Shanda Says No to Men Role Playing Women Characters

[kudos]

Shanda Entertainment - one of Mainland China's heavy hitters in the gaming industry - announced that their subsidiary, Aurora Technology, has frozen accounts of male players who have elected to play as female characters in the King of the World MMORPG. Apparently there are no bans on women playing male characters, but women (and men-wanting-to-play-as-women) will be required to prove their gender via webcam. How exactly is this all going to work? And is it going to last? Who knows - but it certainly seems very odd and not prone to lasting long:

Shanda (Nasdaq: SNDA) subsidiary Aurora Technology has frozen game accounts of male players who chose to play female in-game characters in its in-house developed MMORPG King of the World, reports 17173. Aurora stipulates that only female gamers can play female characters in the game, and it requires gamers who chose female characters to prove their biological sex with a webcam, according to the report.

PlayNoEvil's commentary points out that this doesn't seem like it will last long: a webcam gender verification system seems to be fraught with potential problems and headaches, and Aurora is trying to remove at least one aspect that attracts some people to online, fantasy-based games: the chance to be someone or something else.

Imagine how many frozen/deleted accounts WoW or EQ would have if this happened. Here is to hoping AoC does the same to you future manginas.

Only In China: Shanda Says No to Men Role Playing Women Characters

[Cybsled]

Honestly the only people who care about guys playing girls in MMOs are the type who are just looking for luv. Goto fucking eHarmony or Chemistry.com or IRC if you're trying to get internet cyber. Oiy.

[Grizzlebeard]

If they ever did that in FFXI they'd lose over 80% of the game's subscriptions.

[Agraza]

They can't enforce this. I don't know what percent of their potential customers have webcams, but even if they all do or all their cafes have them it's likely someone will develop a way to fake it. There has to be some way to provide a proxy and hook up an alternate picture or video. Furthermore, what exactly does it stop and is it worth it to alienate the players that are interested?

I googled it and the only angle I could find for motive was disgust of possible unknown homosexual cybersex between a guy and a guy faking being a girl. Is the asian market clamoring for a developer to protect them from this situation so they can get their furry on in peace? Does the female share of the market in that region even dignify this fix?

I'm curious if this would encourage or discourage women to play the game. If you KNOW they're female and it's safe to harass them without fear of penis won't it make each one a huge target?

I have put far too much thought into this.

[Itzena]

Gin, I expect an editorial about this on Patchtimer - stat!

[Ardbeg of AB]

Its only so the Devs/GMs get to peek at some boobies.... "Sorry I am not convinced you are a female show me them titties".

A friend of mine gave a good reason for beeing a guy and playing a female char, he said that if you where going to spend several hours every night looking at a ass it might aswell be pretty.

/Ardbeg of AB

[Itzena]

Tits or GTFO?

Anonymous would be proud.

[Chips]

How hard would it be just to get my GF/wife/neighbor/mom/sister to stand in front of the webcam for 15 seconds and say 'hi, my character is Pallywanker04'

Stupid idea.

[Kreugen]

I remember when people used that "looking at a pretty ass" excuse were playing eq, a game that next to nobody played in third person.

[elrich]

I just didn't like the male dranei models and wanted to play a shaman

Male dranei look too fucking top heavy.

[Ironhawk]

I think I might try it out. Just for the satisfaction of the look on their face when I mushroom stamp the webcam when I "prove" I'm a woman.


...I don't play female characters, but I think it's comical that they want "proof" on a webcam. I think it's just an experimental model of how it's possible to get PAID for someone ELSE stripping on a webcam. That's what I'd use it for anyway.

[Xianthe]

Originally Posted by Kreugen

I remember when people used that "looking at a pretty ass" excuse were playing eq, a game that next to nobody played in third person.

Haha too true, Kruegen!

P.S. As to the question of whether it would deter or not, I know it wouldn't for me. I have been playing since Diablo I (back when I was worried about being online with a bunch of 13 y/o boys), and I still had fun. Now I realize I'm online with a varied group of individuals, many of which who just happen to act like 13 y/o boys. No difference.

[...]

I thought people did it for free buffs in EQ1

[Tindel]

just dont include gender, seriously how realistic is a female warrior anyway, maybe 0.01%

[Ravensign]

Voicechat being built into WoW is going to cause some hilarity to ensue for some of these folks.