Male Gamer, Female Avatar

Playing as a female character and my other video gaming quirks; an article on blurring the gender line as an avatar, by Brian Kaya.

[Jsm89k]

There are no lines being blurred... I mostly play female characters to create the ultimate waifu, not to identify with it. The author may not like fan service but a billion trillion others do and there’s nothing wrong with that. Even girls themselves love fan service and I’m not talking about male fan service either.

[shammgod]

female characters almost always have the best gear also

[Atom666]

Yep. Sometimes I prefer the female voice actors/samples, too.

Unless it's a sports game, I never try to make a character that looks like me. Male or female just depends on what mood I'm in.

[rainslacker]

I usually play female characters because male character design always seems so generic in most games which give you the choice, or allow you to create your own. WOW has terrible male character models. Even some of the female models are terrible. Mass Effect just looks silly. I won't even get into the Elder Scrolls games where it just looks like they spent less time beating the characters with the ugly stick. So many games just don't try too hard to make their male characters look good, and the only reason I can think that is is because they think that male players must like playing as butt ugly males.

For games where I'm going to spend a good amount of time looking at these characters, I'd rather have something visually appealing.

I don't mind playing male characters where there is a choice if those characters are put into their own class. Kind of like Borderlands, although you never really see your character that often.

In the waifu theme though, if I'm going to make a female character, I'm probably going to try and make them look good.

[ChrisW]

I always play female avatars. Why? Because I'd rather look at the south-end of a female if I'm going to spend hours and hours playing a game.

[Multigamertom]

What a immature comment almost sounds insecure. It is a video game looking at a male character won’t question your sexuality or preference if you don’t choose to look at a female character.

“Oh crap if I don’t look at female backside of a fictional video game character I might turn gay looking at the male character.”

[mkis007]

Nothing about his words suggested that that was what he is saying...

[IcedOmega13]

.........Or? He really likes ass. Nothing wrong with that.

[bluefox755]

You sound like the insecure one, lol. Turns out guys like looking at girls more than they do guys (even the digital variety). Shocking, I know. Not sure why you're reading sexual preference into this...

[yellowgerbil]

Multi, let us put it this way. What would you rather look at, the best sunset ever or a pile of dog crap. Women are hot, The Middle East people got it bad, I love walking behind women :D
Played through fallout 4 as a girl and went around in just underwear the whole time, totally for the challenge ;)

[Teflon02]

The irony with your comment is I'm proudly straight. I have no question about my sexuality and don't care what anyone is. That's you.

What I will say is. There is multiple reasons I always do females. 1. I'm not big on fan service. BUT I can tell you despite the fact I like Uncharted more than Tomb raider by a bit. I enjoy playing as Laura because I'd rather look at a female. I'm a straight male. Why the hell would I not prefer to look at her sway her hips as opposed to hearing a man grunt? LOL

Next thing for me is I'm boring making male characters. They either look as much like me as possible or I try make them look like Vivi from FFIX. With females, I'm not one so I just make different characters, unique characters etc. sometimes it's a cute one, a badass looking mage, a tomboyish girl etc. I don't have a limit or boundry with them because I have no base of what I would wear and that being what I prefer, as I'm not a girl and I don't wear female clothes. Only time I regretted it is in FFXIV, my first real MMO, and I learned almost immediately why it's not a good idea lol.

[rainslacker]

Or, maybe he just finds the overly buff male character models which tend to frequent male characters to just be piss poor design, and would rather look at something attractive for something he's going to spend a lot of time with. I think in any given situation, I'd much prefer to watch a nice female backside, over a nice male backside, especially when that male backside typically has ridiculously proportioned upper body strength.

Why would he, or anyone else, feel insecure over the portrayal of a male character, which is fictional, and isn't actually them?

[Yui_Suzumiya]

Check out Buzz Killington over here 😂

[TheHan]

Personally I always found it odd, but I only play Male characters and maybe create one female character if it’s my choice in the matter. But a game with a main female protagonist doesn’t affect my decision on rather I buy the game or not. But for those who always want to play females I just don’t get it.

[The_Sage]

Agreed.

[rainslacker]

I don't really get why anyone would buy, or not buy a game, just based on the available avatar's gender. Seems really silly to me, and despite understanding the reason that some publishers or devs design the avatar based on target markets, I never thought it was something that was really that consequential to the sales of the game.

[SkatterBrain]

I do it cause i rather look at Tomb Raiders booty rather than drakes manly A$$ for 8 hours

[Shiken]

For immersion purposes, I always play as a male when given the option. Playing a female character ruins it however.

But speaking of TR, if the game is good and offers a great story and world to explore I will still play it. I love the Bayonetta games and have the plat in Horizon Zero Dawn for example.

I prefer to play as male, but I will not miss good games because of it.

[rainslacker]

Drake wasn't ridiculously proportioned like a lot of male avatars though. He was built pretty well, but he seemed much more like an every man than some male characters. If given the choice, I usually choose female just because the character designs are better. But, for something like Nathan Drake, I probably wouldn't really care either way if it was between him, or another female character. Elena does have a pretty nice little body on her though, so she might beat out drake. ND just takes care to create realistic characters.

[SkatterBrain]

yeah I Always liked Elena more that the other female characters in the series, wish she was playable more than Chloe

[ImYoonA]

There is a difference between the people who choose male and people who choose female character. The former plays as "this is ME, look at how badass I am", the latter plays as "this is MY WAIFU, looks at how pretty she is, my waifu is best waifu and she beats all of your waifus". I am the latter :) Same with people who play gacha/hero collectors games. Do you collect waifus or male characters?

[drizzom]

I play male characters but I do NOT self insert. I play male because its my gender and I can just enjoy the story of a game better that way. I like playing as a badass looking character (boarderline villainous even). But If I don't care about the story then I'd just play female for fanservice reasons.

[BrainSyphoned]

That is why Xtreme Beach Volleyball is the bravest game ever made.

[Yi-Long]

I often create a female avatar, simply because too often I find it too hard to create an interesting male avatar.

The last character creator where I managed to create fun cool male characters, was probably in Everybody's Golf, where I was able to create avatars that look like myself.

In Monster Hunter, Sunset Overdrive and a couple of other games, I often create a short-haired asian female avatar.

[Godmars290]

Both over complicating something, while making it an either/or.

Or should I just say binary?

[Chaos_Order]

I don't see what the big deal is. I've made male avatars in some games, female avatars in others... I've not had an existential crisis over it.

[ShockUltraslash]

I always play as the most beautiful waifuu.

[etebitan]

I like to play with a hot girl.. Simple as that..

[HylianMigz]

i like making badass old ladies in dark souls

[DarXyde]

I think I've made a total of 2 female characters. One in Soul Calibur IV, one in Dark Souls.

Nothing wrong with it. Not my usual state of affairs. Sometimes, it's just fun to do things differently.

I also like to play different races sometimes. Just because.

[GrizToof]

There are many reasons why a man will create a female character in a game. Really the freedom to play as whatever we want is great and there is no deep meaning to any of it. Most of the time we just want to look at a pretty girl instead of a man. Stop being offended by nonsense and quit looking for some kind of way to insult people.

[isarai]

It all depends on the character creator to me, once i see just how a character generally looks coming out of it i just see whats the coolest looking character i can pull out of it. Sometimes it's male, sometimes female, or sometimes a different species all together. I just try to make something that looks "different" and sometimes the female allows that more.

When it's a preset character, i like good characters, them being female is a refreshing change of pace but it's null if the character herself is flat and boring.

[zachyBROosevelt]

Being Girls take you out of the reality of what your doing most of the time.

[dumahim]

Playing video games?

[zachyBROosevelt]

Yea, like the days when Ifeel like a girl I dont like playing games as much

[rainslacker]

So does making physics defying jumps, or healing up behind a short wall after being shot a few times. But, somehow, we manage to suspend our disbelief to continue to enjoy the game.

[zachyBROosevelt]

You can say words bruv

[zachyBROosevelt]

And let alone guys can do all that stuff

[rainslacker]

Well...I guess you sure told me.

Not sure what you just told me, but you certainly did so.

[zachyBROosevelt]

Just not fun to play as I feel

[Bleucrunch]

I will choose a female character when given the choice, in the past that was mainly the ONLY option. I also love a lady that can kick ass...(Here is looking at you Madam Croft.)

[Abnor_Mal]

Both male and female characters. If the game has modifiers and sliders, then I just close my eyes and randomly slide left and right a few times then press a button. In the end I usually wind up with an abnormal looking female or male character. I do it because I generally get tired and or frustrated trying to recreate someone that actually looks good.

[rainslacker]

I often find in Bioware games that there are only like 3-4 setting combinations which ends up making a good looking character. I too often get tired of trying to make a character, and just want to get into the game. Then I'll play the game for a while, and the character ends up looking bad that it becomes distracting.

Of course, not all character creators are that bad, just an observation.

[JokerBoy422]

As a guy I'd rather hear sexy moans of an attractive woman jumping around in game then the grunts of a big hairy fat dude. That's why I tend to play as women in games that give me that option. Also with women empowerment in gaming now, all the shit garbage characters are men and the OP characters are women. So women are usually more fun.

[ReVibe]

OP needs to spend 5 mins in Limsa Lanosca on FFXIV.

[spambot0815]

if you ask me, you shouldn't identify with a character in a game to begin with, no matter if you play a character with the same, opposite or whatever fictional sex there might be. like a character for whatever reason but don't try to identy with it. that's also why i don't like the FPS genre because that perspective tries to simulate the player into the game and i'd rather stay 3rd person observer in control.

[3-4-5]

More power to having the choice.....do you.....but as a guy, I'd almost always rather play as a male character. Not sure why, but when I'm playing as a female character it just takes me out of the experience a little....

Granted....some games you HAVE you play as a female and I'm thankful that a lot of them are actually enjoyable characters to play as, but if I have options to customize, I'm going to try and make that character look as much like me as possible.

[KwietStorm_BLM]

PlayStation Home was a scary place.

[Rachel_Alucard]

Apparently, the idea of making a character and not self inserting is too difficult to understand by people. It's also fun to note female cosmetics always sell more then male ones.

[carcarias]

I stopped reading after:

"I started the widely acclaimed Witcher III, but couldn’t finish. No archery."

The list of games this guy plays must be incredibly small ;) If someones tastes are that specific and, dare I say, blinkered, I'm not sure how well-rounded, thoughtful or interesting their opinion is going to be. A tad harsh maybe, but, meh :s

[Yui_Suzumiya]

You mean like how Yui Hirasawa is my avatar here but I'm a 37 year old male? 😂

[DefaultComment]

here's the answer given by many old gamers,
"If I'm gonna play and game and look at it a$$ for several hours,might as well be one that I enjoy" => this pretty much sums up on why male gamers use female avatars, I include myself into this selective group