1CMM Forums: Genderplay

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   Today I came across a player in Planetside with a female avatar and a female name. When i talked to this player however it was clear he was anything but female. So out of couriousity I asked him why he played a female avatar with a female name.
After his answer which I won't mention here I searched some things online and came across a couple of articles online that dealt with the topic of girls playing games and genderplay.

As a woman who plays video games, I've had to think about gender in videogames, because it's so obvious that I'm playing in a boys' world.

This is especially true where everything from the environment (the marketing, the merchandising, the image of the industry) to the peripherals (the laughably phallic joystick, the original Xbox controllers which are way too big for my hands) are male-friendly. The attitude seems to be, "Maybe some women play our games, but we don't really know, and frankly, we don't care."

When designing characters, it's important to keep in mind the tension between identification and alienation, because the player is both actor and spectator. This is a good tension, it drives a lot of gameplay and innovation. Without identification, you create a game which has little emotional impact, little drama. That's okay in a characterless game like Tetris, but in games with characters, the characters should probably function as vehicles for something greater. Similarily, you need to allow some players some room for a certain amount of alienation. You want to preserve player identity. How many boys would have played Tomb Raider if they really felt that they were somehow taking on a feminine role? Maintaining distance is a way of being able to play characters who are not you, and being able to inhabit that genderspace comfortably, without the risk of a split personality. 
The issue of alienation/identification intensifies, I would argue, in an online multiplayer setting, because while in a single-player game you are free to experiment with multiple characters in private, in a multiplayer environment, the way others react to you is through your avatar. Therefore some people either take great pains to distance themselves from the avatar, or conversely, create avatars with which they identify very closely. I think these behaviors lead to some very interesting gender play in online environments.
I'm using the somewhat clumsy term "genderspace" because "gender" connotes an either-or, black and white proposition, and I think that we often see in games a more fluid range of gender construction, within prescribed limits. The way gender is programmed, incorporated, and manipulated describes a "gender space" - it defines a range for gendered experiences in four ways:
1. The environment around the character outside of the game: the marketing, the merchandising, the advertising. The image of the character, and how that character is described. The iconic legacy of that character, apart from the actual character as a function of gameplay.
2. The aesthetics of the character in the game. The character's appearance, movements, actions, voice, characteristics.
3. The programmatic aspects of the character in the game. The character's choices, other character's reactions, the encoded abilities and biases.
4. Character as avatar in a multiplayer environment - a special category: how other characters played by other people react to your character, and how you choose to interact with others.
A great example of failure in the marketing environment around a character is the Tomb Raider series - games which should have been breakthrough girl games.
I never played this game. It looked fun, and I was excited about having a female protagonist. Outside of fighting games there hadn't been a whole lot of games starring strong women. But frankly, the way this game was marketed and talked about totally turned me off. It was immediately clear to me that I wasn't supposed to identify with her. In fact it seemed to go out of its way to assure young teenage boys that they shouldn't identify with her, they should just ogle her. 
 It's not the fault of the packaging. Okay, so her breasts are lethal weapons, sure. But I like the cover art. It shows that she's strong, she's tough, she's an adventurer, she's solo - she doesn't need a man! She *pwns* with those guns, and she knows how to use them. What's not to like? 
But the hype surrounding Lara Croft was gross. The hype undercut her image as strong smart archeologist. The hype made her into a sex kitten. Where are her guns now? I rather think it demonstrates how immature gaming culture still was then, and is now.
The reviews and previews obsessively focused on the male gaze traversing her body more than the gameplay. That turned me off immediately. She's just a toy, to be played with, manipulated in an environement, not an avatar to identify with, a personality to inhabit. The message wasn't, "Hey, girls, an empowered woman to play in a game!" but rather, "Hey, boys, check out this chick's boobs while you lead her around a dungeon!" I consider this the great wasted potential of Lara Croft to transform the videogame cultural landscape.
Highly sexualized characters are not immediately a turnoff for females, though. It depends entirely on the context. For example, the notorious DOA: Extreme Beach Volleyball was shocking when I heard about it. I thought, "What the hell is this game?" 

But you know, it's an absolutely gorgeous game. It does a marvelous job of articulating characters. Their movements are fluid and beautiful. And it's totally transparent! It's a pin-up game - you can't argue with that. And as a pin-up game, it's an outstanding success. I've never played it, and I don't think it's very interesting to other women, but it's an honest game and I don't feel offended by it. It's silly, it's like a beach-bunny movie, a "men's magazine". The domain is explicitly for men, and that's okay. Nothing's wrong with it, even if there's nothing compelling to a female audience, either.
But lets place fact where it coincides with interest. Game Developers have been asking themselves for years the question of "How do we make females interested in our games?" Have you noticed all game avatars are exaggerated? All males are bulky muscular hunks while all females are supermodel material. While that may appeal to males I think it's a false pretence for a female. I personally want character customization. If I had the chance I'd play a character that closely resembled me 100% of the time. A somewhat petite, brunette without looking like I'm on my last life because I never eat complex.

In my opinion the concept of Genderplay is that a male will play any avatar or gender while a female really won't play anything but another female -arguably. I know I wouldn't play a male as I just don't feel comfortable doing it. But I also know that when I see a female avatar with a female name I will automatically assume the player behind that character is also a female whereas males are more skeptical. Point proven when you first saw "Isabel" running around your screen. Did you think female, or "mangina"?

What do you guys think of males playing female avatars? I know some of you do, why exactly? The entire topic of males/females and games interests me.