The Proteus Paradox (14 page)

Even as gamers admit that some women play online games, these women tend to be labeled “casual gamers.” This euphemistic label designates someone as having a passing fancy with online games, and even though they are in an online game, they aren't a “real” gamer. Again, this label acknowledges women are present in games while simultaneously designating them as second-class citizens. A study of
EverQuest II
players challenges this assumption. Server-side game logs showed that women actually spent more hours each week playing than men, by about four hours on average. But women were more likely to underestimate their own playing time in the survey compared with men. While men underestimated by about one hour per week, women underestimated by about three hours per week. And women were also less likely to indicate plans to quit the game compared with men. The underestimation of playing time among women highlights the power of stereotypes, and these data points reveal the baffling irony of labeling the more frequent and loyal players as being “casual.”
¹⁰

For many women, from the moment they step into a gaming store to when they log on to the game, they are bombarded with signals that they don't belong. They are presumed to have no inherent interest in games. They are presumed to be incompetent at games. And they are assigned labels, such as “casual gamers,” that are disconnected from reality.

Because these fantasy online games are designed by male game developers to be consumed by male audiences, they are technologically constructed male fantasies in a very literal sense. And because this male point of view in the game industry is entrenched and largely unquestioned, the fetishistic aspects of these male fantasies have become largely invisible to male gamers. But they are very apparent to many women.

Back in 1999, when I had recently gotten a computer and an Internet connection, I was standing in Wal-Mart, looking at the game titles. The two MMORPGs at the time were Asheron's Call and EverQuest. I read the back of both boxes, and both looked fun, but I picked Asheron's Call because the art on the box left more to be imagined. The figures could have been male or female. The EverQuest box (Kunark, at the time) showed Firiona Vie, with her blonde hair, impractical armor, and gratuitous cleavage, tied down, while an Iksar brandished a weapon at her. I read into that—this is what women amount to in this game: victims. [
EverQuest II,
female, 24]

This male fantasy is about both how women should look and what their roles should be. The sexually exaggerated design of female avatars is a common complaint of women gamers.

The only really off-putting detail is that it's ludicrous that every time my elf fights, her breasts stick out to the side repeatedly. It is a constant
reminder to me that this game is made for 13 year old boys, or men who still think like them. [
World of Warcraft,
female, 42]

For the most part I completely agree with the generalization that video games are designed with the younger male in mind. It's very annoying to always see the same type of woman (hero or villain) who has giant breasts, large eyes and teeny tiny waists. [
City of Heroes,
female, 31]

The female players in these narratives make clear that female avatars are disturbing to them not only because of the sexual exaggeration but also because the avatars are a constant reminder that they have stumbled into some sort of digital peep show. As game designer Sheri Graner Ray puts it, female avatars are designed “as male players would like them to be—young, fertile, and always ready for sex.”
¹¹

One common male defense to this argument is that male avatars are exaggerated, too, and thus that the unfair treatment is equal on both sides. Although it is true that male avatars are exaggerated, it is in a very different way. In female avatars, the exaggeration tends to be sexual in nature—large busts, low-cut clothing, sheer or almost nonexistent pants. In male avatars, the exaggeration tends to center on strength or athleticism, not sexual features. Male avatars have unrealistically big muscles, yes, but we don't see male avatars with prominent bulges in their pants or tight stripper shorts that reveal the top quarter of their behinds, and most of their pants selections do not consist of briefs and thongs. In fact, as one female player noted, there is a very definite bulge problem in male avatars.

I find it somewhat disturbing that while the female avatars all have very prominent breasts, none of the male avatars have anything visible at the crotch at all. Their clothes are cut in a male style, but there's no “bulge” where things ought to be. If female avatars are made to approach some “ideally attractive” or “sex-specific” model, then male avatars ought to be the same, rather than being de-sexed. [
World of Warcraft,
female, 31]

Thus, even though both male and female avatars are distorted, very different features are being exaggerated. And if you are a heterosexual male gamer who is made even the slightest bit uncomfortable reading about prominent male bulges in thongs, then perhaps that gives a hint of what women gamers feel when they play a female avatar in most online games.

The sexualized female avatars also encourage sexual harassment. The immediate visual of a scantily clad, voluptuous female is the only point of reference available in the game of who another person is and makes it easy to attract unwanted attention.

One thing that pushes many women away (or in my case into playing a male character) is the ogling and cat-calls that can go on in games. I was astounded that people would hit on a cartoon in a lewd manner. [
EverQuest II,
female, 42]

Sexual harassment is something that many male players experience for the first time when they play a character of the opposite gender in an online game.

I never realized how irritating it can be to have to put up with unwanted advances. [
EverQuest,
male, 38]

I'm amazed how thoughtless some people can be, how amazingly inept men are at flirting and starting a conversation with a female, and how it really does take more effort to be taken seriously as a female versus a male. [
EverQuest,
male, 24]

The same piece of armor often looks different when it is worn by a male avatar compared with when it is worn by a female avatar. Not only is the armor tailored differently for the different body silhouettes, but in the case of many high-level or rare pieces of armor, the cutting and design may be entirely different as well. More often than not, male armor pieces tend to cover the body, whereas female armor
pieces tend to reveal the body. Oddly, this differentiation tends to intensify with the increased rarity or higher level of the armor. On the official forums for
Diablo III,
one female gamer articulates her concern over her high-level wizard armor:

I realize this is a controversial topic among many gamers—particularly male gamers who want female characters to look like prostitutes regardless of how the women who play them feel—but I've come here to post about the level 63 pants on a female wizard. . . . The pants are “crotchless” and have no thighs to them; they're essentially high-riding underwear with no pant around them but on the outer legs. I think I'd prefer just to wear underwear at that point. . . . I want to be a wizard, not a pornstar. . . . I don't even really mind the highly impractical stilettos on my demon hunter or the crazy cleavage on some of her cloaks, but Archon Faulds are just ridiculous sex shop attire.
¹²

Although this asymmetrical design has been in place for more than a decade—it has almost become an inside joke among gamers—there is an insidious logic embedded in this asymmetrical armor progression. As male characters level up and become more powerful, their bodies become better protected and covered. In contrast, as female characters level up and become more powerful, their bodies are uncovered and made more vulnerable. Thus, as women gain power, they are disempowered in another way. Unfortunately, this is the only logical endpoint of a male fantasy that uses female bodies as sexual objects to be controlled. Whether it is Firiona Vie chained and held at swordpoint or a powerful female wizard in crotchless pants—two visual references that bookend roughly twelve years of online games—the message is that all women, no matter how successful, are vulnerable sexual objects.

Perhaps the greatest irony of this male fantasy is that women are simultaneously highly desired and shunned. Idealized female body
parts are put on display and ogled, but the moment a real woman steps into an online game, her presence is deemed suspect and her body parts are questioned. Women are worshipped and idolized as long as they are not real; it is in this sense that online games reveal their function as a male fantasy. And perhaps another reason why games deny women access is because the male fantasy can be sustained only by presuming a male audience.

One caveat in this male territory discussion is that studies have consistently identified statistical differences between male and female gamers. In particular, many studies have found that women are less interested in the achievement and competitive aspects of games than men are. And in the interest of full disclosure, I've found and reported these findings in my own research. These data seem to suggest that a gender partitioning of games or game genres is sensible. But there's actually a wrinkle in these data.
¹³

In psychological research, two samples are “significantly” different from each other if the difference between them is greater than chance alone would predict. In psychology journal papers (and those in related social science fields using quantitative methods), the term
significant
is reserved for this statistical meaning; however, whether the difference is substantively meaningful is an entirely different issue. This is because the ability to detect differences is a direct function of the number of participants in a study. In studies with large samples, even very small differences can become statistically different. For example, in one survey of over a thousand
World of Warcraft
players, I found a statistically significant difference between players of the two factions—players who prefer Horde were on average 27.5
years old, whereas players who prefer Alliance were on average 28.7 years old—but this marginal age difference isn't very meaningful. Thus, you might have a statistically significant difference that is substantively trivial.
¹⁴

We can also turn the statistics of difference on their head and instead calculate the statistics of similarity. In my own data on gameplay motivations, the largest difference was found in the mechanics motivation (that is, rules and optimization), but even here the overlap between men and women was 67 percent. The average gender overlap across all the gaming motivations listed in
chapter 2
was 82 percent. The findings from another study of
EverQuest II
players show a similar pattern. Even though the difference in terms of how strongly men and women were motivated by achievement in online games was significant, the overlap was 70 percent. What these numbers show, when we look at statistical
overlap
instead of statistical
difference,
is that the majority of male and female players in online games actually like the same kinds of play. In fact, psychologist Janet Shibley Hyde has found this same pattern of gender similarity across a broad range of psychological variables outside of gameplaying. When we look at gender similarities instead of gender differences, we find that claims of dramatic differences between men and women are often inflated. Attempting to identify gaming motivations that appeal to the “female brain” might be attempting to solve a problem that doesn't really exist.
¹⁵

Not only are the gender overlaps large, but the gender differences are actually inflated at the outset. One danger of studying gaming populations (or any natural community) is that of bringing underlying biases into the data. The gender difference in achievement motivations is a good case in point. It turns out that age influences the achievement motivation more than gender; older players are much
less interested in goals and competition in online games compared with younger players. In fact, the relation between age and the achievement motivation dwarfs the gender difference. Age explains almost twice the statistical variance in this motivation compared to gender. It also turns out that, on average, women in online games are older than men by almost six years. Thus, when researchers compare the superficial gender difference without factoring in the age difference between men and women, they exaggerate the observed difference in the achievement motivation.
¹⁶

Moreover, women gamers are perfectly capable of saying what they want and don't want in a game.

I think that by marketing specific games for women, game companies are patronizing women and missing the point of the problem entirely. They don't need to make games specifically for women (games which usually involve shopping, or other stereotypically feminine things). They need to make current games less sexist so more women will be interested in playing them. Lots of women enjoy MMOs, FPSs [first-person shooters], and other popular kinds of games. But when these games give them the message that women are best when they're all T&A [tits and ass] all the time, they are not appealing. [
World of Warcraft,
female, 27]

There isn't really a concept of a “game for boys”: men I know play everything from Japanese RPGs to tactical simulations to FPSs, yet women are expected to
ALL
play The Sims, as if there aren't just as wide a variety of tastes amongst women as there are amongst men. [
Dungeons and Dragons Online,
female, 26]

As we've seen here, although there are numbers that show gender differences in gaming motivations, these statistical differences are often not as straightforward as they may appear.