I'm male and I play male more often for online games (less harassment and don't feel like I'm trying to fool anyone), Female more often in 3D action games (they are just so much more visually apealling, both sexually and just aestetically), and whichever I come up with a cool name for first in any kind of role playing game ... cause in role playing games I make a unique name for every character I create, so it depends on what the fates decide / what I'm feeling the day I make the char.

Hmm, looks like most people prefer to choose gender that represents themselves.

male for the win

yes i know this is WRONG, but whenever i see a female character i assume that 1 its not a girl, and a VERY VERY WEIRD GUY.

the reason for me thinking this is because there are so many damn girl characters i have heard of that are played by men who always flirt with guys in the game to get their way. another reason is because i have also heard of girl chracters (played by men), who marry male characters (played by men). WTF? of course the male character didnt know the female was a male till after hahah.

but when i know the character is indeed a female, theres nothing to it, just a girl... cool.

anyway, ill stick to my gender.

Am I the only one here that likes to play as a man with boobs?

That being said, my thoughts on the matter are that you are targetting 2 major types of people here (this is not including MMORPGs which add some more types). The first plays the correct gender, to build as some mentioned, empethy to its charactor. These people like that connection, they like to see themselves as the particular charactor. The other type thinks "outside the box", they enjoy doing things in a game that they cannot do in reality. They play games to escape reality, where the former plays games to mimic or twist reality. It would be interesting to test this hypothosis as it would make it possiable to exploit market segments better, if anyone wants to do this that is.

Well Im not sure about the escape reality part, but for me, I play games to relax. And staring at a female butt is pretty relaxing =).

But I guess gender doesn really affect (games like DOA series, Rumble Roses that abuses sex appeal are exceptions) the buyer. Right?

To me, gender doesn't matter as much as how cool they look. For example, there are so cool looking girls in UT2k3, but none can match with some of the robots and Malcom, so I play as them. However, in rgp games where gender is specific to a different class, such as Diablo 2, I'd play the females if they are good, such as the Amazon and Sorc(but not the Assassin). In other games where you get one class, and the male/female has no effect upon your character, Baulders Gate 2, then I'd tend to play as male.

I lean toward female characters because they seem to look better overall or have more options.

However, it also depends on what role the character is playing. If it is a rogue -type character, then I typically select females. For fighter characters, I usually opt for males. Spellcasters, it depends... the heavily offensive or defensive/support are females mostly, while the more balanced ones are males.

edit:
Why does it even matter? I think the problem lies with people substituting reality with a game world. Yes, I know people who play only males and are males themselves that think it is strange to play a female character... But what about DiabloII? You didn't have an option if you wanted to play a certain class. What about Metroid? You certainly didn't have a choice.

I suppose it goes into the social interaction of MMOGs. When a person is playing a MMOG for the social aspect, they focus far too strongly on percieved notions -- such as that hot chick being a real woman, rather than simply a character in a game. I could see where the problems arise when players try to flirt with others when the only reason to do so would be the character visuals.

I myself dealt with someone who pretended to be a girl for well over a year, going so far as to present false pictures and soforth (which, truthfully, I didn't ask for anyway). So the situation hits a little close in some regards. But that wasn't solely in a single game, it was a friendship over ICQ/IRC and various games that I broke due to that constant lie. It's not like I ever flirted or anything with this person, it was simply a friendship.

To put it simply, I honestly don't understand how people can be intimate over the internet.

As for people who never found out (like I did) that they were dealing with someone misrepresenting themselves... so what? They must have recieved some intangible gratification from participating with the roleplayer, and probably the person pretending gained something as well. Does it really matter in the long run?

-Greven