Reconstruction 6.1 (Winter 2006)
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Body Matters in Massively Multiplayer Online Role-playing Games /
C. Jason Smith
UO is somewhere I can meet new people and enjoy the company of friends.
UO is where I can fight mythical creatures to the death!
UO is the most exciting virtual space I’ve ever existed in!
UO is where I’ve made friends from all over the world!
UO is where I can be a virtuous knight, or an evil, treacherous mage.
UO is the place where I can be whatever I want to be.
—Anonymous Player quotes from the Ultima Online website
“This, perhaps, is what playing in cyberspace enables us to do; if we follow it to the end, if we immerse ourselves in it without restraint, if we externalize in it our imagination in its very inconsistency, the very fantasmic frame that guarantees the consistency of our (self-) experience can, perhaps, be undermined.”
—Slovoj Žižek, “Is it Possible to Travers the Fantasy in Cyberspace?”
<1> The virtual body is already here. Though not as “seamless” as the virtual body envisioned in cyberpunk literature and made popular in films like The Lawnmower Man (1992), hundreds of thousands of people in over 114 countries (“Visitor Center”) daily log into massively multiplayer online role-playing games like Everquest, Ultima Online, Anarchy Online, and Earth and Beyond. These massively multi-player online role-playing games (MMORPGs or MMOs for short)[1] combine the extensive rule systems of traditional role-playing games (or RPGs) such as Advanced Dungeons & Dragons with computer graphic technology and online chat. In these computer generated worlds, players interact with both textual messages and virtual bodies (called the “avatar”).[2]
<2> Unlike traditional RPGs, MMOs supply the player with a ready-made visual context. In most cases, the player must choose an avatar from a stock set of bodies and/or body parts. The avatar, which may be more or less detailed depending upon the game, serves as the visual representation of the character within the virtual world and the first line of contact between players. Gone is the brute physical presence of the other players, the bulky manuals piled on the kitchen table, the gem dice of various shapes, and the little lead figurines. The players of MMOs do not need to imagine their characters nor the created world they inhabit: these are supplied for them by the designers of the game. The players of an MMO must imagine each other sitting at a computer somewhere “out there” (if they imagine other players at all).
<3> The importance of the virtual body to these games is highlighted primarily by the centrality of the avatar to character creation. The selection of the avatar (the graphically represented character) is the central activity of character creation; and, in many cases, the group politics of traditional RPGs, where characters are often created in front of other players, gives way to individual choice. Thus, MMOs open the possibility to “cross-dress” online and perform “the Other” without the fear of social repercussion. After all, one player no longer has to “know” that Jack is playing “Galadriel” nor that Jill has created a macho male character named “Killdemall.” In fact, the pinnacle, if not the common practice, of good role-playing has always been the player’s ability to perform a character very different from her or his own personality and knowledge. In this respect, MMOs do allow the player a range of role-playing potential only dreamed of in traditional RPGs.
<4> Though I began playing Ultima Online (UO) from a nostalgic impulse to return to my misspent undergraduate years where my friends and I would play AD&D for days on end, it never occurred to me to play a female character until my wife, who at that time only watched me play, asked if I had ever tried playing a female. I guiltily created a female character that looked as much like her as possible, named her “Ximena,” and headed her off into the woods in search of adventure.[3] I quickly learned three very important lessons playing a girl: first, other players seem particularly interested in your “real” gender; second, other players (especially male) will give you things for free; and third, some men really hate women.[4] Not half an hour after I logged-in to UO as a female, a man at the bank was giving me gold (too much for my character to carry), armor (which was too heavy for her to wear), heavy weapons (she couldn’t use more than a dagger), food (enough to feed an army), jewelry, and fancy clothing. I had played a male character for months before and this had never happened. When I played a male, other players were generally nice if I asked a question, but they rarely just “talked” to me and seldom gave my character anything (though they did occasionally throw things on the ground for my character to pick up).
<5> The second thing that happened was not quite as pleasant, to say the least: as Ximena was fighting a virtual monster in the woods, another player approached, said “Hi,” killed her with a stab in the back, and performed a maneuver over the “dead” avatar which looked for the world like “humping,” while “yelling” (in all caps) “TAKE THAT YOU FUCKING BITCH.”[5] I was horrified. My wife was extremely upset to see her “namesake” assaulted. Suddenly, I had more firsthand knowledge about “being a woman” than I had learned in years of graduate classes in gender studies. My attempted detour into “escapism” landed me smack in the middle of feminist arguments I had spent years trying to understand.[6]
<6> Shortly thereafter, and much to my surprise, the real-life (RL) Ximena began to play UO (and, later, other games as well) and together we began to map out the gendered landscape of massively multiplayer online role-playing games. During our play, our characters have been killed by gangs of marauding thugs, received multiple proposals of marriage, gone shopping for clothes to attend dances in virtual nightclubs, and thrown huge parties in virtual houses (with cake and cookies and virtual beer that makes the avatars go “*hic*”!). And all the while, our characters played virtual “sisters.” Other players seem to think we are sisters in real life, and we don’t tell them any different.
<7> As these games are, by definition, role-playing games, my own performance of a female character is entirely within the ethics of the gaming environment. However, the possibility for ethical problems does exist. For example, some player run guilds admit only women players (verifiable by several pieces of identification sent through the mail). Though it would be possible to “infiltrate” a guild such as this by forging documents, to do so raises ethical dilemmas which I find too numerous to name.
<8> Ethical issues aside, confusing enough is the fact that my wife has even begun to refer to me as “she” when telling our online exploits to real-life friends.Through our online play we have begun to actively explore gender construction in every aspect of the game looking for the narrative these elements are, in Žižek’s terms, “destined to support” (93).Issues we have specifically begun to examine include: marketing, game access, character creation (selection of body and face styles, virtual sex, speciation as “other” bodies, physical attributes, starting professions), movement and “camera” perspective, skills and attributes, professions and experience, fame and rank, body language (clothing choices, chat and emote styles, chat poses and other social moves), and online marriages, as well as theoretical and psychological issues of player cross-gender identification and virtual embodiment. For this essay, however, I will examine two key issues relating to sex and gender in MMOs: character creation and in-game performance of the body.
Making Gender
<9> Starting a new character in an MMO can be a highlyconfusing affair. Generally, the player must negotiate several screens where she or he must choose the character they would like to create from a wide variety of options. These choices include some combination of profession, base physical and mental attributes, species and/or race, gender, equipment, clothing, political and/or religious affiliation, and “home town.” The ability of the character to perform any function is based on physical and mental attributes. Attributes are the virtual body rendered in quantifiable (numerical) form. Attributes are often based on the Dungeons & Dragons model of Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, Dexterity and Charisma with modifications appropriate to the particular setting: a science fiction game, for example, may want to include a “psionic” attribute so players can utilize ESP-like abilities. The attributes make up the “body” of the character in its expression through actions. Though we may not see a physical difference of size, for example, between two avatars on the screen, one character’s ability to bust open a door or wear heavy armor defines the character as being physically stronger. Players often boast about how strong (or smart, or quick, etc.) their characters are by using the actual number value. Physical attributes in the games are strictly objectified in a way that is not possible in the outside world. Some games allow different minimum and maximum attributes based on gender. Females may be, in general, not as strong as males, but they are quicker. Game designers argue that they merely wish to make the rules of the game fit as closely as possible to the observed world where the strongest man in our world is (currently) physically stronger than the strongest woman even though some women are stronger than most men. Of course, they seem to forget that magic does not work in the observed world and elves are a myth. Therefore, they merely uncritically replicate the cultural norms where physical strength is defined by traditional “feats of strength” based on the performance of the male body.
<10> It is understandable then, that many players go through lots of “test characters” before they fully understand the choices and find a character that suits their style of play. Despite their differences, however, all MMOs, make the choice of the avatar and its appearance (and thereby the virtual gender of the character) a central concern. Some of these choices have both a numerical and visual value. For example, “comeliness” (or “attractiveness”) may have a numerical value, say 60/100, which affects character interaction with non-player characters (NPCs). The NPC shopkeeper might sell their products cheaper to a “pretty” woman or give them more information than a less attractive character. Visually, however, other players might not be inclined to agree with the numerical assessment and might choose to ignore it altogether. In traditional RPGs, it was technically not possible to “ignore” the statistic: the Game Master (GM) or Dungeon Master (DM) was supposed to give the “pretty” player a statistical chance of using their looks to convince other players to have their characters do something they were not particularly inclined to do otherwise.
<11> In a sense, then, characters in MMOs have two bodies, the numerical and the graphic (what I am terming the “character” and “avatar”), which may be more or less in accord with one another. Thus, I may have a character who does not “match” with the visual representation. Further, the character probably does not “match” with my own abilities. I may have a character who is extremely stupid numerically (an I.Q. equivalent of “moronic”) who, nevertheless, is not role-played that way. For example, in UO, I play a character who is extremely unintelligent, having chosen to “spend points” on strength and dexterity instead. Her only restriction, however, is that she cannot use magic well. In this case, I have chosen to read “intelligence” as a skill rather than an actual I.Q. In fact, it is entirely possible in UO to “become smarter,” but at the sake of other attributes.
<12> This multiform (player, character, avatar) “variable body” questions the “fact” of biological deterministic narratives. Ultimately, the obsession with defining the body—how strong, how fast, how smart, how attractive—becomes in MMOs highly voyeuristic as players choose from the body options available to “build” a graphically represented body. In the UO character creation screens, for example, the choice of gender for the character is limited, predictably, to male and female. The male, appearing first on the screen, is the “base” choice—woman is the “other” choice indicating that the world is male unless otherwise specified. All bodies of the same gender are structurally identical, and it is not possible to change the face nor body shape or size. Hairstyle and skin tone are the only options for the base avatar beyond gender.
<13> Variation is possible, however: my wife created a short-haired Negroid female by mixing a female body with “receding” blonde hairstyle and darkening the avatar’s skin to a deep brown. Her racial performance is often commented upon (positively and negatively) by other characters in the game, a very few of whom have also constructed a “black” avatar. Though some of the hairstyles seem more appropriate to one gender or the other, both genders may choose from the same list. These choices include curly (which looks not a little like Don King), completely bald, two tails, long, “Princess Leia” double buns, and a receding style (actually a widow’s peak). Male avatars, however, do have the additional choice of several styles of facial hair, and the accompanying choice of hair color, that gives them more body range (which in part compensated for by the availability of “female armor” which only women can wear). Though a minor point, perhaps, I feel I must point out that the male, as usual, has to have that “little extra”—a difference by addition. After all, the female avatar does not have an equivalent secondary sex characteristic such as breast size and shape for example. One could argue that secondary sex characteristics for the female avatars are omitted because they are already there (the women do have breasts), or they are omitted because parents would view these choice as too erotic (or facial hair is a real-world choice for men and not women). All three cases, however, highlight an inherent societal misogyny expressed in the game. In the first case, the designers choose the “perfect” form in deciding appropriate breast size; in the second case the designers ignore the fact that bras which “lift and separate” or otherwise alter breast size and shape are widely available and visible in every shopping mall and department store (not to mention surgical alterations); and finally, the designers’ inclusion of the choice of beard, with no equivalent choice for the female, merely serves to give the avatar an additional outward symbol of virility.
<14> Additionally, the player may initially express the avatar’s individuality through the choice of a color scheme for their clothing, though “newbie gear” is quickly disposed of in the game. The very fact that this choice exists, and in such a wide variety (there are as many color choices for clothing as for the more permanent hair and skin color), belies the importance of outward expressions of personality in the game. Thus, the most essential choice in creating a character in UO, the choice which can never be changed for that character, is gender, while at the same time, gender is solely a social designation as no skills or attributes in UO are gender specific.
<15> In contrast to the minimal, almost unisex approach of UO, EverQuest (EQ) offers the full range of fantasy race favorites. The current species include Human, Barbarian (a large, thick-hipped human), Dwarf, Gnome, High Elf (a species apparently descended from Nordic models), Wood Elf, Half-elf, Erudite (a magical Negroid species), Iksar (a reptilian species), Trolls (whose females wear bark bikinis), Ogres, and Vah Shir (a feline species).[7]EQ overtly fetishizes the body by playing on fantasy art representations of voluptuous babes in skimpy, push-up amour and muscle-bound loin-cloth wearing men.[8] The extensive selection of races does, however, allow a broad spectrum of choice in body styles. The ability to additionally choose faces (also from a finite list) gives the avatar an individual body look.[9] One quickly learns in-game, however, that what seems like a wide variety of choices is actually minimal considering the number of players in the game and the popularity of some “looks”. After just a few weeks of play, all the faces are easily recognizable and players begin to rely on other indicators of individuality, most commonly the visible name or some identifying color scheme or rare piece of clothing. Perhaps most telling about the character creation screen is the high-tech voyeuristic performance of the avatar. Like a stripper on a spinning stage, the bodies “perform” for the player while rotating to afford the 360-degree view. Players “check out” different faces until they find the body and face combination they are interested in playing in-game. The fact that only those who purchase the regular updates have full access to all the bodies shown further emphasizes the impression that the player is “buying” bodies, or at least body options. In EverQuest, while the choice of gender is subsumed to the choice of species, gender choice does have an effect on the character beyond the appearance of the avatar:males and females of all species have different attributes (women characters, in general, are not as strong as men, etc.). Combined with the game’s tendency towards large-breasted, leggy females in skimpy clothing, EQ clearly adheres more closely to the traditional RPG attitude of “by men for men” about which many women computer gamers complain.[10]
<16> The science fiction MMO Anarchy Online (AO) offers the most interesting, and non-traditional, variety of body styles. Players start with a “genderless clone” whose body they supposedly “inhabit” and which is replaced with an identical copy after each “death” (strangely implying that the player, and not the character, is the soul). The player must then choose from the available four humanoid “breeds” to imprint on their clone body. To date, AO is the only game to work the choice of the virtual body (character creation) into the narrative of the game by adding an explanation for the necessity to choose a body: only your “soul” is sent to the new planet. In AO the choice of “body” is worked into the narrative of the game. New characters are “colonists” who will be implanted into a clone body which then, due to local regulations and “corporate policy” must choose a body type and political allegiance. Microsoft’s Asheron’s Call does make some attempt to explain the presence of the avatar in a “foreign land” (magical space travel), but does not incorporate the choice of body into the narrative. While clearly supporting the mind/body dichotomy by positing the “self” as independent from the body, AO also pastiches its own generic conventions: the “colonist” has to choose a body adapted to the world of the colony just as the player must choose an avatar to enter the virtual world. Thus, the line between player and character is blurred as the game posits the player as the character.[11]
<17> The currently available races in AO include Homo-solitus (a genetically altered hyper human who serves as the “norm” for the other breeds), the smaller punk-elf Homo-opifex, a cyborg breed called Homo-nano, and the Homo-atrox, a supposed epicene (genderless) breed. The Atrox (“designed” as a mine-worker) has a reduced mental capacity and no reproductive capabilities due to genetic manipulation and an excess of steroids. The possibilities for exploring gender and body issues in this context are innumerable. The science-fiction narrative allows the designers to support a narrative of evolutionary technology (through cloning and genetic manipulation) while at the same time questioning such technology in the internal politics of the game: it is a well-known “secret” divulged in the manual that the colonizing corporation Omni-tek has produced monstrous “accidents” which are loose in the world.[12] The inclusion of the epicene breed, Atrox, also begs questions of sex and gender. Why do the designers use the word “gender” for the Atrox instead of “sex”?[13] What is a “virtual sex”? As none of the avatars can really reproduce (virtual babies are not yet an option), what does it mean that the Atrox is labeled as such? Why does the first “genderless” being in a game look like a Nordic, male, bodybuilder gone whacky on steroids? The implied joke here on steroids and impotency (and even loss of reproductive organs) belies a preoccupation with sex and gender issues and makes AO the most gender-conscious, one might even say body-obsessive, of the games currently playable online. AO further fetishizes the body by giving the player the choice of multiple faces and hairstyles, which cover a wide variety of races in the Solitus breed. The player must also choose the avatar’s “Percent Body Fat” (ranging from painfully thin to fat) and height (10% taller or shorter than normal for the breed), making AO one of the most advanced in terms of body diversity.
<18> The number of body styles available to players will only increase as improved technology allows for faster internet connections and larger, faster servers to run the programs. For example, the most diverse body styles currently available are provided by Earth and Beyond (EB), a science-fiction space exploration game; however, EB also has the lowest use of the avatar as a great deal of play time is spent in a personal spaceship, thus the advanced body forms do not take up as much memory as few characters are using them at any given time. As we will see in the next section, however, the choice of the virtual body may be essential to the creation of a character, but how that body is played—how gender is performed within the context of world of the game—offers the greatest opportunity for examining the cultural construction of the gendered body.
Body Performance
<19> Playing an MMO for the first time can be a bewildering experience. Like a newborn, new players must literally learn how to walk by properly manipulating the keys and controls. Of course, playing an MMO is complicated by the fact that many of the other “people” you see are other players rather than computer-controlled non-player characters (NPCs), which populate traditional computer RPGs like Might and Magic. In fact, the new player can be easily overwhelmed by the sheer number of people and level of activity.[14] There are even several online comic strips devoted to the misadventures of characters in these virtual environments who never quite “get it” though they try really hard. One of the most well-known, the UO comic Ima-Newbie (Tryon), chronicles the exploits of Ima as he blunders his way aroundBritannia. One of the ongoing storylines in Ima Newbie is his on again off again love affair with Irma Dufus. That the strip features “dating” as a major theme echoes in parody players’ in-game experience of virtual relationships.
<20> All of which highlights the fact that playing an online character is not easy. In fact, I would suggest thatplaying an online character well is like playing Jazz piano well—improvisation is the key to the keys and the you don’t have time to think at all or hunt down every keystroke—you just have to know and the avatar acts like the piano sounds.[15] “Newbies” (new players) move erratically, running into walls, or stand, frozen in place, as they hysterically search the manual for the proper keystrokes which allow them to “speak” to other characters, and they may be trapped “in-game,” unable to find the exit command.
<21> Actual body movement of the avatar ranges from simple walking (usually holding down an arrow key or pointing the mouse) to more complex series of actions sometimes programmable by the player. The wider range of motion creates the possibility for more complex, and even transgressive, body performances. In UO, the first and least complex of the MMOs, avatars have been able to “bow” since the game first hit the shelves. Players, however, quickly adapted bowing into a wider range of motion including barfing, sneezing, “head-banging,” and the aforementioned “humping.” Other games (including EQ, Asheron’s Call [AC], and Ultima Online 3D) have a wide range of social actions including various forms of waving, cheering, laughing, and dancing. Some of these motions are clearly comical such as “the chicken dance” (AO) and “I’m a little teapot” (AC). AO currently has the longest list of social moves including several pre-scripted dance styles that can be combined in a plethora of ways to produce highly individualistic dances. I once saw a virtual table dancer performing for a group of male avatars who were “tipping” her in game currency. In none of the games currently online (in 2002) is true nudity possible. Revealing clothing, however, is another matter altogether, and AO boasts the largest selection of clothes including lingerie. The performance was created by interweaving a variety of social-moves including a “supplication” (inexplicably called the “apache”) combined with a “spin” to shake the avatar’s bottom in the other avatars’ faces. When one of the male players became rude, she pulled a very large machine gun on him, apparently out of nowhere. (The character generally has a storage space that is not visible on the avatar. This space, which can hold quite a few items, allows for the possibility of an apparently unarmed body to conceal a small arsenal “somewhere inside.” This invisible, impossible space is one of the zones of interchange between the character and the avatar. One occasionally hears a player comment on this effect as “pulling it out of your ass.”) While obviously a fetish performance, the simulated stripping may actually expose the performance it simulates: this is not a real strip bar, nor a real stripper, nor maybe even a “real” girl (player). Further, that the performance appears in the game at all illustrates some awareness that the strip club is also a “game” enacted ultimately by men (owners) for men (customers) with the female body as the means of exchange. The entrance of the phallic performance further highlights the actual exchange: as long as the male characters play the game properly, “she” will hide her phallus (the large machine gun) from them.
<22> Another issue in the case of AO is the gendered difference in some of the body moves. Both males and females can dance “Disco,” for example, but perform it differently (women dance “The Hustle” and men the “Saturday Night Fever”). Notably, the Atrox have dance versions of the gendered moves that support a body narrative not entirely based on the two-gender model.
<23> Due to the importance of the avatar in social communication, MMOs tend to have a complex system of body modifications to further individualize the virtual body. The most common modifications to the avatar are social and protective body coverings. These are typically items of clothing and armor, which may or may not offer some factor of protection as well. For example, UO offers a wide range of armor and clothing types, many of which may be dyed a wide variety of colors by the players themselves. AO even has a virtual haute couture fashion line that sells expensive, designer clothing in retail outlets. Other “perks” include hair dyes in a wide range of colors that include neon pink and purple and blue (UO), hairstyle changes (UO), masks (EverQuest and UO), designer sunglasses (AO), and body tattoos (AO). Thus, money buys individuality: the more virtual money the character has, the more the player can individualize the avatar.[16]
<24> The notion of property as not only the expression of individuality, but the creation of it, is further expressed in games where characters may purchase (or build) housing. In UO, for example, a character can purchase buildings in a wide variety of styles (depending on availability)[17] and decorate their hut or castle with an amazingly diverse selection of furniture, paintings, statues, and plants.[18] As creative in housing decoration as in other elements of play, some players even assemble furnishings from non-decorative items to produce an endless variety. Players can build an “aquarium,” for example, out of stacks of blue cloth and dead fish.The “recipes” for some of these items are available on the internet and some players even sell them, or their services (for virtual and real money), as “interior decorators,”[19] clearly a profession never anticipated by the designers. While houses help create the sense of character individuality and serve as the extension of the avatar, they do not create a complete illusion of RL: just as the avatar does not have a digestive system, the house does not have a toilet (though someone has no doubt figured out how to build one).[20]
<25> Physical motions and outward expressions of the body are, however, still limited even in the most progressive games. It is not possible, for example, for the avatar to smile, or wink, or even blink: though even at this writing Earth and Beyond has incorporated avatars who “breathe” even when at rest and which are capable of “moods” such as happy or angry indicated by an alteration in the avatar’s facial features. Players overcome the physical limitation of the avatar by using emotes. Emotes,verbal expressions of the virtual body inherited from chat rooms, are usually differentiated from speech-text by enclosing asterisks. Thus, for example, though the avatar cannot shrug its shoulders, the player can type *shrugs shoulders* or *shrugs* to give the impression of a bodily action. The range of emotes is only limited to the player’s vocabulary and imagination. Some emotes are standardized across the virtual community such as LOL (laughs out loud), ROFL (rolling on the floor laughing), and its extension ROFLMAO (rolling on the floor laughing my ass off). Even in games like AO where social moves are frequent, emotes still play a large role in diversifying “bodily” expressions.
<26> In-game chat, or textual “speech,” is the main indicator of the character’s virtual gender and, by extension, the player’s gender as well. The chat generally takes one or more of the following forms: over the head speech, a chat window, or an external chat service (like IM or ICQ). In game, it is possible to “whisper” and “shout” changing the range of your “voice” to include all those in a broad area or only the character leaning in to your virtual ear. Players can be highly creative in their “verbal” performance, establishing a clear, virtual personality for their character. Shibboleths abound as well: the best known example being the so-called “KoOL duDEs” who randomize capital and lower case letters and have alternate spellings of many words. Their association with a group is further marked by the sameness in their dress. In the case of UO they wear gray death shrouds and “skeleton helms.” Another, less well known grouping (though also more formal in its membership) is Bloodrock Clan whose members wear Orc (a humanoid monster derived from the fiction of J.R.R. Tolkien) masks and armor and “perform” the monster of their title by speaking “like an Orc.” In my own case, each of my more developed characters has a unique speech pattern filled with its (though I am tempted to say “his or her”) own speech artifacts—many of which I have never used out of the game. For example, one of my characters often greets other characters with “Hiya,” an expression I have never used at any other time. The same character also uses the words “cutie” and “sweetie”—as in “you’re such a cutie”— almost obsessively. These examples of “trademark speech” help define the persona of the online character and no doubt lead to the conclusion on the part of other players that I, the player, am a female. In this case, I am mimicking my perception of female speech (and, at times, of an admittedly stereotypical variety). But after three years of playing the same character, can we say that I am still consciously mimicking the feminine? Or, is it possible that the character “Ximena” is truly gendered female despite my (the player’s) gender? If the character “talks like a male,” the player is assumed to be male. If the character talks like a female, the player is assumed to be a female. Though there is an undercurrent of fear regarding the “cross-dressing” player, most players will apparently believe another player’s avowed gender—but only insofar as the character’s gender performance meets expectations.
<27> Occasionally, a player goes out of her/his way to explain that she/he is “really” one gender or another. Take, for example, the case of the character Nadia. Dressed in a matching pink beret and skirt with a white puffy top, Nadia stands by the bank in a major UO town. Opening her information sheet, however, reveals the following text “I know this is why you are looking at my profile, so no, I’m not really a female.” This player’s “confession” highlights not only “his” desire to avoid awkward speech with other male players, but also a more complex relationship between player and character. As he explains,“Nadia is the only female character on my account and by far the most enjoyable to play. It just happens that when I made this character, I had not intended to use her as one of my main characters.”[21] The confession (of the player’s supposed gender) is thus followed by an apology for the cross-gendered performance (it wasn’t intentional) at the same time it justifies that performance (it is enjoyable). What, exactly, is the source of the player’s enjoyment of the performance of the female avatar? Obviously the “enjoyment” does not come from the gendered performance itself as the “confession” is presumably intended to ward off suitors (and further to avoid answering the question “Are you a girl in RL?” repeatedly). But, the player does dress Nadia in a very “feminine,” and one might say nicely attractive, way indicating that some of the “enjoyment” is centered in the cross-gendered body performance. While we could focus on the voyeuristic elements of the performance highlighting the player’s “ownership” of the female character/avatar as the base for the player’s enjoyment (noting how he highlights that he “made her”) we might also indicate the player’s own performance of Nadia as gender transgressive, regardless of his confession. After all, if one does not check the profile, nor ask for the player’s gender, this individual does otherwise attempt to role-play Nadia as a female.
A cross-dressing confession: UO
<28> Compare Nadia’s profile with another character, appropriately named Jaded: “HEeyyyy my name is Rochelle [row-shell] What’s up? ya I’m a girl gamer and u better believe it! boys suck ok? ya ….hmm if you would like to icq me my # is 22723150 wooo!” Unlike Nadia, Jaded is dressed in only thigh-high boots and jewelry (the “underwear bikini” is standard). Further, she has a guild title, which proclaims her as “Playboy Bunny, COD.” In this case, the inclusion of the player’s supposed name, Rochelle, the correct pronunciation (even though “speaking” is not possible per se) and the indication that “boys suck” are all offered as evidence of the player’s female gender. Further, Jaded’s style of speech is typical of the “game grrlz” movement: female gamers with “in your face attitude” and (nominally) 21 st century feminist opinions who enjoy beating men at their own (computer) games.[22] The performance of Jaded is not atypical. Some female players apparently prefer to play the “sexy female” role. However, these players have received much flak from other female players who see their behavior as a serious threat to the goal of eliminating stereotypes within the gaming industry and gaming culture.
<29> All of these instances would seem to support the notion of an essential gender as most players do not believe that a player can sustain the role of a character of another gender for any length of time. However, considering my own experiences in playing MMOs and countless of hours of interaction with thousand of other players, I believe these complex “body” performances may result in the following: 1) a strong identification between player and a particular avatar, 2) an increased tendency for the player to view the avatar as a “person” in its own right, 3) an increased tendency for other players to view the avatar as a “person” in its own right, 4) an increased tendency for other players to think the avatar is a “true” physical manifestation of the player, and at the extreme, 5) the notion of a true, sexed body might be undermined. The same way that teenagers are presumably numbed to violence through television, alternate body styles and gender options may eventually become the societal “norm” due in part to the virtual performance of “other” bodies.
Gender Trouble
<30> Where the player of a traditional RPG sits and imagines her character—what she must look like, what she was wearing—existing in a world spun in word by the DM or GM, the player of the MMO sees the visual representation of the made world on-screen and, therefore, must try to imagine the player. I can now see what the character looks like—I can see the avatar and only the avatar—and am left only to wonder about the player.
<31> One effect of this distancing of players is that MMOs create a context where players can explore sex and gender differences by performing all genders without fear of direct censure from other players. No one is going to make fun of me if I choose to play a female as long as I play the role effectively; and even if they do so in game the psychological impact is much less than a direct face-to-face confrontation. That not all players choose to perform another gender, nor necessarily enjoy the experience when they do, does not negate the fact that never before have we had such an open and, at least on the surface, risk-free chance to experiment with the performance of other bodies and genders. In MMOs we can all do a little drag.
<32> The fact that players are invited to select a body (rather than being assigned one based on their RL sex) re-envisions “sex” as a possible “choice” rather than a biological fact. Likewise, the necessity for a verbal construction of gender (regardless of the avatar’s gender) further undermines the notion of the physical body as the origin of gender: a female player can play a male character without any attempt to conceal her real world gender and thus be treated as a female regardless of the physical evidence supplied by the avatar. These cross-gendered performances highlight the performative nature of the sex-gender system, ultimately opening it to critique with a wider audience than hitherto could have been possible. This potential for “casual cross-dressing”—or even interacting with the casual cross dressers—of a segment of our community clearly has the potential as a site for the interrogation of gender issues. After all, in the end, we are the roles we play.
<33> MMOs may further interrogate our notion of a unified body, a single physical unit, which contains the self. The body of the player comes into play through the fingers clicking the keys, the ears listening to the music and straining for the telltale approach of monsters, the eyes scanning the screen, the back that arching from too much sitting, all reminding us that we have another body somewhere “out here.” The feeling of hunger (weakness and growling stomach) is replaced with a visual input in the form of text “You are feeling very hungry” or graphic percentage (a declining bar of “stamina”). Satisfaction comes in the form of increased percentages, textual congratulations for treating your body well, and better performance. The fact that players can feel disembodied (out of full control, hitting the wrong button, etc.) implies that they can feel embodied while playing. As one player described the experience, “You have this intensely nagging feeling that your body is not working.”
<34> Soon, we may all have the nagging feeling that our bodies do not mean what they used to either.
Works Cited
Anarchy Online: Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game MMORPG. Funcom. 1999-2004. 25 Sept. 2004. http://www.anarchy-online.com.
Asheron’s Call. 2004. 25 Sept. 2004. http://ac.turbinegames.com.
Bloodrock Clan. 2004. 25 Sept. 2004. http://www.bloodrock.org.
Brunner, Cornelia, Dorothy Bennet, and Margaret Honey, “Girl Games and Technological Desire,” Barbie to Mortal Kombat: Gender and Computer Games. Ed. Justine Cassell and Henry Jenkins. Cambridge , MA : MIT Press, 1999.
Connerton, Paul. How Societies Remember. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UP, 1989.
Dungeons and Dragons Roleplaying Game. 2004. 25 Sept. 2004. http://www.wizards.com (Original Game design by Gary Gygax).
Earth and Beyond. Earth and Beyond Portal. 2004. 25 Sept. 2004. http://www.ebportal.com/index.php.
EverQuest. EverQuestLive.com. 2004. 25 Sept. 2004. http://eqlive.station.sony.com.
Grim, Julia. Grim-kitten.com. 2004. 25 Sept. 2004. http://www.grim-kitten.com/bleargh.html (Originally on the web as http://www.girlsgametoo.com).
Jenkins, Henry. “Combat Zone: Game Grrlz Talk Back,” From Barbie to Mortal Kombat: Gender and Computer Games, Ed. Justine Cassell and Henry Jenkins. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999.
Stratics Central: The Massively Multiplayer Network. 1995-2004. 25 Sept. 2004. http://www.stratics.com.
The Sims Online. 2004. 25 Sept. 2004. http://www.thesimsonline.com.
Tryon. ImaNewbie.com. 2002. 25 Sept. 2004. http://www.imanewbie.com.
Ultima Online. Electronic Arts Inc., 2004. 25 Sept. 2004. http://www.uo.com.
Visitor Center. Origin: Ultima Online. Electronic Arts Inc. 2004. 25 Sept. 2004. http://www.uo.com/ageofshadows/viscent.html.
Žižek, Slavoj. The Žižek Reader. Ed. Elizabeth Wright and Edmond Wright. Malden, MA : Blackwell, 1999.
Earth and Beyond. Earth and Beyond Portal. 2004. 25 Sept. 2004. http://www.ebportal.com/index.php.
Notes
[1] I have chosen not to use the more common acronym, MMORPG, for stylistic reasons. These virtual worlds are also called “persistent state worlds” which means that the virtual environment is almost constantly running and the “game” continues (hypothetically) even when no players are online. [^]
[2] I will use the terms “player,” “character,” and “avatar” to distinguish between the person at the computer (player), the sum of all elements which make up the “role” (character), and the virtual body as visually represented on the screen (avatar). [^]
[3] Many of the RPGs and subsequent MMOs have race, class, and sex distinctions for maximum and minimum statistics. UO, however, had no such distinctions. A female could be just as strong as a male, and any character could be the world’s most stupid mage. [^]
[4] I use the pairs male/man and female/woman interchangeably and in all cases refer to gender (the interaction between social-perception and self-perception) rather than (biological) sex. The reasoning is this: 1) online characters (or avatars) cannot be said to have a sex; therefore, they can only have a gender (self-representation and cultural interaction); 2) confirming a player’s supposed sex is not possible in most cases; therefore, I have no recourse but to address their gender; and 3) even if the “sex” of a player were identifiable, I have no desire to support narratives of essential, biological sex. [^]
[5] UO has definite rules against this sort of behavior (though it is hard to control) and beginning players now start their virtual lives in a place where players cannot attack one another. Still, verbal abuse in the game is a constant problem and players are regularly dismissed from play for transactions of this sort. [^]
[6] It is, of course, possible that the other player in question was a female playing a male character. Nevertheless, the performance on screen was of a male verbally assaulting a female. Whether or not this could be considered a “sexual” assault is a matter of perspective. [^]
[7] EQ adds new species as part of their regular expansions. [^]
[8] The use of “babe art” is prolific and based in the “tradition” of RPG and SF/F fandom. Virtually all of EQ’s promotions feature the “EverQuest babe”: a blonde haired, fair-skinned elfish woman. See for example, the EQ website at http://everquest.station.sony.com/. [^]
[9] Likewise, Microsoft’s amazingly playable Asheron’s Call features a standardized body for both the male and the female which is large (for both sexes) and “athletic looking.” The choice of not only faces, but actual features (noses, eyes, hairstyles, even scars) makes the avatar even more individualistic. [^]
[10] See, for example, Cornelia Brunner, Dorothy Bennet, and Margaret Honey, “Girl Games and Technological Desire.” [^]
[11] It is also possible that players take the “your” in “your mind” to refer to the character and not the player. However, the direct address in the manual and the game creates the context (unlike other games) where the player may feel a part of the narrative. [^]
[12] In fact, most of the monsters encountered are one type of genetic mistake or another. [^]
[13] The most obvious answer is that they wished to avoid even the use of the word as the primary target audience for these games is the U.S. , though other countries—notably Japan, Australia , France , and Germany —are rapidly gaining on U.S. playership. [^]
[14] Some games have newbie training programs or newbie areas. For example EQ comes with a training program which operates off line. [^]
[15] I am indebted to Paul Connerton’s book How Societies Remember for this conceit. [^]
[16] The virtual currency even has a real world value as it is exchanged for real currency on websites such as ebay. [^]
[17] Again, the houses are sold online as well for real money. [^]
[18] Some games, like EQ, do not have character housing at all.[^]
[19] See, for example, Julia Grim’s “Girls Game Too” site at http://www.girlsgametoo.com. [^]
[20] Player-run guilds are often dependent on house ownership. Belonging to a guild adds another possibility to the virtual body—visible titles. [^]
[21] Again, I am taking the player’s expression of real-world gender at face value as the address is clearly coded as “player to player.” [^]
[22] See, for example, Henry Jenkins “Combat Zone: Game Grrlz Talk Back. [^]