Online_Gaming_Gender_Issues

Online Gaming Gender Issues Anthropology 98 Trevor Nelson 14804722 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 sex, games, gender, player, players, game, character, male, female, class, women, selection, online, choose, world, true, play, identify, gaming, freedom, been, because, allow, total, role, real, player’s, one, once, men, influence, identified, gamers, ability, type