According to Massively, a Chinese company, Aurora Technology is now requiring web cam verification of gender in order to pick a character’s gender. The goal? To make avatars an exact interpretation of real life gender, i.e., no males playing female characters.
The ruling currently only affects the Aurora-developed game King of the World, but there’s always the possibility that this action could have further-reaching consequences. After all, Aurora is a subsidiary of Shanda, a company responsible for publishing Aion and Dungeons and Dragons Online in the region, which are names slightly more familiar to players on this side of the pond.
I’m sure everyone can guess how I feel about this. This is bad news all around, but I’m sure it won’t spread. Why isn’t this okay?
- These are MMORPG’s, they’re roleplaying games. No one should be able to tell me what kind of character I can roleplay.
- Many females play male characters to avoid the negative stigmas that come with playing female characters.
- Many people’s outward appearance doesn’t necessarily reflect the gender they want people to associate them with.
- Anything could be falsified by putting someone else in front of the camera.
- This puts people at risk, revealing information about their real lives to everyone in the game, even if it is just gender. (I sure as hell don’t want everyone knowing I’m a real life female, I get hassled in game enough as is!)
I wouldn’t play a game that requires me to verify my gender. Just like I wouldn’t want to play a virtual world that did the same thing.
Edit: I’m hearing that this is most likely a rumor.
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