Guys That Play Girls In Games. Why?

Chairman Miaow

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I was just trying to think of a reason why guys so often seem to play women in video games.
My brother plays almost exclusively female characters, and I know he isn't alone. I honestly can't think of single good reason to, for me, all it would do is spoil the immersion as I'm NOT a girl. So, anyone who does play as a woman in games, why? Feel free to speculate even if you don't play a woman, but please try not to just descend into "COz ThEy ARe PerVS LoL!".

TLDR: Why do men play as women?

EDIT: Women who play as men also feel free to reply as to why you do.

This is not about sexism, I am NOT saying you can't play as a woman, I just want to know why you do.

Reasons so far:

To see if it changes anything on the second playthrough.

More aesthetically pleasing. (both gear and form)

Access to certain classes.

Distance yourself from the character.

Free stuff from online perverts.

For a change.

Transgender issues.

Male Shepherd's lacklustre voice-acting.

EDIT EDIT: The amount of idiotic replies in this thread is making me want to start a thread titled "Why does nobody ever read the first post properly before posting unfounded and offensive comments?"

Thank you to all those people who have actually been helpful.

EDIT EDIT EDIT: anybody about to post a comment along the lines of "HURRDURR you are uncomfortable with your sexuality and femininity because you don't play as a girl", I am an actor, notoriously some of the most feminine people on the planet, and my favourite characters in Super Smash Bro's Melee were Jigglypuff and Peach. (I still beat everyone I knew with both.) If that's not comfortable with femininity I don't know what is.


EDIT EDIT EDIT: No, I am not a 240lb hunk of space marine man muscle (well, maybe just not the space marine bit) but as somebody very helpfully said later in the thread, there are a lot more emotional segues between me and that character, than me and a female character.
 

GiantRaven

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Why not? It seems awfully backwards to say that you can only play a game as your own assigned gender.
 

Chairman Miaow

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I wasn't saying you can't, I was just saying that it ruins the immersion for me because I'm not a girl. I can't understand why you would play in a way that makes the game less fun. Maybe that's just me.
 

Ashcrexl

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there are exactly two genders. one is male. the other is female. guys play lots of video games. therefore it should come to reason that guys tend to play males a lot and they tend to play females a lot. plus they dont get to be females in real life, so there's that.
 

Spark Ignition

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well this topics been here before.

but for the record I sometimes play a female character in games such as Fallout 3 to actually boost immersion. When playing a guy the temptation is too great to make ME, and behave as I would (or at least as the flawless hero I would like to be!)
In a morally ambiguous game like Fallout 3 I found it helpful to make a character I could distance myself from, and thus make decisions I wouldn't be comfortable with while roleplaying myself, such as murdering NPCs, blowing up Megaton etc.

I most certainly do not do it cos 'I aM a PerV LoL'.
 

Shpongled

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Chairman Miaow said:
I was just trying to think of a reason why guys so often seem to play women in video games.
My brother plays almost exclusively female characters, and I know he isn't alone. I honestly can't think of single good reason to, for me, all it would do is spoil the immersion as I'm NOT a girl. So, anyone who does play as a woman in games, why? Feel free to speculate even if you don't play a woman, but please try not to just descend into "COz ThEy ARe PerVS LoL!".

TLDR: Why do men play as women?
You're not a gun-toting sword-wielding demon-slaying world-saver either, but it'd be pretty dull if you spent the entirety of fallout 3 sat at home messing around with a computer. I've spent all my life being myself, games are chance to immerse myself in a character other than myself, who may or may not share some characteristics with myself.
 

Cursed Frogurt

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I chose to play as a female shepard in Mass Effect because I found the male shepard to have an extremely unemotional voice.
 
Dec 14, 2009
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Because I can?

It offers new gameplay options, for instance, like in Mass Effect 2, I have a female Shepard renegade who has a relationship with Garrus, I also have a male paragon but there's something awesome about a badass red head who teams up really well with Garrus.

It also depends on appearance. In Oblivion, I have a female moon shadow elf with a white bob haircut and red eyes. She also wears a female version of Ezio's armour from AC2. Now tell me that's not awesome...
 

OliverTwist72

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I'm not sure. I can see the appeal since you are staring at it for hours you might as well enjoy it. I for one like to picture the character being me so I usually play male.

I won't say that I exclusively play male characters, just the majority. Sometimes it's cool to make a chick kick a bunch of ass.
 

EinTheCorgi

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Well there are people out there who say that there a guy even when there a girl and vice versa also in games like masseffect it lets you experience more of the story because it seems like most of the male characters wont say anything unless your character has breasts...though I still havent gotten around to doing that myself...Also if im going to be staring at someones back and ass for an entire game I rather it be a chick than a dude.
 
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Chairman Miaow said:
I was just trying to think of a reason why guys so often seem to play women in video games.

TLDR: Why do men play as women?
Why don't they? There's the PvP argument:


There's the fact that certain characters just suit women better. (I've never seen a Bowman that wasn't fashioned around Robin Hood, but there's a lot of differing Bow-Women)

And often it's a challenge to portray someone apart from yourself - that's the point of RP, in a nut-shell.

Very rarely see women play as men when they have the choice though...
 

LeonLethality

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If immersion if projecting yourself upon your character, then that's pretty sad.

But as Daystar there said, Because you can.
 

Spark Ignition

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I think a lot of people's opinions could be neatly summarised by pointing out that for many, games are a form of escapism (hence the title of this whole damn website!), and escapism can ahrdly function if you're pretending to be yourself?

EDIT: I also think a lot of other peoples opinions could be summarised as 'but girls r hot lol'.

Oh well long live free speech!
 

Chairman Miaow

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Shpongled said:
You're not a gun-toting sword-wielding demon-slaying world-saver either. I've spent all my life being myself, games are chance to immerse myself in a character other than myself, who may or may not share some characteristics with myself.
Somebloke said:
...but you ARE 200+ lbs of space marine muscle?
I would find it easier to imagine myself as that than as a woman. I could never know what it is like to live as a woman. I could speculate, but it would be completely uninformed as I have no experience with periods, childbirth, what it's like to be a woman in society. I have however, fought people, swung a sword etc. so my speculation is a little more informed. Again, not saying you can't play as a woman, just saying I don't see why you would.
 

Kiefer13

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Jul 31, 2008
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Why? Why not?

You're not a badass space marine or a knight or a wizard or any of the other things you often play as in games either. That doesn't break the immersion, does it? Personally in games where I'm given the choice, my characters will usually be somewhere around the 50:50 ratio in terms of male to female. It just adds variety.
 

BlueberryMUNCH

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GiantRaven said:
Why not? It seems awfully backwards to say that you can only play a game as your own assigned gender.
This.

Also, for some games it gives an entirely different perspective on things.
Take Mass Effect 2...[sub]and maybe 1 too, I haven't actually played it with Ms.Shepherd[/sub]
For some reason, I felt that the story actually worked better with a female character. Don't ask me why, it just...did o.o.

But yeah, why not play as a female?
DIZ IZ SEKZIZM...[sub]i kid, i kid.[/sub].
 

Pandaman1911

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I played as a woman in Mass Effect on my "evil" playthrough, just because male Shepherd was an *AWFUL* bad guy. (Not like you're really being evil anyway, you're still saving the galaxy, you're just being a dick about it.) But for the most part, I don't play as a woman in games where character customization comes into play, mostly because I play as the class that takes the largest piece of metal it can find, puts a handle on it, and then goes about making people's heads explode, and in all the games where I can customize my character, they're always these little petite things that don't look like they can support their own head, never mind a six foot long warhammer. (Not counting World of Warcraft, which does have huge muscled women, but I don't count it because I don't play it.)