Player Gender Equality in PWI

b:shocked

Hey out there, the following is a LONG- see 'short story length'- venting post. It covers a variety of topics relating to my experience with PWI thus far and has as much basis in fact and research as it does in personal opinion. Please read the entire post if you're going to bother flaming. PS: PWI censors their forums in the strangest ways so I had to find a workaround for the name War Craft.

I am new to playing PWI. I came from playing World of War craft (and fable 2 and sims 2) for the past 5 or more years. Something that I've noticed about PWI that is off-putting to me is the very rigid gender restriction in place throughout the game. Everything is gender restricted from clothing and shoes (female characters can only wear high heels and mostly skirts) to not being able to pick up and carry another same gendered character, and at this point obviously the exclusion of same gendered character marriage. I'm surprised the quests and fighting abilities aren't gender restricted as well! The character creation screen at least had some androgynous choices of hair style so I could fashion the character to be less stereotypically feminine. I chose the mowhawk after my RL hairstyle, but it looks completely ridiculous with all the revealing female objectifying clothes my character is forced to wear LOL!

Getting more on the point, this came as a complete shock as I'd been used to the mostly gender neutral/equal environment of WOW. I am a **** woman, my RL partner and I have enjoyed playing RPG games together for many years and consider it an enriching experience. We decided to move away from War craft to try something new. We heard PWI was a beautiful game that was fun to play. It is both of those for the most part, however when I was learning how to play the game, figuring out all of the controls, I discovered I couldn't pick up my partner's character like the other "couples" I'd seen in the game. Coupled with the lack of same gender marriage and the fact that being married and "hoist cuddling" came with actual in game advantages (not just cosmetic ones), I began to really get the sense that my partner and I were not equal to the other players in the eyes of the game creators. We get this enough from idiots in our RLs. The reason we play mmorpg's has a lot to do with the mmo part. It's a social game playing experience. Since we both work from home it's nice to be able interact and socialize in a "virtual home away from home".


I've read a similar thread on the forums here and have some responses to some of the things that were said by closed minded or immature players about why PWI should remain a sexist biased game:

In response to the idea of needing a stricter rating:
In WOW and other games, same gendered characters can flirt with and "blowkiss" and hug one another, the same as the opposite gendered characters, and there was no need for a M esrb rating. Both WOW and PWI are rated T for TEEN. Same gender activities are not limited in Sims 2, it even has a sexual interaction option (woohoo) and its still rated T for TEEN. If you are under TEEN age and playing this or any other game with such a rating and cannot handle the content, your parents should be monitoring your activities more closely.

In response to the notion PWI would lose players and profits if same gender marriages were allowed:
In recent studies, and even these are incorrect because social stigma limits the amount of truthful answers, 2 out of every 10 people personally identify as something other than heterosexual. Let me break it down for you: In the US as of 2009 there were over 301 million people. That means over 61 MILLION people in the US identified as glbt. If you calculated the amount of money players in PWI spend in the cash shop for say a cheap mount ~$10 usd and multiplied it by the number of **** people who could at some point play PWI you'd have 610 million dollars just for each player buying a mount!!!. That is nothing to scoff at. I realize that not all glbt people are gamers, however I would expect the amount of glbt gamers to reflect the percentages of the general population. That number is still not something wise game developers should ignore. Here are a couple of short articles on the subject:
http://www.gamespot.com/gamespot/features/all/gamespotting/090703thatpilotisyou/8.html
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http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/games/archives/game_culture/2005/01/homosexuality_and_gaming.html

In response to the idea that PWI is an Asian based and hosted game and cultural differences aren't accepting of homosexuality, have more strict social conduct yada yada yada.. If you would do your research, you would see that there are many examples of how historically most asian cultures have been even more accepting in a round about way of gender and sexual variance than even the US. If you're interested in learning something, here are some resources:

http://www2.hu-berlin.de/sexology/IES/japan.html

http://www2.hu-berlin.de
/sexology/IES/thailand.html

http://www2.hu-berlin.de/sexology/IES/vietnam.html#6

* Concerning china's backwards views on sexuality in general, female infanticide is still practiced commonly in many rural communities- enough said about the country's accepted moral practices.

In response to the uneducated dimwits who equate "**** marriage" to zoophelia or bestiality or call it un-natural: There is no academic correlation. Two humans regardless of gender are still THE SAME SPECIES! (exceptions could be made on the racial differences = possible subspecies differentiation in humans argument). Homosexual behavior has been studied in nature and other non-human animals and many common examples have been noted (dolphins, birds, apes, elephants, giraffes, sheep, lions, the list goes on and on) See here for a more complete list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexual_behavior_in_animals



In the related thread I read it was refreshing to see a majority of players who responded were actually in favor of or neutral to the idea of gender equality in PWI. As many of you know, word spreads like wildfire in online communities and I could not imagine how any smart company would be ok with becoming known as discriminatory towards a large consumer base. It just doesn't make any logical business sense.



In conclusion, this has been my first and probably my last post on these forums. I am conflicted as to whether or not I should continue playing PWI or go back to WOW. I find it incongruent calling a game PERFECT WORLD when it simply mirrors all of the injustices of our modern real world, very far from perfect. I want to play and like and PWI, it has a ton of great features and beautiful graphics, but I feel my community has been alienated by it and I don't think I can turn a blind eye to something so blatantly wrong.