Wacky Chinese game companies
The Chinese online role-playing game “King of the World” has banned male users for playing as female characters. Female users must verify their gender with webcams in order to continue playing their avatars.
The general response so far is:
1) This is stupid. Role-playing game, hello? Must I also be tall and skinny to play and elf?
2) This is even more stupid. What about androgynous-looking males – do they get a pass? What about people with the brains to get a female friend in front of the webcam for the verification? What about people with no webcam?
3) This is kinda creepy. Women are not barred from playing male characters – so in other words, this is solely to ensure that female avatars have female players. The only people to whom this could matter are people whose masturbatory fantasies or upcoming stalking plans depend on the object being the desired gender.
My WoW characters are split about 50-50, but it does happen that the most active ones are female. This is more coincidence than planning. OTOH, I don’t eroticize my World of Warcraft, either. No random messager’s getting cyb0rz3x off of me!
Tags: philosophy, sex, world of warcraft
