What Gender Do You Play In Game?

Hello everyone,

My name is Eily Coghlan (Eily Babenco in SL), I am currently completing an MSc in
Cyberpsychology at IADT, Dun Laoghaire. I have a questionnaire up
online for my thesis. I would appreciate it if anyone who plays World
of Warcraft, or Second Life, online could take part.

If you don't personally play, perhaps you know friends, brothers,
sisters, parents who may play, and I would appreciate it if you could
send it on to them too!

Everything is totally confidential and anonymous, and it'll only take
about 10 minutes to complete.

Here's the URL:

http://tinyurl.com/OnlineGaming

Thanks in advance!!


--
Eily Coghlan

Hi Eily,

Good luck with this, and don't get too disheartened at the almost inevitable bad reaction you will get on this forum. We get a lot of surveys here and people get quite fed up doing them.

I just did your survey and gender-bended and lied my way through it just to see what you were asking. (please discard results from 20 year old male from Bosnia-Herzegovena who answered "don't know" to every question).

This is obviously not a phishing scam, neither are you trying to sell us branded RL sportswear, and you have given us enough details to verify that this research is from a legitimate university, which are all points in your favour.

However, I disagree with your basic premise that women play as men because of a "drive to succeed". I think the reason people choose to play the opposite gender is much more simple and is the same as the reason they might choose to play as an animal, a robot or a blob of jelly ... because we can!

Well thanks for taking an interest anyway!

Hypotheses are meant to be supported or un-supported, and if mine is un-supported then I have added valuable information to the gaming community.

It's a shame that you assume I will get a bad reaction, I suppose you have shown that already by sadly just 'lying your way' throughout the survey. If you had wanted further information, you could have easily just spoken to me, and I could have told you all about it, it's not a secret.

I am doing research in this area to remove common myths about gamers and gaming, and trying to help the overall community and further understanding.

Thanks anyway for having an interest, shame you felt you had to fabricate responses in order to find out more.

I hardly think it's a baseless assumption: if you do a search on this forum, you'll find that people ask the forum regulars to answer their surveys on a very regular (1-3 times a week) basis. As a result, many here are very burnt out on these requests, and may well reply, shall we say, in a testy fashion.

You're likely to get more clicks if people know that:

1) you're not phishing
2) you're not trying to sell us something
3) you're not from a made-up university

Sadly, we have had lots of surveys here which failed on one or more of the above points and sometimes the only way to find that out is by going through the survey.

Now that I have done that, you may get more responses. If I did web surveys, I would probably do yours, but I don't as a rule.

Try doing a forum search with the word "survey"

Ok, well it's a choice whether you do a survey or not, I am in no way forcing you to do it. I am simply asking for some help. If anyone has ever done a research project, they will understand how tricky it can be trying to get the number of respondents for surveys.

I did not realise that so many people requested others to do surveys, so I apologise if I am yet another number.

I only ask for genuine respondents, anyone who wants to help out, and if you don't, then don't!

Again, I apologise if I am yet another survey - please ignore me if you're not interested in responding.

10 minutes is a long time.

Ok thanks for your feedback!

The last time you posted on this subject on RA, you asked for volunteers to discuss it in-world. I was happy to do so, but I missed the 'appointment' we set up. You've not been in touch since (or, as far as I know, in-world at the same time as me). The offer's still there if you want, PM me to set something up.

edit: Having completed the questionnaire, there are a couple of points I'd like to bring up.

Gender: For a survey interested in the gender people portray in virtual worlds, it seems odd to stick to the gender binary for RL gender. I'll admit that transgendered people are a minority, but a survey like this is likely to draw their interest. It just feels like a big thing to leave out, especially as my gut instinct is they wouldn't fall into "Women needing to achieve" or "Men wanting to explore".

Character: I don't have a "character" in SL. I understand you are covering WoW here too, so the terminology has to cover both, but it does leave things vague for SL respondents. For the record I answered with the number of accounts I have, although most of them are inactive. I probably should have answered "one" now I think about it.

Thank you for your feedback on this, a very good point about the gender question, and I'm kicking myself for missing that, it was a very bad oversight for me.

I will fix that now, thank you for pointing that out.

I am also sorry for missing you in-world, I had some personal issues that came up, and was unable to be online for a few days, and then when I did come online, I couldn't see you.

I do apologise!

Thank you again for pointing those issues out to me, I will edit as appropriate.


Edit: These changes have been made, as well as other small textual changes. Thanks again, I really do appreciate you pointing that out to me.

I answered it although i have to be honest i found it weird that apart from about 4-6 it was about work life

so what are you marketing?

You can do a Google search for her. She has a Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Blog etc. Nothing discredits what she was asking here.

I have not, nor will I, take the survey but nothing indicates a marketing scam.

To the OP: I'll answer you here, because it is highly unlikely your survey offers me the necessary choices to answer accurately.

** What gender to I play?
Yes. All of the above, and more.

I play a variety of characters, of every possible permutation that you can imagine, and a few you probably haven't considered. Males, females, shemales (female appearance, male genitalia below the waist), hermaphrodite (female appearance, both male and female genitalia below the waist), and neuter/androgynous (no genitalia at all). I also play both Humans and anthropomorphic animals, mostly foxes and canines, though on occasion dragons and felines. In all of the above permutations. I also play quadruped animals (foxes, dogs and horses, mostly) as males, females, or neuter. About the only permutation I don't wear is a male appearance with female genitalia below the waist, because it is not one that appeals to myself or my friends.

In some of the above cases, I have several alts that plays various subsets of these roles. But my main avatar is a shapeshifter who can, and on occasion does, do all of them.

** Does my gender in-world match my Real Life Gender?
Obviously, it can't, in most of the above permutations. More often than not, my species doesn't even match (tending to be an anthro fox most often).

** Why do I play gender roles other than my real-life gender?
Because I can. Because I like variety. Because my personal preferences are wider than only being attracted to those of one specific gender, wheather it is opposite to mine or matches mine.

** Why do I play non-Human species?
Because I can. Because I like variety. And I like role-playing and story telling.

** Why play more than one gender?
Because I can. Because I like variety. And I like role-playing and story telling. Imagine how boring it would be to read a book or watch a movie where all the roles could only match the gender and sexual orientation of the author / screenwriter / director. Imagine how many stores can not be told, if all the roles are limited to only one type of character. In SL, I can interact as anything I can imagine. My stories are unlimited.

** Do I use opposite-gender roles to lie/cheat/deceive?
NO. Anyone dealing with ANY of my avatars is told up-front that they are dealing entirely with a fictional character, whose resemblance to the person behind the keyboard is in no way assured. I tell them that I never date in real-life anyone I meet on-line, that all I offer, player to player, is friendship and mutual on-line fun. If they want something deeper, seek it elsewhere. I also make no secret of the fact that I am married and monogamous in real life. SL is, for me, an exercise in creative fiction. I am a story teller, and this is the stage I perform on. Seeking a real-life relationship with the author of my characters because you "love" that character is like seeking a relationship with the author of a trashy romance novel, because you fell for one of the characters in one of their books.

No, the idea of the survey is that people with low self-esteem use female alts, and people with good self-esteem use male alts.

Read the last page.

I'm sorry, but if you're going to write about *gender*, you need to be aware of the issues.

By posting your request here, you really have stepped into a bear trap.

Maybe what's needed is a forum specifically for survey requests, with a sticky giving some guidelines and advice.

Don't need to now. Thanks for that. I'll pass on it.

No criticism for that... I wasn't there when I said I'd be, and it was a busy time of year for me too. I was hardly in SL over Xmas.

Really? I didn't pick up on that being his theory necessarily. But if it is, I say "hogwash". I know quite a number of people, of a variety of RL gender and sexual preferences and avatar preferences. There's no correlation that I can see. There are asshats, Good Folks, achievers and layabouts...there are people with high self esteem and low...and it makes no difference what gender they are, or prefer.

We are people. Quirky, puzzling, interesting, individual. I do wish the social "scientists" would stop trying to pigeonhole us. I am not a pigeon.

I just took the survey and I have a couple of questions.

First off, people who do both WOW and SL can't say so. You can only pick one.

Second, if it's for people who gender-bend, why do you want the rest of us to respond?

Third, it says "male avatars have a more difficult game-play as they are more solitary, and are given less help." Is that true of Second Life? I help people newer than me, and I find myself helping guys more than women.

Last thing, I'm not sure that Key was right. It didn't say anything about self-esteem. It says that men gender-bend to explore and women gender-bend to achieve.

Agreed. I've been so inundated with survey requests that I've gotten to the point of blanket refusal to do them in RL, and have recently decided that applies to SL as well.

I do wish you the best of luck, and I hope you gather a lot of good data, but I'm simply tired of the daily survey requests.

.

I've seen some questions.. but it's more about RL then it is SL based.
(RL work relation questions mostly)
And possible answers are very narrowed..

e.g. i miss options like

- I disagree
- yes and no (in one answer)
- not applicable
- not willing to provide

if you want representative answers, you should grant many choices to answering the questions.

Also, i mis some explanation or examples added to the questions.

Somehow, this survey doesn't seem to be setup professional.
(e.g. the questions themselves)

Hi everyone,

Thank you for all your responses/questions

I am actually investigating the 'need for achievement' and how it relates to what gender you choose online. Basically, I am trying to see what motivates people to choose the opposite gender.

I also need people who don't gender-bend, because then I can see the differences between those who do gender-bend and those who don't.

I also didn't allow people to answer BOTH to the question about whether you play WoW or SL, because I am comparing the answers to the two of them, and it would have been difficult with the way that Surveymonkey is set up to have an option for both.

I assure you this is 100% legitimate, in no way have I tried to hide anything I am doing, I attend this college: www.iadt.ie, and do this course: http://www.iadt.ie/en/ProspectiveStudents/SchoolsCourses/SchoolofCreativeTechnologies/CyberpsychologyMSc/

The questionnaire at the end with the responses 'Yes' 'No' and 'I Don't know', is a reliable need for achievement questionnaire, if any questions are strange, or you don't like the limited responses, unfortunately I cannot change that as it would affect the validity and reliability of the questionnaire. It can be viewed here: http://jonjayray.tripod.com/compnach.html

I also totally agree with the person who mentioned about having a forum for people who are doing surveys, because I understand how unhappy some people become after seeing survey request come through the forum. I also hope that these people also understand that forums are one of the main places that researchers are able to find people who can respond to their requests and fill out their survey.

It is a harsh virtual world out there when it comes to surveys and trying to find respondents!

Thanks again to everyone who has filled out my questionnaire, and to those of you who left questions, I appreciate all comments and constructive responses!

hmmm, I haven't looked at the survey yet, but I will. Curious, though, about the assumption that people will make what seems to be presented as a singular choice (be male, be female) when part of the appeal of SL is that you do not have to make a choice at all, you can gender-bend and species-bend anytime you want.

I purposely chose a non-gender-specific Avatar name so I could become anything, anytime, even if I do spend most of my time as a virtual version of myself (albeit younger looking and thinner...).

Statistics:

Second Life:

75% of female avatars are played by females, who do not have low self esteem and have no desire to portray themselves as men (on that avatar, anyway).

10% of female avatars are played by males who wish to explore their femininity.

10% of female avatars are played by males who like to look at virtual female breasts.

5% of female avatars are played by males who want 'free stoof'.

World of Warcraft:

75% of female toons are played by females, despite the fact that there are no gurlz on the interwebs.

10% of female toons are played by males who want 'free stoof' and leveling help.

10% of female toons are played by males who wish to explore their femininity.

5% of female toons are night elves played by teenage boys who um....well, that's another survey.

Most importantly, 60% of all statistics are made up on the spot and have no basis in fact.

Haha Ralektra, how very true!

Good job people like me come about to try and discover some real statistics!


This survey isn't meant to appear very one dimensional, and if you feel that when you chose your avatar that you didn't want to have any gender at all, then I probably wouldn't fill in this survey as it may not apply to you.

Survey questions aren't going to please everyone, and they're not going to apply to everyone either!