As much as I love MMOs, the ideas of MMOs and even the sociology of MMOs, these massively multi-player online games do not represent humanity at its best. Perhaps it is the digital divide that lets people drop their inhibitions and do what they really want, rather than do what they really should – but for every wonderful person out there in these games, there seems to be ten others ready to spit in your food.

And so we come to Hijal*, a dear priest, who after seeing that I was sitting waiting for a special creature to spawn, tagged it and killed it, which required me to wait around for another round of spawn. Now, I am not particularly concerned about the waiting for the spawn – at most it took 2 min, nor am I particularly surprised at his behavior. It ticked me off. I asked him – his character was male, I don’t know if his player was – why we couldn’t group for the quest, and he ran off without a word. My fingers were itching to send him a string of profanities via tell, but that probably would do nothing and if anything it would make him feel smug about his “kill steal.” So I restrained myself.

What is sad, is that Hijal is not an exception – he is a very common. Hijals have always been in MMOs and new Hijals are popping up everyday. I can’t even begin to write how many times people have killed the creature I have been waiting for, stole a plant I was waiting to pick, or did something mean or annoying just to spite me. Hijal is not just a lame priest playing on my server – he is a representation for underbelly of man. That is a lot to put on Hijal’s shoulders. I don’t know what he was thinking – maybe he was a 13 year old boy who gets picked on at school, maybe he was a 30 year old woman whose kids just went to bed, or maybe he is a 58 year old man living in his mom’s basement. These of course are all stereotypes. I will never know who Hijal is or why he did what he did, but what I know is his behavior makes me feel a little sad for the world.

The thing is Mr. Hijal is a member of the alliance, which means we can talk to each other and we can group with each other. We are supposed to be on the same “side.” If we were in the same group, for 10 seconds while killing the creature, we would BOTH get credit for it. In the .25 seconds that I was getting ready to ask if he wanted to be in my group (the courteous thing to do), he tagged my creature. Grouping would have no ill effect on him, it would have made us both happy and then we could have gone on our own way. So why is it that so often people chose to steal something from someone else, when everyone could profit from being in the same group. Why is it that people choose only self gratification rather than gratification of both themselves and another. Why is sharing bad? I only have two answers: 1) people are lazy 2)people are mean – and in most cases its probably a bit of both. In the end his steal wont really make much of a difference in the world, but what about his real life actions? Does his disregard for a fellow people online translate into real life disregards? I think it must at some level.

Like the person who steals your parking space just because they can, Hijal’s behavior falls into the category of bad form. I’ll get over my lost 2 min. I will get my kill stolen again. I will tell myself it doesn’t matter. But inside, a little part of me will cry for humanity.

*who is not given a pseudonym since a screen name is a pseudonym and at some point you ought to reap what you sew

After taking a few months hiatus from WoW and finally picking up the newest expansion pack – Wrath of the Lich King (or WotLK)- I have finally jumped on the proverbial wagon and finally made a death knight. The death knight is a very cool addition to the game and the starting area is very fun, but what has made my death knight special is that I made him male.

For those not in the know, I am a female gamer. Whenever, I have a choice between female and male, in a video game I usually choose female. WoW is the only game where I have dabbled in the realm of cross-tooning. In 2005, I made a male troll for my horde hunter, but despite my initial burst of energy he has been sitting at level 35 for about 3 years now. I have also made other male toons, but mostly just to play with the character creation modes, or to serve as bank characters. Alas, my poor male toons are neglected.

So I finally tried to dive in and start playing a male toon again. Orinoco – my death knight – is male, a Draenei male to be specific. I just happened to pick the biggest male alliance class to start my gender crossing adventure, but he is huge. I’m not used to seeing giant shoulders taking up my screen like that. But besides my own gender projections onto my digital friend, nothing much is different. I haven’t noticed any markedly different behavior to my fellow WoW-ians, although I do have remind myself randomly flirting with male toons will be generally frowned upon.

It seems to me, that in a world that often values males and stereotypical masculine features especially in combat (such as strength, bravery, etc), the majority of gender crossing in adventure video games tends to be done by males. While I don’t have any statical data on hand at the moment, my experience has been that women play females and men play both male and female. I always think that people assume that male characters are always male characters and female characters could be either male or female in real life.

In fact, the female on-line characters have reputations of always being male – even if they “pretend” to be female. This kind of thing serves as a warning to those guys who might think that hot night elf chick bouncing and clapping her hands is really a hot girl in real life. I have heard some guys explain to me they would rather look at something good looking (ie a female, most often with a nice figure and full breasts) while spending endless hours of grinding experience, rather than a dude (which… would be assumed not to be attractive to most males). Still it seems to me that our on-line persona’s lend themselves to personal projection.

While I don’t think that my Draenei male looks particularly “hot” or “sexy” (male video games character rarely look that way to me), I think he does look cool. So heres to me donning on my “male” costume – dropping my flirts, my giggles and my other girlie traits – and entering the man’s world.

Occasionally articles pop up on yahoo or other news sources about failing marriages caused by video games, or the ways that these marriages games were “saved.” The usual scenario occurs like this: wonderful and loving wife finds her spouse playing video games for ungodly amounts of time. She tries to get him to quit or play less but with no avail. Finally at some breaking point – she either asks for divorce or finds some way to solve the problem.

These articles and scenarios drive me nuts for many reasons. First, the way most of these articles are set up make the wife an admirable figure that is being wronged. Second, the husband is seen as something passive. As a wife of a gamer, there have been many times when I was upset with my spouse for playing too many video games. But I am far from the wronged victim and he is far from the passive agent.

Men who play video games are not passive. The way the story sets up the dichotomy is just plain sexist. Video games, like any other form of entertainment, are fun. While I do agree that there can be personalities that might get addicted to them, I think that people should approach their spouse as someone who is engaging is pleasurable entertainment and not in some addictive exercise.

Rather than approaching the situation as “he isn’t doing what I want him to do,” we need to find a different way, a more realistic way of approaching the problems. Calling something an addiction is easy because it excuses the participant, makes the wife the victim and puts the evil on some external source. By calling something an addiction, the wife can “solve” the problem, not by working with the husband and the game, but by getting the husband to give up the game. While this might work for biological addictions like drugs and alcohol – the video game needs to be approached differently. It isn’t a biological issue it is a relationship issue.

Last weekend, we got our newest Game Informer. The first thing I did, like always, was flip to their game testers section and check and see if they finally got a girl on the team. They used to have one five or six years ago, but she disappeared and never got replaced. Now, I don’t think that you should stick a girl on there just because she is female, but I know that there are a ton of rockin journalist gamer chicks out there that would have fit that position. I ask myself, why is it important that there is a girl on there? I can’t say for certain that a female would bring a “female view point” – after all I don’t even know what that viewpoint would be, but I think that they would bring a perspective that was more in line with what 50% of our population thinks. More than anything, I think that having a gal on there would be an olive branch to our sister gamers, saying “yeah, we know you are out there and we want you to read our magazine too.” So, until the day they get one, I’ll be flipping to that section and waiting for my gender to finally be reinstated to the boys club.

Guest Post by Sintax

Over the last week or so I’ve been involved in the open beta phase for the upcoming MMO called “Age of Conan”. This MMO is set in the harsh world of Hyboria, and is set around the famous novels written by Robert E. Howard.

Thus far, the beta is spectacular. I’ve enjoyed it immensely and as far as beta’s go its top notch. Some of the things that come to mind while writing anything about this game are its major selling points. The two major selling points are the presence of two somewhat socially unacceptable things, at least in “American” culture, which are nudity and extreme violence. These two topics, when placed into the context of video games, seem to ignite the fires of hell within people. So many people get up in arms when games come out that flaunt these properties, yet this game is supposed to be MATURE, meaning no one under the age of 18 is allowed to purchase or play it. So there really shouldn’t be a big stink about this game, right?

So as with many MMO’s one is able to create either a male or female character (sorry to those who prefer “other”). Character creation is intense, as you’re able to customize your character with limitless choices of facial scars and markings, as well as tattoos for the rest of your body, not to mention the numerous size adjustments to almost every area of the body. Males can be the typical video game guys with large muscles, much like the famous barbarian himself, Conan. Yet, they can be short and ‘skinny’ as well as ‘fat’ (which still look muscular in my opinion). Regardless, the males are cut and idealized and conform to the idea of the “perfect male” as propagated by modern American media/culture. You get the option of running around in a small scrap of cloth, with nothing else, if that tickles your fancy.

Females on the other hand can become almost totally nude. This feature, which is what the developers mean by “nudity” allows for the women in the game to go topless and strip down to nothing but a thong if they so choose. One of the posters on the official Conan boards noted, “Boy if that isn’t every mans nightmare, an almost fully naked woman coming at you with a two handed weapon”. Hmm.. perhaps.

On top of the nudity, which in itself has caused quite a stir on the official Conan boards, the game is rife with blood letting and decapitations. Yet, which causes the bigger stir amongst the largely American audience on the forums and in general? It’s the sex and nudity, not the major violence, despite its overly graphic nature. By violence I’m not talking about the Grand Theft Auto violence… I’m talking about full on, graphic overload of chopping people in half, taking folks heads off, and impaling them on your steel. These animations are complete with full blood splatter and blood pooling, combined with Direct x10 (the most current graphics application used by most video cards), makes for a tremendously realistic looking experience.

The video game haters, and those that are criticizing MMO’s in general, need to get a grip on reality here. This is a video game designed specifically for adults and has been given a rating to reflect that design. Parents, who don’t feel comfortable with their kids playing it, shouldn’t buy the client for their children and should learn to be parents for their kids. I also think that there is something wrong with a society that values violence and brutality over the human form. The human form, and specifically female nipples, which are the real issue here, is a gorgeous thing and should be celebrated. I was stunned when I first saw the ‘virtual boobies’ in game, but quite pleased. However, I was a little disappointed that they didn’t go the full Monty for the male characters as well. Females, and males of that orientation, are entitled to their virtual treasures.

As a member of my guild states, “I can’t let my kids see that!” as he has several young children. He continued on by stating, “I like it, but I can’t play it with them around”, sure you can mate, just make sure you fully explain to them that everyone has nipples and that the decapitations are as easy as initiating the right combo at the right time.

Hopefully the land of Hyboria will not disappoint as I’m looking forward to wading in knee deep into pools of virtual blood and entrails, as well as participating in some ogling.

On Tuesday night, sitting in my late night class, I got this excited text from my husband – he went to the store and got GTA – I should hurry home. But unfortunately I had to wait a few more hours until my class was over to scurry home and open up that packaging and pop it into my x-box.

My husband and I actually play the game together because we both want to play at the same time and that seems to be the best way for us both to be satisfied. So we curled up on the couch with our fake target ice tea and started watching the introduction movie.

So a few observations from my first few hours of playing:

• The main character is Niko – who seems to have fought in the Balkans wars. Interesting character – he seems pretty sympathetic, trying to scrape by in a big dirty city
• It is almost impossible to walk drunk. They made a big deal about players being about to drive drunk – but oh man, i could barerly stumble around the neighborhood just walking – is it even possible to be that drunk in real life?
• I’m sad that the game doesn’t match up to the liberty city that I knew and loved in GTA III, I would have liked the map to match up so I could see what things change in 10 years. But I guess if that is the case, they couldn’t have as such a big map.
• So far not too violent, I havent even found a gun – I know that will change some time soon. Also, still very patriarchal – women are seen as secondary.

Well, back to playing

I feel a lot of conflicting feelings towards GTA – both this current game and the previous games. I have to admit that I love playing them – the worlds are rich and in-depth, activities and quests encourage exploration, and the music is always fun. I even got 100% on the Vice City game. However, since GTA III hit the market a few years ago, the public has been in arms about the violence and sex that is prevalent in the games.

I typically ignore a lot of the critiques of the media on video games for their violence and sexuality. I find their linkages to be more correlated than actually indicating causation. Additionally, like all new forms of media video games are getting scrutiny. People were writing similar things about film and television when they became mainstream entertainment. However, that being said, I do see the complaints about GTA to be pretty valid. GTA is an extreme version, for sure, and not all violence in it is required, but the game definitively encourages it.

I don’t see the violence in the GTA series as being that unique to the video game industry. First person shooters often require the same about of ammunition and gore, if not more. The catch with GTA is that, like most sandbox games, you can do whatever you want. People are horrified that you could run over civilians on the sidewalk just for the fun of it, but is this much different from trapping your Sims in a little room without a toilet and food waiting for them to starve to death? If these actions translated into real life rampages and torture sequences I would say yes, but I don’t think that they do. I don’t particularly * enjoy * the violence in GTA, but I guess it doesn’t bother me enough to not play it.

Perhaps the most celebrated form of misogyny in the game is having sex with prostitutes (to gain back life) and then killing them after the services are rendered. In fact, on the IGN.com move reviews of the new GTA game the film “Ladies of Liberty City” actually show this twice in the preview. I do find this aspect of the game to be sad, but unlike people always assume it is not required for game play. Still, watching the reviews for the new game, seems make this whole thing worse, because the characters are more realistic, they make more noises, and they are very vocal about having sex. GTA III the action was subtler – with a rocking back and forth, which seemed more excusable, I guess. And then there are the strippers, which seem to play a big role in this upcoming game.

One of the things that I do find sad about this whole thing is that the population of women with personalities (not just wandering pedestrians) in Liberty City (or Vice City) seems to consist of prostitutes, mistresses, or strippers. In these games, the women with “roles” are defined by their sexual service to men. While I don’t have a problem with sex in video games, I find that the game presents sex as a very once sided thing. The game is about men and the women they have sex with. Maybe they will toss it up a little bit in this new game, but I would be happy if the game could move beyond the 13-year-old boy’s wet dream (or 23,33,43 year old…).

So the game is violent and sexist, but why do I play? But cause it is fun…. Is it like a Bret Easton Ellis novel, once you wade past the violence and the sex you can see some kind of social commentary about the lives that we live? Perhaps… but I haven’t figured it out yet. It certainly is clever, but I don’t know if it adds some kind of social dialogue to the mix – and even if that were the case would most of the players even get it? And so this is where my feelings are mixed, it is like getting purposely drunk – you know its bad for you, you know you shouldn’t but still its fun to do (sometimes).