18 Dec, 2009
I don’t know how many guys play as female MMO characters. In truth, I don’t really care. But apparently I’m in the minority, for Chinese MMO King of the World is intent on clamping down on female impersonation by introducing a new Gender Identity System.
No, gamers wishing to play as a female character won’t have to lift their tops (or drop their pants) to confirm their gender. The Gender Identity System scans faces via webcam and then assesses whether or not you’re female. If it turns out that you’re a guy trying to play as a female – or if you’re a woman with unfortunately manly features, presumably – you’ll be banned outright.
Bizarrely, this intrusive – and kind of offensive – step has been introduced by Aurora Technology to make ‘females feel respected’. Can you understand why a guy playing as a female character is any more ‘disrespectful’ than me choosing a male avatar when I play? No – me neither.
Via Destructoid
Haha, that’s amazing….. and makes no sense.
Maybe the developers have had awkward egg on face moments during their play time whereby they are chatting up what appears to be a ‘sexeh ladeh’… whom turns out to be an obese balding man with a KFC family bucket in one hand and his laptop teetering on top of his belly.
That’s EXACTLY what I thought too!
wut….seriously is it THAT BIG OF A DEAL? It’s just an avatar. I mean I’m playing L4D2 and RE5 and I’m usually the male character :\
I’m with you guys I think the developer got burned by a dude he thought was a lady!
I play World of Warcraft and no matter if it’s a beautiful night elf chick, EVERYONE refers to every player as a ‘dude’. And they’re often right. It’s funny, though: While most people say “he” when referring to a chick character, people often treat the girl characters better than they do the guy ones. Psychology at its finest?
Interesting how when people try to “respect women more” they just end up acting more sexist.
What if I want to play as guy cuz I like his skills better? I don’t pick characters based on gender – I pick them based on skills, stats, and abilities. Although how good-looking a character is can also be a deciding factor. lol
But I enjoy playing as guy characters as much as female characters. I like playing as Leon S. Kennedy as much as I like playing as Mio Amakura. I wish they gave you more of a choice though. Like the Silent Hill series has you primilarly play as a male character(with the exception of 3) and Fatal Frame has you play as mostly female characters. I wish they would come out with one where you could choose the character to play as – “this guy” or “this girl”. That’s how I play Harvest Moon; one file for a girl and one file for a boy. Although I do appreciate Shibata and Kikuchi’s reason for using mainly women in the Fatal Frame series.
Looks like I won’t ever play King of the World. >.> Then again I don’t really care for MMOs anyway ^_^
That is really bizarre, but interesting. It would rather stink if you were a woman mistaken for a man by the webcam. I would be very displeased myself if that were to happen to me. Why it makes much of a difference whether or not males play as females in gaming, I don’t know. But apparently to someone it matters!