June 2003

• Damage and Stuff (Math and Code) Ben Chambers
• MMO Launch issues ruining potential segments of the market. Derek Licciardi
• • MMO Launch issues ruining potential segments of the market. Mike Shaver
  • • MMO Launch issues ruining potential segments of the market. Mike Shaver
  • MMO Launch issues ruining potential segments of the market. Daniel Anderson
  • • MMO Launch issues ruining potential segments of the market. Matt Mihaly
    • MMO Launch issues ruining potential segments of the market. Luca Girardo
    • MMO Launch issues ruining potential segments of themarket. Ron Gabbard
  • MMO Launch issues ruining potential segments of the market. Chris Holko
  • • MMO Launch issues ruining potential segments of the market. Matt Mihaly
    • • MMO Launch issues ruining potential segments of the market. Daniel.Harman@barclayscapital.com
  • MMO Launch issues ruining potential segments of the market. Justin Coleman
  • MMO Launch issues ruining potential segments of th e market. Daniel.Harman@barclayscapital.com
  • MMO Launch issues ruining potential segments of th e market. Jeff Fuller
  • MMO Launch issues ruining potential segments of the market. Matt Mihaly
  • • MMO Launch issues ruining potential segments of the market. Tess Snider
  • MMO Launch issues ruining potential segments of the market. Luca Girardo
  • • MMO Launch issues ruining potential segments of the market. Tess Snider
    • MMO Launch issues ruining potential segments of the market. Matt Mihaly
    • MMO Launch issues ruining potential segments of the market. Jeff Fuller
    • • MMO Launch issues ruining potential segments of themarket. Chris Holko
      • • MMO Launch issues ruining potential segments ofthemarket. Scott Jennings
        • MMO Launch issues ruining potential segments of the market. Jeff Fuller
• New Column by Dave Rickey "Engines of Creation" Now at Skotos Christopher Allen
• Announcing Shadow Door: an NPC Control Interface for Neverwinter Nights Robert Zubek
• ADMIN: So, what has been happening? J C Lawrence
• [Meta] Forward of moderated message J C Lawrence
• New Here MIKE MacMartin
• • New Here Mike
  • • New Here MIKE MacMartin
    • • New Here Miroslav Silovic
      • • New Here MIKE MacMartin
• Looking for a GUI Mud Development program Snicker Furfoot
• • Looking for a GUI Mud Development program Ben Greear
• ADMIN: List archives are now restored. J C Lawrence
• The Price of Being Male Rayzam
• • The Price of Being Male Sasha Hart
  • The Price of Being Male Daniel.Harman@barclayscapital.com
  • • The Price of Being Male Rayzam
    • • The Price of Being Male Byron Ellacott
      • The Price of Being Male Dr. Cat
    • The Price of Being Male Castronova, Edward
    • • The Price of Being Male Boyle, Paul
      • The Price of Being Male Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes
      • • The Price of Being Male Rayzam
        • • The Price of Being Male Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes
          • • The Price of Being Male Rayzam
            • • The Price of Being Male Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes
        • The Price of Being Male Marian Griffith
        • • The Price of Being Male Paul Schwanz
          • • The Price of Being Male Rayzam
            • • The Price of Being Male Paul Schwanz
              • The Price of Being Male Vincent Archer
              • • The Price of Being Male Rayzam
        • The Price of Being Male Castronova, Edward
        • • The Price of Being Male Sasha Hart
          • The Price of Being Male Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes
          • • The Price of Being Male Amanda Walker
          • The Price of Being Male Richard A. Bartle
            On 01 July 2003, Edward Castronova wrote:
            
            > you know, here's one thing i haven't heard from any man in this
            > discussion, here or elsewhere: "Your study is wrong. I like
            > playing female avatars. Being female is more fun and less hassle."
            > Some have said they like playing females to look at the avatar's
            > nice-looking body. Others have said females get gifts and are
            > groups, so they should be better off. But no man has said that
            > they actually do play a female avatar because, on the whole, they
            > like how gameplay is when you're female. But quite a few women
            > have said that about fronting as male.
            
            There's a survey by Katherine Wright at womengamers.com that looked
            into the reasons that men play as women in various games (including
            virtual worlds).
            
            http://www.womengamers.com/articles/gender.html
            
            It's not extensive (she only had 33 full respondents, with another
            31 partials), but some of the responses are along the lines of ones
            you say you haven't seen. Players often cited several reasons for
            playing as a female character, with gameplay advantage way in the
            lead at 60% (presumably from the non-MMORPG players). So just
            because you haven't heard any man say he plays as a girl for
            gameplay reasons, that doesn't mean other people who've cared to
            look haven't.
            
            Other answers (remember they could give more than 1 each, so this
            adds up to more than 100%) were:
            
            - 16% played as female because other players give them goodies
            
            - 11% did so to get a psychological edge over male players
            
            - 25% did it because it added to the roleplay experience
            
            - 19% cited gender exploration as a reason
            
            - 23% liked the visual stimulation (ie. sexual aesthetics)
            
            - 14% preferred the modelling (ie. non-sexual aesthetics)
            
            - 13% felt it added variety
            
            - 6% preferred the sounds female characters made
            
            - 6% did it because they were entertained by the reactions of male
            players to them
            
            - 6% did it because once they started it became a habit.
            
            OK, so Wright's not a huge survey, but nevertheless it does show the
            kind of reasons that some guys like to play as gals.
            
            The second part of her survey has some interesting results
            concerning how the role-players themselves are perceived
            (eg. sexuality) http://www.womengamers.com/articles/gender2.htm but
            it also includes a question about whether those men who play as
            female characters consider the treatment they get to be better or
            worse than when they play male characters. Again, this goes against
            the hearsay evidence that is typically bandied about. The results
            (for RPGs only):
            
            - 45% said that female characters are treated better than male
            ones
            
            - 21% said there was no difference
            
            - 9% said they were treated both better and worse, depending on
            who's doing the treating
            
            - 3% said they were treated worse as female characters than as
            male ones.
            
            You also mention that "hassle" might be a factor in why people
            switch gender. This is indeed the case, but it's nowhere near as
            important as people seem to think. Women aren't, in general, hounded
            into playing as male characters because of the chauvenistic
            behaviour of male players. When they play as male characters, they
            do so mainly for other reasons.
            
            Here's the evidence...
            
            The Roberts & Parks paper I referred to earlier in this discussion
            also had a section on why people say they cross-gender play (in
            MOOs, with roughly 50/50 gender split between respondents).
            
            For current gender-switching players (again, split roughly 50/50
            along biological gender lines), they found:
            
            - 24.0% said it allowed for more role-playing possibilities
            
            - 13.5% were curious about gender
            
            - 12.5% said it was fun
            
            - 7.3% did it to avoid sexual harrassment
            
            - 7.3% saw it as a challenge to their role-playing skills
            
            - 5.2% did it for sexual fantasy reasons
            
            Note that this does not mention gameplay at all, but then since it
            concerns social and role-playing MOOs that's perhaps not entirely
            unexpected. What's interesting from the point of view of our
            discussion is that only 7.3% of respondents cited harrassment as the
            main reason for playing a character of the opposite gender. Even if
            all of these were female, it would mean that fewer than 15% of women
            who switched gender did so because they were being harrassed. This
            is still 15% too much, of course, but the point is that it's not a
            key reason why women play as men; sadly, this doesn't stop it being
            reported as such anecdotally.
            
            OK, so these surveys don't reduce the probability that your
            examination of avatar prices indeed accurately reflects attitudes of
            sexism. However, it does suggest that the defence you gave (that I
            quote in the first paragraph above) is inadequate.
            
            Your paper produces good, hard evidence that there's something odd
            going on with avatar prices, but the anecdotal evidence being
            provided in the rush to furnish an explanation that favours one
            particular interpretation of this evidence is obscuring your
            original accomplishment.
            
            Richard
          • • The Price of Being Male Castronova, Edward
            • • The Price of Being Male Richard A. Bartle
          • The Price of Being Male Tazzik
          • • The Price of Being Male Richard A. Bartle
            • • The Price of Being Male Tazzik
      • The Price of Being Male Richard A. Bartle
      • • The Price of Being Male Marian Griffith
        • • The Price of Being Male Sasha Hart
          • • The Price of Being Male Tom
            • The Price of Being Male Marian Griffith
            • • The Price of Being Male Sasha Hart
              • • The Price of Being Male Marian Griffith
                • • The Price of Being Male Sasha Hart
          • The Price of Being Male Richard A. Bartle
        • The Price of Being Male Castronova, Edward
        • • The Price of Being Male Richard A. Bartle
        • The Price of Being Male Daniel.Harman@barclayscapital.com
      • The Price of Being Male Paul Schwanz
      • The Price of Being Male Daniel Anderson
      • • The Price of Being Male Travis Casey
        • • The Price of Being Male Paul Schwanz
          • • The Price of Being Male Travis Casey
          • The Price of Being Male Chris Holko
          • • The Price of Being Male Travis Casey
            • • The Price of Being Male Sanvean
              • • The Price of Being Male Sasha Hart
                • The Price of Being Male Tom
                • • The Price of Being Male Sanvean
                  • • The Price of Being Male Tom
  • The Price of Being Male Paul Schwanz
  • The Price of Being Male Amanda Walker
  • The Price of Being Male shop@isparkinson.co.uk
  • The Price of Being Male Boyle, Paul
  • The Price of Being Male Ola Fosheim Grøstad
  • • The Price of Being Male Sheela Caur'Lir
    • • The Price of Being Male Jeff Crane
• Are gold pieces taxable? Koster, Raph
• • Are gold pieces taxable? Boyle, Paul
  • • Are gold pieces taxable? Amanda Walker
  • Are gold pieces taxable? Thomas Leavitt
  • Are gold pieces taxable? Daniel.Harman@barclayscapital.com
• Functors / Loki (was: New Here) Eli Stevens
• Architecture Peter "Pietro" Rossmann
• • Architecture Peter "Pietro" Rossmann
  • • Architecture ceo
    • • Architecture Peter "Pietro" Rossmann
• SW:G this is so unfair Marian Griffith
• • SW:G this is so unfair Marc Bowden
  • SW:G this is so unfair Martin Bassie
• Players policing themselves (was: MMO Launch issues ruining potential segments of themarket.) Derek Licciardi
• • Players policing themselves (was: MMO Launch issues ruining potential segments of themarket.) Marian Griffith
• Q&A with Ken Troop, Lead Designer at Turbine Michael Tresca
• • Q&A with Ken Troop, Lead Designer at Turbine Threshold RPG
  • • Q&A with Ken Troop, Lead Designer at Turbine Mike Shaver
    • Q&A with Ken Troop, Lead Designer at Turbine Chris
• Architecture (Cell Rebalancing) Peter "Pietro" Rossmann
• • Architecture (Cell Rebalancing) Zach Collins {Siege}
  • • Architecture (Cell Rebalancing) Peter "Pietro" Rossmann
  • Architecture (Cell Rebalancing) Daniel.Harman@barclayscapital.com
  • • Architecture (Cell Rebalancing) Peter "Pietro" Rossmann
    • Architecture (Cell Rebalancing) Rossmann Peter
    • • Architecture (Cell Rebalancing) ceo
      • • Architecture (Cell Rebalancing) Peter "Pietro" Rossmann
        • • Architecture (Cell Rebalancing) J C Lawrence
          • • Architecture (Cell Rebalancing) Peter "Pietro" Rossmann
            • • Architecture (Cell Rebalancing) J C Lawrence
          • Architecture (Cell Rebalancing) Rossmann Peter
        • Architecture (Cell Rebalancing) Rossmann Peter
        • • Architecture (Cell Rebalancing) J C Lawrence
          • • Architecture (Cell Rebalancing) Peter "Pietro" Rossmann
      • Architecture (Cell Rebalancing) Daniel.Harman@barclayscapital.com
      • • Architecture (Cell Rebalancing) Peter "Pietro" Rossmann