What's behind the equality in the virtual world

People say the world is changing and I agree that the world is changing for good. When the United States first started off as a nation of freedom, minority people and women were subjected to remain inferior; as well as youngsters and poor people who couldn’t pay tax. However as the phase of world developed, the United States started to aim for equality. The Brown vs. Board of Education has ended segregation of colored people and white people. The twenty-sixth amendment has provided voting rights to people above age of 18. The nineteenth amendment has granted women the right to vote, providing them with equal political power as men. All these cases and laws show us that the world is changing towards the equal representation of people. Yet, even under these changes, some part of the world remains misrepresented such as women in pop culture. In the newly developing virtual world of gaming, even though every player is placed on the same circumstances, the fixed look of characters definitely misrepresents the true aspects of women.

One undeniable positive of game is ‘equality’ it provides to players in the virtual world. To start off, let’s divide the game into two types; first person shooter and role-playing games. First person shooter games mostly put every player into same conditions; character look, the motion, general statistics of character. In popular video games like Call of Duty, Halo, and Medal of Honor, all players play as male characters in a same suit, same height and same motion. Why did the game creators place players in same conditions? It is very obvious that by putting each player in same condition, the only factor that affects how well players do in game is their skill. If one player’s character was taller, he has higher chance of getting killed because there is higher chance of getting hit by a bullet. Thus, just because a player is a woman in real life does not mean she gets disadvantaged in the game; all players are equal in the game. In role-playing games, players are put into similar conditions just like they are in first person shooter games. Regardless of gender, every player can do same quest, hunting, and can even choose to do same in-game-jobs such as warrior, archer, and magician. In the virtual world, every player is given same chance and opportunity to play his/her way out of the game.

Picture of a woman character in RPG game.

Whereas this equality the game provides to women can be seen as positive. The game also makes us to question how the gaming sets up bias against women in real life. In role-playing games, players can choose their own look; every player gets to choose how they want to be seen by the other players. Not only the game only provides fixed looks of female characters as shown above, usually slim and skimpy looking, but also women players, themselves, want to look the best as possible. Thus almost every woman character in game looks slim and skimpy. It’s questionable to say that what people see in game will affect what they expect to see in real life. However, it’s no doubt that this trend sets up a prejudice that every woman must look slim, and sexy. This problem exists in some first person shooter games as well where players can choose to play as a female character. Just like they look in role-playing games, first person shooter female characters look just as slim and skimpy.

Picture of a woman character in one FPS game.

This representation of women as described above conflicts with true representation of women in pop culture. Yes, women can do things men can do. However, not all women look skimpy and slim; that’s what most men expect or want women to be. The game creators focused on commodifying women to attract more people to the game. Their focus is on making a lot of money not on correctly representing the real aspects of women. By using the fact that in the virtual world of gaming, people can be who they want and look how they want to be look, the game creators have turned aspects of women into a market item.

Gaming is largely developing industry. It has been reported that the gaming industry has been increasing 10.3 percent annually and the business is expected to be 68 billion dollars in 2012 (Caron). It’s clear that the gaming field will soon develop as massive as other pop culture items such as TV shows, internet, and movies. Yet the fact that the game creators are focusing on commodifying women to prosper their industry remains as a huge challenge for feminists. To better represent women in pop culture, feminists need to work not only on equality of each player in gaming but also the correct representation of individuals. However, the game creators will keep on commodifying women characters to attract more players into their dream world and the issue won’t be an easy problem to solve.

Citations:

Caron, Frank. "Gaming Expected to Be a $68 Billion Business by 2012." Technica. ARS, 2009. Web. 13 Oct. 2011. .

"Sudden Attack Released Christmas Themed Female Ch--Foreign MMORPGs--GMbase.com Forum." GMbase.com Forum--Index. 27 Dec. 2010. Web. 13 Oct. 2011. .

"Character Simulation." Nexon Forums. Nexon, 6 Dec. 2009. Web. 13 Oct. 2011. .