In groups without voice chat I have also done that, specifically to get that effect. ;)
It’s been said a lot but it bears repeating, HR is not there to protect the employee they are there to protect the company.
I recall one time I was questing in Icecrown during the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, and some other player comes up to me and starts whispering me, berating me for playing a female character. This was one of those guys (of which that are apparently many) who think guys playing female characters is just about the worst insult on one’s manhood that you could imagine. He followed me around for a bit, calling me all sorts of names (I’m sure you can imagine) while I ignored him, and he eventually got bored and left.
The thing is, I easily could have explained to him that I was, in fact, a female playing a female character, but the way I see it, this would have resulted in one of two outcomes:
1.) He would have called me a liar and continued berating me; or
2.) He would have started hitting on me or being generally gross (and I expect I was also old enough to be his mother)
Neither of those outcomes were desired.
Most random players I might group with tended to assume I was a guy, and I never, ever corrected them since most of the time it wasn’t needed, and I figured was likely to bring more drama than necessary. The only people who knew the real me was my guild, which was primarily a group of older folks (by which I mean, “around my age”, hehe) with a fair number of women in the guild – we had several husband/wife members. It was a chill group that I enjoyed hanging out with, and more importantly, felt comfortable around.
When I worked games QA back in 2003 there were zero women. A year later there was exactly one, which required the leader to drag us (just the guys) into the break room and tell us to tone it down a little, because it was the filththest boys locker room talk you can imagine going down daily and there was a girl present now. By the time I left QA there were a lot more women working there, and several in leadership positions. The culture was completely different.
How it’s going.
GIRL = Guy In Real Life, amirite? Ah, the early days of the Internet. Sadly, I guess that sort of thing persists even now.
I often play female avatars, because usually the art teams for whatever game I’m playing seem to have put a hell of a lot more effort into those models than the male models, most of which end up looking like somebody’s idea of a cheap two-bit hood or a grotesque of “macho man” from the seventies.
This is exactly why my husband usually plays female characters in many (but not all) games. Specific to WoW, he really dislikes most of the male models on the Alliance side - he generally will play female characters for all Alliance races… except for dwarves. He likes a good beardy dwarf, haha.
I liked the male Tauren model.
I’ll never stop being amused at how the human male was the worst character model in WoW with a bullet.
Although, hearing about the butt plug in the luggage situation, maybe it makes more sense now…
I will play male Dorfs usually, as they are almost always cool. But as most everyone has noted, the human male’s in WoW were some of the ugliest cusses in the multiverse. I played a male Forsaken mage mostly, as, well, rotting undead is rotting undead, y’know what I mean.
I think I left my character, Graverot, sitting on the floor of the ocean somewhere after Cataclysm, and never went back.
Seeing the posts from some of the leads at Blizzard it’s apparent some of the rot comes down from Activision. I’ll continue to not buy their stupid games.
They could just be trying to save their own skins.
Good /sillies though.
I think it’s safe assume that this type of shit is widespread in the gamedev industry and what we have on Ubisoft, Blizzard etc. is the tip of the iceberg. These rats(I can’t call them men) and their enablers did not appear out of thin air. They observed, learned and eventually replicated.
Yeah, I can see how having nude pics up on the internet would be a major problem in that sort of environment.
It’s not just game development. I know that’s what we talk about here, but this industry isn’t that special.
It’s any boy’s club, which is most of the corporate world.
dubious
Gaming was the last vastly male domintaed multibillion dollar industry so im not surprised this cultural was devolped and defended. Add the anonymity of the age of the internet it was a percect storm of toxicity thats taking years to shake off. Its like the gaming industry just woke up from a bender from the 90’s and realized Porky’s isnt a really funny movie anymore. F’ed up beyond repair some of them are.