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No updates this week! Wish you all a Happy New year!

-D.Cass

As 2009 comes to a close I plan to get atleast the basic features of the site up and running for the new year.

Yesterday I finished off most of the About Us section outlining information about the site and added some personal information about me. As for up coming attractions for 2010 it’s my hope to unveil information about a new project I’m working on with my writer friend Chris Judd along with the public release of the RIN System developed by a former staff member.

-D.Cass

Sorry guys! No post this week due to finals. Expect a major content overhaul next week though…

-D.Cass

In an article posted on GameCareerGuide.com, author Daric Thorne attempts to shed light on gender and online gaming. Titled Reinforcing the Wall: Hegemonic Masculinity and the Ideal Self in Multiplayer Online Games, Thorne sets out to expose the seedy underbelly of these games where there is “…at the surface…an appearance of racelessness, classlessness, [and] sexlessness”(Thorne p4), but he finds deep down, hegemonic masculinity enforces gender roles on players.  Thorne does not present a balanced and complete view, relying too heavily on what he refers to as “virgin research.” (citation needed).  In this essay, I will explore how Thorne’s bias overlooks key player motives and aspects of gaming culture that, if understood, would lead to a different conclusion.

Thorne describes hegemonic masculinity as “a normative [social rule] system which encourages aggressiveness, strength, drive, ambition, and self-reliance. Structures which serve to reinforce these themes tend to have a string sense of patriarchy [Male Dominance] and may devalue women or characteristics [different than] … Masculine.” (Thorne p12)

To begin with, it must be recognized that Massive Multiplayer Online games (MMO’s) are adventure games.  Inherently, these games, by design, incorporate conflict and problem solving in an environment of co-operative and sometimes oppositional gameplay.  These two aspects are referred to as Player vs. Enemy (PvE) and Player vs. Player (PvP).  Thorne’s Blue vs. Pink analysis does not hold up well, because both styles of gameplay, though diverse, require and reward the qualities he describes as hegemonic masculinity traits.  In other words, it is a stacked deck.  Complicating matters, the fantasy hero archetype is what draws players to this arena of fantasy fulfillment, whether male or female.

Thorne stacks the deck further through biased selection of interviewees and player statistics. For example, his three selected interviewees all have something in common: their boyfriends or husbands were the primary factor as to why they played the game.  Out of a sample size of sixty, he fails to identify any female players who purchased the game at retail solely to play the game for their own reasons.  This would have given a more balanced view of the possible impact and motives of the female player, as well as more insightful commentary on Thorne’s perceived hostile gender environment.

Repeatedly, Thorne relegates gender-bender (player is playing an opposite sexed character) statistics to his own ends.  He admits that 60% of the player base (both men and women) do have alternative gender characters, but he annuls this amazing statistic by stating that only 15.5% use a gender-bender character as their main avatar.  Thorne offers no research or insights into why the players’ main characters might be the same gender.

This brings us to the issue of misunderstanding or not considering player motives.  I do not think these statistics can be understood accurately without considering motive.  For example, one possibility is that in a new game environment, players may carry out an idealized fantasy character in the new game.  This may be influenced by a new book series, movie, or even game advertisement that influenced them to consider purchasing the game.  It may also be, they simply choose a same gendered character because they might be reincarnating a character they have played in other games.  This might be especially true if their guild (a private gaming club) migrates to a new game as a group.  “Rerolling” their old character in a new world allows guild members to know who each other are intuitively.  Alternatively, they may be creating a digital version of their ideal fantasy self to role-play in the game world.  None of these ideas have anything to do with the hegemonic masculinity perpetuated in a game world the player has yet to step foot in.

“Instead of opening up new possibilities, men expect avatars that look like women to be real women and masculine avatars that look like men to be real men” states Thorne. It is interesting he uses the word the word “masculine” when defining men which he does not use when he described women in that sentence. Thorne fails to make the connection that maybe, when given an open world in which the game itself does not instill its own form of social norms through design or game mechanics, players bring with them the norms they’ve known all their life.  When presented with a clean slate socially, players revert back to what they know instead of exploring social avenues through their avatar.  Whereas Thorne sees an evil game world that traps players in an enclosed hegemonic masculine based world, I see a world that simply reflects back what players bring to it.  Unless game makers devise a genderless game, this is will be the reality.  Should they make a genderless game, players would lose a familiarity that is second nature and helps navigate the social norms of this world and the digital world.

In conclusion, much like the players who brought what they wanted into the game world, Thorne brought his own brand of view and took away just as much. In the end, I am not able to agree with his view because that bias keeps him from considering player motives and skews his selection of player statistics and data.

The beauty and curse of online social gaming is that the experiences differ player to player, and a person can take just as much away as they put in. Thorne’s essay is a good reminder of how subjective the experience can be, and it is not for everyone

-D.Cass