The strategic female: gender-switching and player behavior in online games

Abstract

As players craft and enact identities in digital games, the relationship between player and avatar gender remains unclear. This study examines how 11 in-game chat, movement, and appearance behaviors differed by gender and by men who did and did not use a female avatar – or ‘gender-switchers’. Drawing on social role and feminist theories of gender, we argue that gender differences in behavior align with the social roles and norms that establish appropriate and inappropriate behavior for men and women. Thus we complicate questions of ‘gender-switching’ by examining not only player gender, but also player psychological Gender Role as measured by the Bem Sex Role Inventory to examine how gender does – and does not – manifest in digital worlds. Analysis revealed that men may not necessarily seek to mask their offline gender when they use a female avatar, but there is evidence they do reinforce idealized notions of feminine appearance and communication. Movement behaviors, however, show no differences across men who do and do not gender-switch. That is, selecting avatar gender may be less a matter of identity expression, and more a strategic selection of available multi-modal codes that players take up in their navigation of this digital space.

Keywords:

• gender
• video games
• digital worlds
• identity
• gender roles
• avatars

Notes on contributors

Rosa Mikeal Martey is an Associate Professor in the Department of Journalism and Communication at Colorado State University. Her research focuses on games, identity, social interaction and digital media, and can be found in New Media & Society, Information, Communication & Society, and Games Studies, among others. [email: [email protected]]

Jennifer Stromer-Galley is an Associate Professor in Information Studies. Her expertise is on communication processes and effects through digital communication channels. She has published over 30 publications that focus on dimensions of digital media around influence, leadership, political communication, and training. [email: [email protected]]

Jaime Banks is an Assistant Professor in the University of Toronto Mississauga's Institute of Communication, Culture and Information Technology. Her research focuses on game studies and immersive digital media approached through mixed methodologies. Recent work explores how people have relationships with avatars and other digital objects and how identities are constructed and signified in relation to them. [email: [email protected]]

Jingsi Wu is an Assistant Professor at Hofstra University in Journalism, Media Studies, and Public Relations. She uses a variety of perspectives and research approaches to study the convergence of popular culture and politics, how entertainment experiences contribute to civic engagement, how people behave in new media environments, such as massively multi-player online games, and how citizens use the social media to connect with others and organize their civic voices. [email: [email protected]]

Mia Consalvo is Canada Research Chair in Game Studies & Design at Concordia University. Her research focus is game studies, with particular interests in players and the culture of gameplay. She is currently working on a book about Japan's role in the creation of the game industry as well as game culture generally. She is the author of the book Cheating: Gaining advantage in videogames and of numerous articles and book chapters. [email: [email protected]]

Notes

1. Although this measure is titled ‘sex role inventory’, we use the term Gender Role to refer to the classifications created by this scale, along with contemporary scholarship and Bem (1993) herself.