research-article

What's 'choice' got to do with it?: avatar selection differences between novice and expert players of World of Warcraft and Rift

Authors:

Kelly Bergstrom,

Jennifer Jenson,

Suzanne de CastellAuthors Info & Claims

FDG '12: Proceedings of the International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games

Pages 97 - 104

https://doi.org/10.1145/2282338.2282360

Published: 29 May 2012 Publication History

Abstract

It's a now familiar refrain among both players and academics that healing is a 'feminine' activity and tanking a 'masculine' one within Massively Multiplayer Online Games. In this paper we present data from a multi-site study of World of Warcraft and Rift that examines this stereotype across novice and expert players. Our findings suggest that gender role stereotyping is progressively internalized as players become more competent in their gameworld of choice, with experts being more likely than novices to adopt this convention in their avatar selection.

References

[1]

Azruel. 2011. Cleric DPS a joke? Accessed December 16, 2011 at http://rift.zam.com/forum.html?forum=227&mid=1303631194134852815&h=50

[2]

Baron-Cohen, S. 2004. The Essential Difference: The truth about the male and female brain. New York: Basic Books.

[3]

Bergstrom, K., McArthur V., Jenson J., and Peyton, T. 2011. All in a day's work: a study of World of Warcraft NPCs comparing gender to professions. In Proceedings of the 2011 ACMSIGGRAPH Symposium on Video Games (Sandbox '11). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 31--35. DOI=10.1145/2018556.2018563

Digital Library

[4]

Bessiere, K., Seay, F, Kiesler, S. 2007. The Ideal Elf: Identity Exploration in World of Warcraft. Cyberpsychology & Behavior, 10(4), 530--535.

[5]

Blizzard Entertainment Inc. 2011. Classes of World of Warcraft -- Priest. Accessed November 26, 2011 at http://us.battle.net/wow/en/game/class/priest.

[6]

Blizzard Entertainment Inc. 2011. Classes of World of Warcraft -- Warrior. Accessed November 26, 2011 at http://us.battle.net/wow/en/game/class/warrior.

[7]

Cordae. 2011. An examination of roles in raids, and why clerics don't have more. Accessed December 16, 2011 at http://forums.riftgame.com/rift-general-discussions/classes-telara/cleric-discussion/285551-examination-roles-raids-why-clerics-dont-have-more.html

[8]

Corneliussen, H. G. 2008. World of warcraft as a playground for feminism. In Digital Culture, Play, and Identity. A World of Warcraft Reader, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, H. G. Corneliussen and J. W. Rettberg, Eds., 63--86.

[9]

Curse Inc. 2011. Chloromancer. Accessed December 2, 2011 at http://telarapedia.com/wiki/Chloromancer.

[10]

Curse Inc. 2011. Justicar. Accessed December 2, 2011 at http://telarapedia.com/wiki/Justicar.

[11]

Curse Inc. 2011. Riftstalker. Accessed December 2, 2011 at http://telarapedia.com/wiki/Riftstalker.

[12]

DiGiuseppe, N., and Nardi, B. 2007. Real genders choose fantasy characters: Class choice in World of Warcraft. First Monday. 12(5). Accessed November 26, 2011 at http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/1831/1715

[13]

Huh, S. and Williams, D. 2009. Dude looks like a lady: Gender swapping in an online game. In Online worlds: Convergence of the real and the virtual. Bainbridge, W. (Ed.). New York: Springer.

[14]

Hussain, Z., Griffiths, M. D. 2008. Gender Swapping and Socializing in Cyberspace: An exploratory study. Cyberpychology & Behaviour, 11(1), 47--53.

[15]

Jenson, J. & de Castell, S. 2010. Gender, simulation and gameplay: A review of the literature. Simulation and Gaming, 41(1), 51--71.

Digital Library

[16]

Jenson, I, Taylor, N., and de Castell, S. 2011. High Fidelity: Avatars and their Players. In Videogame Cultures and the Future of Interactive Entertainment. Oxford, UK, July 8--10, 2011.

[17]

MissElder. 2011. Raid requirements for clerics. Accessed December 16,2011 at http://family.guildlaunch.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=7723616

[18]

Taylor, T. L. 2003. Intentional Bodies: Virtual Environments and the Designers Who Shape Them. International journal of Engineering Education. 19(1), 25--34.

[19]

Trion Worlds, Inc. 2011. Cleric. Accessed November 26, 2011 at http://www.riftgame.com/en/classes/cleric/

[20]

Trion Worlds Inc. 2011. Warrior. Accessed November 26, 2011 at http://www.riftgame.com/en/classes/warrior/

[21]

Williams, D., Consalvo, M., Caplan, S., and Yee, N. 2009. Looking for gender (LFG): Gender roles and behaviors among online gamers. Journal of Communication. 59, 700--725.

[22]

Yee, N., Ducheneaut, N., Yao, M., and Nelson, L. 2011. Do men heal more when in drag?: Conflicting identity cues between user and avatar. In Proceedings of the 2011 annual conference on Human factors in computing systems (CHI '11). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 773--776. DOI=10.1145/1978942.1979054

Digital Library

Cited By

Smith X(2025)Binary Barriers: Avatar Creation and Play for Nonbinary Video Game PlayersGames and Culture10.1177/15554120251322209Online publication date: 25-Feb-2025
https://doi.org/10.1177/15554120251322209
Simanian AGuo BLin YWillis J(2023)Social Utilitarianism in Digital Interactions and Distant WorldsCurrent Research Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities10.12944/CRJSSH.6.1.066:1(66-86)Online publication date: 30-Jun-2023
https://doi.org/10.12944/CRJSSH.6.1.06
Won ADavis D(2023)Your money or your data: Avatar embodiment options in the identity economyConvergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies10.1177/1354856523120018730:2(882-903)Online publication date: 30-Oct-2023
https://doi.org/10.1177/13548565231200187
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

What's 'choice' got to do with it?: avatar selection differences between novice and expert players of World of Warcraft and Rift

Recommendations

All in a day's work: a study of World of Warcraft NPCs comparing gender to professions
SIGGRAPH '11: ACM SIGGRAPH 2011 Game Papers

Extending Corneliussen's [2008] study of the gender disparity of World of Warcraft Non-Player Characters (NPCs), this paper examines the relationship between sex and profession of NPCs in in the same game. Because NPCs are understudied to date, we ...
All in a day's work: a study of World of Warcraft NPCs comparing gender to professions
Sandbox '11: Proceedings of the 2011 ACM SIGGRAPH Symposium on Video Games

Extending Corneliussen's [2008] study of the gender disparity of World of Warcraft Non-Player Characters (NPCs), this paper examines the relationship between sex and profession of NPCs in in the same game. Because NPCs are understudied to date, we ...
The rogue in the lovely black dress: intimacy in world of warcraft
CHI '10: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

In this paper we present a critical analysis of player accounts of intimacy and intimate experiences in the massively multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft (WoW). Our analysis explores four characteristics that players articulated about ...

Comments

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM Other conferences

FDG '12: Proceedings of the International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games

May 2012

332 pages

ISBN:9781450313339

DOI:10.1145/2282338

Conference Chair:
Magy Seif El-Nasr
Northeastern University
,
Program Chairs:
Mia Consalvo
Concordia University
,
Steven Feiner
Columbia University

Copyright © 2012 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

Sponsors

SASDG: Society for the Advancement of the Science of Digital Games

In-Cooperation

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 29 May 2012

Permissions

Request permissions for this article.

Request Permissions

Check for updates

Author Tags

Qualifiers

Research-article

Funding Sources

Air Force Research Laboratory

Conference

FDG'12

Sponsor:

SASDG

FDG'12: International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games

May 29 - June 1, 2012

North Carolina, Raleigh

Acceptance Rates

Overall Acceptance Rate 152 of 415 submissions, 37%

Contributors

Other Metrics

View Article Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

12
Total Citations
View Citations
522
Total Downloads

Downloads (Last 12 months)18
Downloads (Last 6 weeks)0

Reflects downloads up to 23 Feb 2025

Other Metrics

View Author Metrics

Citations

Cited By

Smith X(2025)Binary Barriers: Avatar Creation and Play for Nonbinary Video Game PlayersGames and Culture10.1177/15554120251322209Online publication date: 25-Feb-2025
https://doi.org/10.1177/15554120251322209
Simanian AGuo BLin YWillis J(2023)Social Utilitarianism in Digital Interactions and Distant WorldsCurrent Research Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities10.12944/CRJSSH.6.1.066:1(66-86)Online publication date: 30-Jun-2023
https://doi.org/10.12944/CRJSSH.6.1.06
Won ADavis D(2023)Your money or your data: Avatar embodiment options in the identity economyConvergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies10.1177/1354856523120018730:2(882-903)Online publication date: 30-Oct-2023
https://doi.org/10.1177/13548565231200187
Poeller SDechant MMandryk R(2023)Playing a Flawless Character? Exploring Differences Between Experts and Novices in Tabletop Role-Playing Games and Potential Benefits for Well-BeingProceedings of the 18th International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games10.1145/3582437.3587180(1-7)Online publication date: 12-Apr-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3582437.3587180
Regal GUhl JGerhardus ASuette SFrankus ESchmid JKriglstein STscheligi M(2022)Marcus or Mira - Investigating the Perception of Virtual Agent Gender in Virtual Reality Role Play-TrainingProceedings of the 28th ACM Symposium on Virtual Reality Software and Technology10.1145/3562939.3565629(1-11)Online publication date: 29-Nov-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3562939.3565629
Robinson J(2022)“I Ain’t No Girl”: Exploring Gender Stereotypes in the Video Game CommunityWestern Journal of Communication10.1080/10570314.2022.213000487:5(857-878)Online publication date: 5-Oct-2022
https://doi.org/10.1080/10570314.2022.2130004
Mendelman LRatan RFordham JKnittel MMilik O(2019)Sentimental Avatars: Gender Identification and Vehicles of Selfhood in Popular Media From Nineteenth-Century Novels to Modern Video GamesGames and Culture10.1177/155541201987981216:2(160-186)Online publication date: 9-Oct-2019
https://doi.org/10.1177/1555412019879812
Snodgrass SMohaddesi OHart JRodriguez GHolmgård CHarteveld CDeterding SKhosmood FPirker JApperley T(2019)Like PEAS in PoDSProceedings of the 14th International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games10.1145/3337722.3337756(1-15)Online publication date: 26-Aug-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3337722.3337756
Kaufman GFlanagan MFreedman GArnedo JNacke LVanden Abeele VToups Dugas P(2019)Not Just for GirlsProceedings of the Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play10.1145/3311350.3347177(481-493)Online publication date: 17-Oct-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3311350.3347177
Ratan RFordham JLeith AWilliams D(2019) Women Keep it Real: Avatar Gender Choice in League of Legends Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking10.1089/cyber.2018.030222:4(254-257)Online publication date: Apr-2019
https://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2018.0302
Show More Cited By

View Options

Login options

Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

Full Access

Get this Publication

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

eReader

View online with eReader.

Figures

Tables

Media

View Table of Conten