I find that a survey of 119 people is a pretty shitty an inaccurate statistic really.

119 is hardly a large enough sample to form any conclusions, and if you think it is, maybe we should just poll 100 random people to elect the president.

I always thought it was lame that my geeky friends in WoW would all play as women... guess they just like watching digital buns running all over Azeroth.

That's because if you're gonna spend all your time watching your player run in the games universe, you may as well stare at the ass of the opposite sex.

I'm male, any game that lets me customise my character I always play as a female.

Not only that but due to a long term and, frankly, scary obsession I also endeavour to make that character look as much like Claire Danes as possible.

Study that 'scientists'.

I can't bring myself to play a female character in an MMO (I'm male). When I'm using said character to talk and interact with people, I'd rather it be my own gender. There's nothing creepier than turning on voice chat only to hear some dude in your guild say "Hey, I'm Sexyprincess." I can, however, understand how a female would want to play a male as to avoid some people. Let's face it, there's a shit ton of weirdos on MMOs.

There's nothing wrong with a guy playing as a female character in a MMO....unless its a roleplaying server. Then we have a problem.

I personally will only play as a male in MMO's. I personally feel as though on WoW, my character is pretty much my avatar to other players. They are seeing a character that represents me. And since I'm a man, I play a male character.

Remember people: when you cyber in MMOs, nothing is what it seems.

This is wrong. Of all the girl MMO players I know, not a single one has rolled a male char.

The guys on the other hand is a different story. Almost all of them roll female chars. Except me, it just feels wrong being a tranny.

I invite people to please remember to interprete data themselves instead of being fed the information.

The study posted a link in the off topic forums of Allakhazam, eqvault.ign.com, womengamers.com, and white-wolf.com. They pull their results from 119 subjects.

The "women only" website is going to affect results. Additionally, with a sample size that small, you have what's called a "margin of error." Bigger samples make for numbers that better reflect the truth. Additionally, how honest are people going to be clicking a link in an off-topic discussion forum?

the only game i would play as a female is FFxi to be a mithra.

I have one word for you:

Voicechat.

That will throw a wrench into this "do you like staring at ass" debate.

I did play as a girl once and got a major crush on me/my character from another guy. By the time I realized what was going on, I felt it was too late to tell him. It was a genuine relationship though. Internet is bendy that way.

Majority of women, men swap gender in MMOs

Reader Comments (64)

Posted: Mar 4th 2008 11:04AM (Unverified) said

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