1 Department of Media and Information, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan.
2 Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California.
Cyberpsychol Behav Soc Netw. 2019 Apr;22(4):254-257. doi: 10.1089/cyber.2018.0302. Epub 2019 Mar 8.
This article examines avatar gender choice within a competitive context in which avatar gender is not equivalent across functions. In data from the game League of Legends (n = 15,392) reflecting >5 million avatar gender choices, women were found to have stronger preferences for avatar gender consistency than men. Furthermore, women tended to choose female avatars at twice the available rate offered by the game, whereas men chose male avatars at a rate approximately the same as the proportion offered. These findings support the argument that women experience more pressure than men do to perform their gender identities overtly, even in competitive games where avatar choice is mostly functional and avatar gender is fixed within specific characters. A practical implication is that by offering a wider range of female avatar and character options, game designers could likely attract greater female audiences without a significant loss of male players.
本文考察了在竞争环境中，角色性别在功能上并不等同的情况下，玩家对角色性别的选择。在《英雄联盟》游戏（n=15392）的数据中，反映了超过 500 万次的角色性别选择，研究发现女性比男性更倾向于保持角色性别一致性。此外，女性选择女性角色的比例是游戏提供的两倍，而男性选择男性角色的比例与游戏提供的比例大致相同。这些发现支持了这样一种观点，即在竞争激烈的游戏中，即使角色选择主要是功能性的，角色性别在特定角色中是固定的，女性也比男性感受到更大的压力，需要公开表现自己的性别身份。这一发现具有实际意义，因为通过提供更多的女性角色和角色选项，游戏设计师可以吸引更多的女性玩家，而不会显著流失男性玩家。
