Shandra wants to cut down on women players
One of Mainland China’s most popular online gaming companies is telling its users if you want to play a woman, show us your tits.
There’s no prohibition against women playing as male characters, but if you sign up to play a woman in the game, you have to verify via webcam that you are, in fact, a woman. And none of this “do you look kind of femmy” in the article — they want to determine your biological sex. (How much do you want to bet those images will be sold?)
So basically they’re telling women to bugger off. As we saw in a recent poll, women overwhelmingly want to play as women when given the choice. And when you think about it, even if they don’t mind proving their biological sex to some nasty server admin, the online environment left for them will be so completely predatory that they’ll probably not stay on much longer.
I’m a little fascinated as to why this is such an important issue that they had to break out this policy. I’m sure the public rationale is that it’s a social hygene issue, and that they want to prevent the men from becoming gay by playing women. But part of me wonders if this is echoing the larger problem that China is facing in its lack of women. By restricting men from playing as women, Aurora (the company that runs Shandra), is basically reassuring men that if they see a woman online, that she is a woman IRL — something that is in desperately short supply over there. I’m just having a hard time seeing the end result on this — certainly, I suspect that the amount of harrassment that women players will receive is going to skyrocket. But if this policy is implemented, it’s ultimately going to result in a game where there are few-to-no women in-game, and I wonder how that will impact the overall desirability of the game to the male players, and ultimately the company’s bottom line.
It will be interesting to watch. I wish Aurora’s competitors bon chance.
September 24th, 2007 at 1:44 pm
Sorry, I just had to pull this comment from the bunch for the laughs. And the “yeah right” quality.:
From what I remember, there was a study that suggested that a large majority of male gamers actually prefer playing female leads in their games. Some kinda psychological gender-reversal thing.
***
My opinion on why they’re doing this? I don’t really have one. I don’t live in China, I have no idea what the social climate is like there for female gamers (or gamers in general). It could be someone was really freaked out learning that a girl was being played by a guy, could be there were too many guys making female characters just to put them into pornographic situations or portray them as whatever negative image they wanted (which I’ve seen far too often), maybe they just don’t want women playing.
It’s messed up no matter how you slice it.
September 24th, 2007 at 9:42 pm
Well beyond the whole birds and the bee’s differences there is a non sexual way to tell the gender of a player. Who has and adams apple?
Imagine the videos the admins would see, womens necks exxxposed. After that if they refused you because you won’t show what they “need” then you would know they are full of it. Don’t know the legal of it in China but I dont think they could deny you after seeing you don’t have and apple. Yet it is China they are not known for their wonderful civil liberties and rights last I checked.
September 24th, 2007 at 10:49 pm
While unfamiliar with China, my unfounded suspicion is that you are right; at least part of the policy may have to do with the Gender-gap in China. Having said that, I do stress that it is relatively unfounded beyond the sparse news articles mentioning it (and they tend to be the not enough brides for mens sort of thing. Oh noes!)
At any rate, I crossed over here from Pandagon (can’t think of the post in question) and just wanted to say hi from another soon to be dedicated-reader.
September 24th, 2007 at 11:06 pm
Presence or absence of an adam’s apple is a notably poor means of determining sex. I cite myself for this proposition. When I have done transgendery stuff I’ve been quite thankful for my miniscule-to-non-existent adam’s apple. Now, if only I didn’t have a perpetual five o’clock shadow. . .
As for Shandra, I think your reading, Pony, is most likely the correct one. It seems like a way to reassure their male players by eliminating the possibility of a few moment’s discomfort when they realize that the female toon they’ve been hitting on is controlled by a guy. Still, that’s based on my experience with American male gamers. Maybe Chinese gamers are less insecure about their sexuality.
September 25th, 2007 at 6:09 am
This is maybe linked in some way as to the reason why I stopped, and now pretty much dislike MMORPG’s. If Im playing an RPG, I want to get immersed in the gam, and not have to worry about real life while Im playing. Unfortunately, it doesnt matter if you can, its that others cant. If its not some idiot player spouting nonsense, or generally being offensive, its probably someone else who is unsure of your sex in real life, and cant handle it. Of course, Im well aware that is far more of a problem for others (women) than myself, but of what little I saw, or sometimes experienced, it was enough to put me off.
In regards to the actual topic, Ill likewise add that Im not familiar with Chinese gamers attitudes, but Id still say it’s a pretty safe bet. Still, it does seem to defeat the object of playing video games if you ask me. Whats the point in trying to leave your own life for a little while if you have to be restricted to what you can do in the game because of it, or just be inconvenienced for it? (Though having to prove your sex in that manner is more than an inconvenience, I know)
September 25th, 2007 at 7:19 am
I think an Adam’s apple is a good indicator that a man is not a woman, but there are guys who don’t have them so it’s not going to be 100% accurate, but it’s that whole “a square is a rectangle but a rectangle is not necessarily a square” sort of thing.
It’s tempting, when talking about gender in China, to relate everything to the imbalance over there. And I’m sure that it informs what’s happening–but I don’t know that it makes sense logically in this case. This isn’t an official arm of the government, but then, in China, there isn’t so much of a distinction between corporate and governmental anyway. It is in the gvmt’s best interest to downplay the shortage of women because there’s a lot of social instability potential when you have a large portion of the population unable to find mates. If men can find relief, even momentarily, through playing an MMO where some female-like thing appears to be taking an interest in him, perhaps so much the better. In fact, mandating that women provide “biological proof” of their sex is only going to underscore the problem (and maybe even inflate it), when women say “f that” and not log on, or get so sick of being constantly hit on by guys who know there’s a real-live woman behind the screen (maybe she’s single! Maybe she’s in my city!) that they sign off. Now, they’re interacting in a world with few to no women, an even bleaker situation than they already face.
And I absolutely agree with TheBends — it completely undermines the purpose of a videogame to do this.
September 25th, 2007 at 8:01 am
Maybe they’re doing it to cut down on the nigh-constant spam of ‘a/s/l?’ </snark>
And yes, the Adam’s apple is a poor indicator of sex. Jokes about being a tranny aside, Ann Coulter really is a woman and really does have a ginormous Adam’s apple.
September 25th, 2007 at 8:05 am
>I do stress that it is relatively unfounded beyond the sparse news articles mentioning it (and they >tend to be the not enough brides for mens sort of thing. Oh noes!)
I probably could have used a compassion upgrade before posting this. It’s got to be a pretty lousy situation to be in.
As far as MMORPGs go, I pretty much switch between genders indiscriminately-though my ex as the only female player in her guild was pretty much bombarded with questions about new guild members who came in. It was expected that she would be able to verify if the player of a female character was actually female. Why they’d want to know has always baffled me…
September 25th, 2007 at 2:34 pm
While it’s not necessarily much nicer than tranny speculation, I thought that Ann’s ginormous adam’s apple was an indicator of an eating disorder, not a Y chromosome.
September 25th, 2007 at 9:39 pm
Delurking to stick in my two cents: As I understand it (did some research on this in college), the gender imbalance in China varies depending on where you look, both regionally and maybe also along the rural/urban divide. There are some specific areas where it’s as bad as 130 men to every 100 women, but not everywhere. FWIW, in the medium-sized city I’ve been living in for a couple of weeks now–a prosperous one with, I suspect, an above-average percentage of middle class families–I haven’t noticed much disparity between men and women, at least not in my age range. Urban middle class people like the ones here, with free time and fast Internet, are probably a much bigger percentage of Aurora’s market share than rural guys from areas with big gender disparities. Actually, billboards and posters for MMOs are everywhere in this city–WoW is the most ubiquitous, with three ads within five minutes’ walk of where I live, but I’ve seen ads for this King of the World game and others, too.
However, even if there were relatively even numbers of young men and women here, I wouldn’t assume the playerbase of the game reflected that, hence perhaps this dumb policy. Checking to see if that hot elf is a “real girl” is something many male players do all the time anyway. In my very first hour playing WoW a couple of years ago, I had a whisper conversation with a guy who wanted to know if I was really a woman because he and his friends were looking for a girl to help power level–but only if she had voice chat. I suspect Aurora envision this as a service to their dude players, weeding out the uncertainty for them. Unfortunately that makes the female players as much product as customers–100% guaranteed real women, guys! Ew. Putting it that way makes it even less appealing, if my Chinese were even good enough that I’d consider a local MMO.
September 25th, 2007 at 11:42 pm
I really have a hard time reading this as anything other than “Some guys on the Shanda staff want you to flash your tits for them”.
September 26th, 2007 at 12:12 am
Now now mythago be fair, with the new diet over in China many young boys have tits too.
September 26th, 2007 at 12:15 am
Any chance y’all can stop using “tranny” since it’s a transphobic word that’s highly offensive to transsexual and transgendered people?
September 26th, 2007 at 7:31 am
To be fair, a lot of women consider the word “tits” to be highly offensive… but no offense was intended with the use of that word, either.
September 26th, 2007 at 8:39 am
I started thing with the non-tits t-word, and… yeah. It’d probably be offensive to me if someone else said it. But speaking personally and not as The Representative Transwoman, I’m more disturbed by being so closely associated with Ann Coulter. I don’t want her in my sandbox, ewickgetitoffmeplzkthxbai.
September 26th, 2007 at 8:58 am
I didn’t think that you meant to be offensive, but part of being a good ally is to speak up when I see people — even when they are people who I like and respect — using terms that have a long history of hatred. I was trying to do so in a non-offensive way, but I seemed to have failed in that respect. If you felt attacked by my tone, I really am sorry. But ultimately, I do feel that it’s important for feminist and other bigotry-opposed cisgendered people to avoid using the term.
September 26th, 2007 at 9:29 am
no, there was no offense taken, I just didn’t want there to be any confusion about the use of the word. Frankly, this thread is sort of bound to be a trainwreck. We’ve got fatphobia, transphobia, and a bit of xenophobia thrown into the mix so far. One more phobia and I’ll have bingo.
September 26th, 2007 at 10:42 am
Also, isn’t it interesting how Ayn Coulter always brings out the worst in liberals? We’ve got Al Franken calling her a c—t (hellooo misogyny!), we’ve got people suggesting that she’s a man (transphobia), and here I am speculating about an eating disorder. It’s like performance art enlisting the unwilling.
September 26th, 2007 at 12:05 pm
Sorry, Im taking this off topic further, and I dont want to get blasted for saying this, but its something I do sometimes, so I wanted to ask anyway. I was just wondering what is wrong with using the word c–t occasionally? Maybe its different for me as an individual or different for me being English, but I use the word no differently than I would “cock” for example (I in fact defend my use of c–t because I use both of those words, which I find similar, equally). In fact, most times I use a swear word (c–t included) its just because Ive chosen it randomly, or used it in a string of swearwords. Now please understand, I dont want to piss anyone off by asking this, but is that still misogynistic? Or do you have to use this particular word in a certain way, like only as an insult towards women? (And this is me asking a question here, not trying to be defensive of my use of the word. Please don’t kill me!)
September 26th, 2007 at 4:03 pm
The source of story in the English-speaking world seems to be a painfully short, two sentence “editorial summary” on Asian business site Pacific Epoch. Besides containing scant details or supporting information on Shanda’s policy, the summary contains the eyebrow-raising assertion that players with female avatars would have to “prove their biological sex with a webcam.” While this isn’t impossible, we find it hard to believe that a publicly traded company would start encouraging its customers to send in pictures of their naughty bits for any reason. Besides being ineffective (what’s to stop a player from sending in a picture of someone else?) the system seems overly complicated when a National ID card number could easily provide proof of gender (much as it already does for age confirmation in other MMOs).
Pacific Epoch cites popular Chinese MMO web site 17173 as the source of its information, and while we couldn’t find the original article on their site, we did find a story about some obviously fake Halo 3 branded condoms, which 17173 presented as fact. Combine the questionable editorial judgment with the translation problems inherent in citing information from a Chinese site and you have a perfect recipe for an erroneous story to spread across the internet.
September 26th, 2007 at 4:04 pm
Gah… I messed up the text link. That’s a quote from Joystiq; they’re calling BS on the story.
September 26th, 2007 at 4:08 pm
TheBends — because throughout history (and in some places today still), women’s genitalia were considered especially disgusting, tainted, and sinful in a way penises never were. By calling people a ‘c*nt’ as an insult is an continuation of that misogynistic tradition, even if you personally don’t mean to agree with the sentiments behind it.
September 26th, 2007 at 7:24 pm
Yeah, I saw that it was potentially fake. That’s what I get for going with a scoop from Kotaku >.<
September 26th, 2007 at 8:04 pm
Don’t feel bad; it got picked up by 1Up and Game|Life, both organizations that make a big deal about their journalistic integrity. You would think that journalists would do the fact checking themselves.
September 28th, 2007 at 12:02 am
Verify to Aurora & Shandra that I have “titties”??? You have got to be kidding me!!!
This is yet another example of a company trying to reinforce the Sex Wars by forcing men like myself MUST play as another man. This is utterly ridiculous and reeks of corporate misogyny.
I hope that someone will protest this very unethical move by Aurora & Shandra!!! >:(
September 30th, 2007 at 7:24 pm
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