Men Play Female Character in VG, reason

[the54thvoid]

I'll usually play a guy, but when the character looks like a muscled, monosyllabic 2D effort, I'll play a female. AC Odyssey, I played the female role because I cringed at the shallowness of the male protagonist (he just seemed like a huffy child to me). I worked in fitness for 27 years, been lifting weights for 37 years (since I was 13), so I'm utterly bored of 'muscle-dude' nonsense. I think games designers are braindead when it comes to male character design. I take exception to hyper buff characters (in any media) that don't spend at least a hard hour a day in the gym. Unless it's Conan, because he performed serious compound exercises pushing a massive and heavy wheel backwards and forwards all day and night. And obvs, there were steroids in his ale.

As for wanting to look at bums'n'boobs, again, I worked in a gym for 27 years. I've seen it all in real life. I'm desensitised to it. An animated character really doesn't do it for me.

In first person perspective, it's not really a thing. Most recently, in Rage 2, I played the guy.

 

[RootinTootinPootin]

so I can pick a fight on a handful of online degenerates?

 

[JWNoctis]

That good old GIRL (Guy In Real Life) trope, again.

I see nothing wrong with it; After all, videogaming is about experience one could not have in real life. This can be one part of it. Doing it for the fanservice is entirely another thing, but goes both ways, and even that is not usually injurious, to sensibilities or otherwise.

Personally I do both, whichever fitted better with the mood and the fancy at the moment. It is mostly cosmetic these days anyway. The last games I played where player gender affected stats is TESIV: Oblivion, and story Dragon Age: Origins and Stardew Valley.

 

[Onasi]

I don’t really have a preference, I would play whatever seems fun at the moment. In games with character selection from pre-set options I just go for whatever is my cup of team gameplay-wise. As a fighting game example, I mained Lili in Tekken because her buttons felt fun, not solely because of her design.
In games with character creation I can go either way. Often one single random factor might tickle my amusement for no reason and the character springs from there. Like in Shadowrun Hong Kong where I saw the portrait of this massive Triad looking dude in sunglasses… and so the character of Fat Chong who wore a gaudy shirt and straight up maimed people with a machete was born.

 

[DirtyDingusMcgee]

I like to think it goes beyond just the primal and base. The female form is simply more graceful and pleasing to look at in my eyes. In any medium of art, from painting to sculpture to pixels on a screen. Not that I do not like the male form, but it is more for utility than beauty (again, to me anyways) Like the difference between a pick-up truck and a Ferrari.

I have no problem being Doomguy, Sarge, Duke, or Serious Sam.....but i don't have to look at em the whole time. So, for me I can boil it down to 1st person guy, 3rd person girl.

 

[Carillon]

There are no male options, you other play as a girl or a girl in a male body. Since I am a good guy, I'd feel sorry to bring to life a girl in a male body and i pick the girl option.

 

[Ahhzz]

I do both.... WoW, most of chars were male, but a few femme: my human cleric, tauren shaman, had NElve rogues of both persuasions. BG3: main is male, and my current D&D campaign is as well. But in Black Desert, almost ALL of my toons were femme. I do enjoy viewing the feminine form, as do most males (visual driven).... I think for me, it's a preference for "Tall and Lithe", which described me before middle age lol.

 

[Sithaer]

Depends on the game and the character.
For example I'm not bothered if an MMO/ARPG has gender locked classes and I will play whatever I find fun gameplay wise but if the option is given for both then I usually pick female cause of obvious reasons.
Games like the Witcher serie I've actually liked Geralt's character and he was like perfect for the role, same with the Tomb Raider serie with Lara and HZD with Aloy.
Those I can't even imagine playing any other way.

Mass Effect trilogy I've finished 3 times with male Shepard 2 times and 1 times with female and I've liked them about equally but just to make it even the next time I'm playing the game it will be femshep again.

I'm also playing 'cultured' gacha games that doesn't have a single playable male character in them so ye variety is fine with me.

 

[AusWolf]

if the option is given for both then I usually pick female cause of obvious reasons.

If the reasons were obvious, this thread wouldn't exist.

 

[FoulOnWhite]

I'd rather have to stare at a womens bum running than a mans.

 

[AusWolf]

I'd rather have to stare at a womens bum running than a mans.

Interesting take on the matter.
As for me, I don't stare at animated bums, be it male or female. Real life doesn't only have better graphics, but it's also more interactive, if you know what I mean. The purpose of gaming (to me) is something else.

 

[mbeeston]

no preference, i perfer being "stoic", which ever works for that. though like the FFXI mithra, you don't always get the choice.

 

[Sithaer]

If the reasons were obvious, this thread wouldn't exist.

I mean thats fair enough but those reasons where mentioned multiple times.
Cause yeh if I'm gonna play a game/especially if its third person for who knows how long might as well stare at something more pleasant.
I mainly do that in MMOs/ARPGs tho where you can play whatever since its not as role/story bound.
Some examples, I've played the archer/ranged class in Vindictus as my main for years and that class is locked to male but I've really liked his gameplay so I was like whatever. 'I'm a fan of ranged classes in general'

But I've also had a class like this with a partially skin tight outfit that almost became my trademark at the time. 'I've used the same on my other female class too'

And well my main Force Master in Blade&Soul when I was playing that game for ~1.5 years after it was launched globally.

Spoiler: Questionable pic

That outfit design was exclusive to this race's females and that was the only reason for me to start with this, made some of the cutscenes funny + I've had ppl telling me in Raids that my character is very distracting.

 

[KrazyT]

I play as a male character in real life, so why don't change a bit for gaming ?

I think i'll choose a bit randomly, no real preference if the choices are equal
(In RE, the Jill course was the "easy" path, so it have some consquences)

 

[Vayra86]

I go both ways. I'm a bi-gamer

Same. In Guild Wars 2 I have characters in almost every class and its about a 60/40 female/male split. What makes me pick a side? The way the armors look on the physique of each model. The sleek look or the broad shoulder look basically and it suits different armor types in diff ways.

So I guess its part immersion but overall I find male characters boring more easily which seems to have a direct relationship with the degree of curvature on the female side. I generally do lean towards females if I have to choose.

 

[AusWolf]

I mean thats fair enough but those reasons where mentioned multiple times.
Cause yeh if I'm gonna play a game/especially if its third person for who knows how long might as well stare at something more pleasant.
I mainly do that in MMOs/ARPGs tho where you can play whatever since its not as role/story bound.
Some examples, I've played the archer/ranged class in Vindictus as my main for years and that class is locked to male but I've really liked his gameplay so I was like whatever. 'I'm a fan of ranged classes in general'
View attachment 368277
But I've also had a class like this with a partially skin tight outfit that almost became my trademark at the time. 'I've used the same on my other female class too'
View attachment 368278
And well my main Force Master in Blade&Soul when I was playing that game for ~1.5 years after it was launched globally.

Spoiler: Questionable pic

View attachment 368279
That outfit design was exclusive to this race's females and that was the only reason for me to start with this, made some of the cutscenes funny + I've had ppl telling me in Raids that my character is very distracting.

Personally, I find the novelty of an animated butt wear off quite quickly, so if I can, I'd rather choose a character that improves my immersion, one that is "me in the game" in a way (if I can't, that's fine, too).

For this reason, I totally get why, for example, the makers of Nier: Automata chose a sexy female android to be the main protagonist, but after a few close-ups, I really couldn't care less, and it's quite illogical if you think about it (why send such a fragile form to battle against alien robots when there's a million more effective ways to do that?).

Let's just say, if I want to stare at some nice lady parts, I have plenty of other ways to do it (the missus being the main one). I don't rely on games for this purpose.

 

[Dristun]

In my view most male characters look simultaneously worse and more boring than their female counterparts, simple as. It's rare you get to play as someone with at least a bit of style, like Max Payne in the 2nd game, for example. If every game offered Steve McQueen from Bullit as the operator I'd pick him almost every time but we don't get that often in videogames, do we?

 

[Sithaer]

Personally, I find the novelty of an animated butt wear off quite quickly, so if I can, I'd rather choose a character that improves my immersion, one that is "me in the game" in a way (if I can't, that's fine, too).

For this reason, I totally get why, for example, the makers of Nier: Automata chose a sexy female android to be the main protagonist, but after a few close-ups, I really couldn't care less, and it's quite illogical if you think about it (why send such a fragile form to battle against alien robots when there's a million more effective ways to do that?).

Let's just say, if I want to stare at some nice lady parts, I have plenty of other ways to do it (the missus being the main one). I don't rely on games for this purpose.

Yeah I've heard that reasoning many times in gender locked MMOs where ppl complained that they refuse to play the gender locked class that aint them cause they prefer to play the 'me' in the game.
Dunno, pesonally that never bothered me in the slightest but ye to each their own. 'I basically play whatever I find fun and interesting and a good looking female is just an extra '

As for the Nier topic, its similar to how Nikkes work in Nikke and we even had a collab event/story with Nier once '2B and A2'.
In Nikke's case they have a human brain with an artificial body thats realistic enough that most ppl can't even tell it but they are far stronger than any human. 'think like super advanced female Terminators'
Which is needed for the weapons they carry, most humans couldn't even fire their weapons w/o breaking their shoulder and whatnot and the standard weapons are useless against the mechanoid aliens in Nikke. 'or whatever the hell they are'

Either way I don't take my gaming dead seriously so even if stuff doesn't make sense it doesn't bother me, its the opposite for me actually I like to get away from the everyday's life to be a part of something entirely different. 'which doesn't get into my immersion factor either'
Btw you can do both, as in enjoying the view of an animated butt/assets while also enjoying the real ones.
Been there done that and I'm still a man of culture so to speak.

 

[theouto]

I usually choose what I think is most fitting for the setting (Be it design, art style, gameplay, etc.), but other times my femboy ass takes over and I decide purely on fashion. On destiny 2 I deleted my then 6-7 year old male human titan just to have a female exo titan. Why? Male titans are too bulky, and I prefer the slimmer frames of the female titan.

I don't need the character to look just like me to be immersed, and I rather have the character look good than having it be a self insert.

 

[KrazyT]

Reading the topic, I wonder if the opposite is true ? :
Do womens plays as mens in videogames when they have choice ?

 

[Sithaer]

Reading the topic, I wonder if the opposite is true ? :
Do womens plays as mens in videogames when they have choice ?

While I don't have a big sample size but in my ~7 years of playing Vindictus every single actual girl that I knew there played only the female classes.
Idk they liked dressing them up and whatnot just as much as I did. 'Fashion was like the true end game there'

Tho there is a male characters only gacha game currently that is apparently very popular/successful in certain parts of the world. 'called Love and Deepspace'
Now that would be interesting to see the % of the male and female players in that game.

 

[_roman_]

The players from that online game I played for years were very hostile because I played a woman instead of a male character.
I even bought some dresses for that character, which were just cosmetics.

In my point of view some people do not like when guys play female characters for certain reasons. (which i will not mention here because of certain topics which should never be touched)

I just realised why I disliked a bit more the LAST of US Part I. I was forced to play an ugly male.

 

[chrcoluk]

I think enough people have said it.

 

[xtreemchaos]

why wouldn't we its all about choice games like fallout skyrim ect i mostly play as a man first the go through as a woman and then with skyrim play as a cat people ,lizard people both male/female ect its all good fun i mean in VR you can look down and see a furry set of juggs it makes me laugh.

 

[Onasi]

In my view most male characters look simultaneously worse and more boring than their female counterparts, simple as. It's rare you get to play as someone with at least a bit of style, like Max Payne in the 2nd game, for example. If every game offered Steve McQueen from Bullit as the operator I'd pick him almost every time but we don't get that often in videogames, do we?
View attachment 368288

That’s actually a great point. Most male characters tend to be, even now, based on the “bald space marine action hero” template. Why not something that most men with taste ACTUALLY look up to as a style model? Humphrey Bogart? Sean Connery? Michael Caine? No? This especially seems hilariously out of place in RPGs with classes. Why the hell is my dashing rogue or wily mage looking like a gym rat bodybuilder who is on steroids 24/7.