Role-playing games and their failure to escape from social subjectivity in their dealings with gender.

For many people the purpose of games is to escape reality. Specifically role-playing games have a focus on assuming the role of character different than the one the player lives in real life. The ability to choose the sex of one’s character in an online gaming environment removes the ability of players to look at one another and determine their sex visually. Players who are male can choose female characters and vice versa. This then challenges players to find other ways of determining the true sex of those around them. Although the nature of most online games makes absolute insight into the true sex of a player impossible, once a player’s sex has apparently been found it can significantly alter that player’s gaming experience.

There are many different gaming environments that allow varying degrees of freedom in the selection of sex. There are some games that allow total freedom to choose. In these games each character class (Mage, Warrior, etc.) has to ability to be portrayed in male or female form and there is no direct difference between the

It is hardest to identify gender in the games where sex is bound to character class. There are several variables in these cases: the priority of sex vs. class and in-character players. In these games gender selection may have no influence on a player but they may choose the opposite sex because they want that character class. In games like Diablo II on Battle.net many male players use sorceresses exclusively because of their character abilities. In this case the gender of the character has no significance to the gender of the player. However, in these same games gender can be a priority so high that it influences a player to select a class it might not otherwise play. In these games identifying the sex of player is the most complicated.

Many people in massively multiplayer online gaming environments are not concerned with the true sex of their fellow players. These players are focused on immersion into a fantasy world and are oftentimes referred to as ‘staying in character’. When a player stays in character it is more difficult to accurately judge their sex. They try to free themselves from the real world and act exclusively based on the online reality. For many players this means fully assuming the role of the opposite sex.

Regardless of how gender is identified or to what degree of accuracy it has been identified with, the alleged gender of a player will change the game for the players involved. In a world based on fantasy, assumption of characters and role playing, this goes against what most would state is the purpose of the game- to immerse oneself in a foreign world free from the real world’s subjectivity.

In those games that allow for total freedom, sex can be easier to identify but it is in these games that â

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