CHINA — Does she or doesn’t she? Only her gynecologist knows for sure, which is a vexation to Chinese moralists wondering whether the cute female character they’ve taken such a fancy to in King of the World MMORPG is really being controlled by a female character. In order to resolve the confusion, Aurora Technology, the game company’s subsidiary, has banned the practice of men playing female characters.Whether to play characters true to their gender or branch out into characters of the opposite sex has long been a dilemma that gamers have had to tackle – especially female gamers who want to focus more on their role playing than their skills at online sex chat. Men keen to break sex-based stereotypes, wishing they were female, or simply curious about how a female character might perform or be received have had to wrestle with how much teasing and taunting they’re willing to endure for game play. Now the decision has been removed from all Shandra Entertainment online gamers within China.
The company, one of the biggest in the mainland, announced that all accounts held by men playing female characters have been frozen. Women, on the other hand, are free to explore the gaming environment in the guise of men – but all players who choose to have female characters must prove their gender via webcam before being allowed to put those characters into game play.
So much for the fantasy element of online gaming, unless one wants to be a man, of course.
