Why do you always play as a girl?

Questions, questions, questions, that’s all you can find on websites like Quora. About guinea pigs, household chores, dating and much more. But also questions about games. In these blogs we found the funniest, craziest and super serious questions about games. And we decided to answer one: What gender do you prefer? Well, we asked the girls from our community to help us with answering it by sharing their expertise with us.

She must be: pretty, sexy, smart, tough and mysterious, everything a woman wants to be!

See, people joke about it a lot and as a girl gamer you even get comments about it when you’re gaming in a mixed group. “Why do you women ALWAYS choose a female character?” Well, you’ve got me there. I, myself, always pick a female character if the game offers that option. I just never considered choosing a male, simply because I’m a female myself. And for a long time I figured that other people follow my flawless logic. But not everybody seems to think the same way.

Did you just assume my gender?!

My best example is from one of my all time favorite games, World of Warcraft, where I’ve spent years playing with both female and male gamers. And to my suprise I found out early on that I can’t assume people’s gender based off the gender of their main character. And boy, have I been wrong in the past. (Yeah, sorry bro. I assumed your gender based on your character’s gender. My bad!) See, one of the fun aspects in MMO’s in particulair is that you can assume any identity you want. And don’t get me wrong, I’m the kind of nerd that has invented origin stories and personalities for each and every character I have ever made in the past. But somehow I never decided to make a male character. (Correction. I did once. But I immediately made him my actioneer in stead of actually leveling the poor guy. My sincere appologies to Artacaz, My level 15 human Worgen.)

More girls follow this logic

I asked Judith, one of the co-founders of Girl Gamer Galaxy, what her opinion was on the matter. Here’s her answer:
“Personally, I find myself always making a female character in RPGs with big boobs, beautiful hair, big eyes and a slim waist. Really superficial, but I think that’s beautiful and my character definitely needs to be pretty. She must be: pretty, sexy, smart and mysterious, everything a woman wants to be! Sometimes she needs to be tough too. So she will get some tattoos, a battlescar or blood stains. In other games where you can choose a character I always go right for a woman. When I first played HearthStone I chose Janna. In Don’t Starve I picked Willow and in League of Legends Katarina was my first main champion. After a while I also started choosing male characters for their skill sets. But when I play a game for the first time I always go for a female character.”

Is it right to assume our preference when it comes to picking a gender?

We asked our Girl Gamer Community what they prefered. Do they always pick females if they can? Do they like to switch it up? Or do they always choose to play male characters in games. To my suprise people seemed to respond instantly. None of that soul searching crap that I went trough when I was asked this question. Nope! Almost 140 people had their answer all good and ready! I know, when it comes to these kinds of discussions you can never really use words like ‘always’.

How many times have you heard people say that girl gamers ‘always’ choose to play as a healer? My answer is usually “No we don’t! and if my fellow gamers aren’t convinced I tell them to go talk to my Paladin Tank. I mean, sure, often females (are pushed to) choose a healer or support roll. Maybe it’s because it’s a good way to help your friends or because it’s a good way to get to know a new game. (This might be an interesting question for a later time…) But I digress. Maybe it’s good to take a look at the numbers before we yell things like ‘Girls always play girl characters in games’.

The community seems divided…

Exactly 136 people have reacted to the poll at the time that I am writing this blog. These are the results:

• 55.9 per cent claims to always play as a female character if the game allows it.
• 42.6 per cent says that they vary between both female and male characters.
• 1.5 per cent tells us that they always play male characters.

Well ok. So the mayority of the girls who responded to the poll actually do go for girl characters. So it’s understandable why we get questioned about it while playing with guys online. Here is a list of reasons why the ladies choose either a girl or a guy character:

• It’s not that I choose to play a specific game so that I can play as a female. But, especially in MMO’s, the females are just much prettier.
• I always play a girl character, unless I really can’t. I even sometimes choose to play some games because I have the option of playing as a female.
• I never choose to play as a female. Mostly because of the annoying moaning sounds they make when they get hurt.
• I play both. Sometimes it’s just more fun to stare at a nice guy butt when you’re playing games.

What about you, what gender do you prefer?

Our guess is that girls pick female characters because it makes it easier to relate to your avatar. Do you agree? We now know how our Girl Gamer Community members like to play their games. But what I’m eager to find out is how you guys out there play your games. And from a male perspective: Do most guys prefer to look at female butts while leveling in a RPG game? Do they find the female moans annoying too? Or do they, like myself, just pick a same gender character for the simple fact that they are male. So if you are reading this, let us know in the comment section or via Twitter what you prefer to play as and why.