What a fantastic post by Sera Brennan of Massively, a male-to-female transgender gamer and MMO lover. Any time that anyone claims “this is just a game” about any virtual space, I cringe a little. Virtual worlds are freaking powerful. They have such psychological impact on ther participants, offer such opportunity for people who may not have it to participate in a community with other human beings as the person they want to be. They help people discover identity, learn real life skills, and make friendships.
But MMOs and virtual worlds have always been a very special case for me. For a very long time, I obviously could not dress how I wanted. While people are much more understanding these days, there still is a very real stigma when people see you as a transgender. So, in order to cushion some of the blow, I turned to virtual worlds.
Read the article. I’m not excited to work with virtual worlds because they’re fun (although that’s nice) – I am fascinated by the actual impact of the experiences people can create.
Tami Baribeau is the Associate Producer for Metaplace, Inc, currently working on Island Life. She is also the Lead Editor of feminist gaming blog The Border House, and the National Facebook Games Examiner for Examiner.com. She can be reached on Twitter or by email.
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I like to quote something i read in Tsubasa (manga): “Even though it's time spent in a game, to us it's real, the promises, the friendships, it's all real”
One problem for microtransactions for me in mmo's is it takes away the leveling aspect of mmo's. With a subscription everyone is the same, with microtransactions the rich can have more. I know there will always be gold buyers but at least sub based games try to stop that and everyone is on the same level.