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28 Sep 2007
Aurora Technology, a subsidiary of Chinese gaming company Shanda Entertainment, has frozen the accounts of all male gamers playing female characters in its King of the World online game.
The company said that all gamers who want to play female characters in King of the World will have to verify their gender via webcam before being allowed to create a female avatar.
It remains unclear how the verification system will operate, but commentators have already criticised the decision because it hinders one of the fundamental attractions of such games: the ability to be someone or something else.
Interestingly, the ban does not yet apply to women who play as male characters. According to reports around 17,000 accounts will be affected by the ban.
Shanda Entertainment is one of the biggest players in the Asian online gaming market, boasting around 460 million subscribers across a wide variety of games.
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Do you agree?
Bullsh*t
There's nothing wrong with playing around, i don't think someone playing as the opposite gender means that there's something wrong with them! mostly it's just to experiment and see what the other side's like, sometimes it to express themselves, or just because it nicer to look at one gender rather than the other, but ultimately who care what the motives are? The REAL complaint people have at the idea of gender-playing gamers is the idea of a man pretending to be a woman. it's homophobia/eonaphobia all over again- men feeling threatened sexually by the idea of a man acting outside what is socially acceptably 'male'. I doubt people have much of a problem with women gamers playing men.
Posted by: julia 20 Aug 2009
Either way
It seems to me as male gamers who create female characters may be in a bit of a identity crisis. Yes there is an appeal to being able to be someone you are not. That only goes so far. If you're into role-playing that's one thing, but if you are into gender-playing without any strategic purposes you need to see a psychiatrist.
Posted by: Male 07 May 2009