If I have to stare at a digital ass, it might as well be a chick’s ass

Cishet guy; I play female characters more often than not.

One factor for me is that so many male characters feel... cheesy, like the game assumes I'm hideously insecure in my masculinity and need to be excessively pandered to by making my avatar Muscledick McFireman, and all the ladeeeez will just be aching to jump into my pants when they see my ridiculously huge arms.

It feels like really sad wish-fulfilment fantasy, to the point that it wrecks the immersion; it's almost getting into AI Girlfriend levels of cringe.

There's more to it and I haven't fully worked out all the edges, but that's a big lump of it.

I mean yes okay I also ferinstance play female dwarves in dragon age because my god Becky, but that's both minor and very situational.

People look at gender while I'm just trying to see what style fits me in playing. Sometimes it's male characters and some times they are female.

MMORPG = many men online role playing girls

If I'm going to play an MMO watching someone's ass run from point A to B for 40 hours a week, it's damn sure gonna be a woman's ass.

I'm a cis guy and I play primarily female characters. I will play male characters, but I find it fascinating to roleplay as a female character. It's something I'll never experience in real life and I find female characters are often more interesting.

IMHO if you're going to pretend/imagine yourself as the character you're playing, I feel you might as well do something that isn't you for the experience. Otherwise, what's the point of putting yourself in a characters shoes if you just make yourself in that world? I already know how I'd be in any situation....because I'm me. Hell, in RPG games I'll even sometimes romance male characters, if thats an option(Playing Femshep in Mass Effect, I will often romance Garrus Vakarian, for example).

Then again, I'll also sometimes explore LGBTQ+ relationships, if they're offered, playing as either male or female characters, even though I'm not interested in that in real life.

Is it a little weird? Probably, but it also helps me understand what it might be like for other types of people and how to better understand and sympathize with their life struggles and experiences. RPG stands for Role Playing Game, after all.

You lost me at "to the point of skipping a game"

It's 1 thing to prefer, it's another to obsess over it.

Cishet guy. Most male protagonists are too brutish. They look dumb. Female protagonists seldom have that issue.

If I have to stare at a butt all day, I would rather it be a female butt.

I mean, yeah, this is basically the reason for me, without the horny part. I don't experience immersion in third-person games, and I don't have a strong sense of identity, so I might as well have a character bobbing up and down on screen that I enjoy looking at.

Male. If I can make a character, I'll make a male character almost every time, especially on a first run. Or if the character is otherwise a placeholder for "me* in the game.

That said, I love when games give us female protagonists that aren't sexualized (think FF6), and I'd love to see more of that.

So, do I prefer to play as a male character? It depends.

I'd like to see some good takes on "female perspective" in games. But if it's basically an aesthetic difference, I'm making a character that matches my gender because it's supposed to be "me" in the game.

i wouldn't overthink it too much. it seems youre in a category of almost 30% of male respondents, not all preferences say something meaningful about us.

Regarding MMOs in particular:

I’ll play male characters when the female model is more sexual than I’m comfortable with, always. The first that comes to mind is WoW where the male models had a lot more ‘character’ to me. If I’m playing an Orc or Worgen I don’t want to look like a green/fury generic female body that has a straight back so you can see the ‘goods’. For EQ I had a mix of Male/Female alts, but did tend towards Male.

I also tend to like the way male armor is modeled over boob-plate.

Single player narrative games will depend on if romance is an option as I’ll tend to play female, otherwise it’ll be a toss-up with consideration to my prior points.

Over the years I’ve found it easier to hide behind a male avatar/username as I’ve gotten some rough interactions over the years and will only join voice if I feel like the people I’m text chatting with are chill. Tried joining a guild recently and got more ‘onlyfans’ jokes than I was comfortable with, and I’m sure someone will say that’s my fault for being irked by it, but that’s why I take these steps.

Cis-het guy, usually play female characters. One of my first action games as a kid was Tomb Raider and I think that just cemented in my mind that women characters are badass

Lady Dwarf. If there is an option for it, always lady dwarf.

Started with world of Warcraft, I just wanted the least played character type, so Cindie the lady dwarf warrior was born. She lives on in any game where it’s an option.

In a typical core PC/console game, about 60% of the female avatars you meet are played by a male player.

Seems low

I pretty much exclusively play os female characters (I'm a male). I think it's mostly that male characters in video games are mostly the same.

This feels like trolling or horseshoe theory in play, you skip games where you can only play male, aka most games? This is very similar to people who skip “woke” games because they can not play as male.

I am male. If given the option to play female and a female would make the story more interesting I will choose to play a female. What defines "interesting" is arbitrary. Valheim - female named Muscle Wife. Phasmophobia - black male with friends (due to movie tropes) and female solo (because they look janky and ragged as hell). MMOs - depends on the aesthetic. If I am going to be staring at a character for a long time and I am not roleplaying an ugly bastard then I will choose female most of the time since I don't play MMOs to self insert.

When choice isn't an option I do not avoid a game just because of a character's race or gender, but I am starting to get real sick of white male protagonists. They aren't really offering me any new perspectives.

I play female characters because their customization options are much more diverse and they have a lot more styles to choose from. From their hair all the way down to their shoes. Male characters, I find, don't have as much options. Now, don't get me wrong on what I'm about to say, people can wear what they wanna wear and that's cool with me, but if I'm playing a muscle ripped dude with pecs registered as weapons a skirt doesn't really fit him. Plus, if it's a 3rd person game, I'd rather be looking at a female butt than a male butt.

I usually just play whoever has the best racials or abilities. If i can play as the giant tank guy or girl (think Karlach or Reinhart) i usually play as them.

Really depends on the game/story and if I like the characters. For example playing Fallout 4 as a female protagonist felt out of place, like it was just a mod that someone hacked in. But on the other side Cyberpunk 2077's male character annoyed me enough that I restarted as female V. And then there's games like Skyrim where the only difference I notice is the grunts you make in combat.

I play female because their character model/hitbox is smaller most of the time.

Depends if the game refers to the character as "you" or "them". Used to always make female characters since they're nicer to look at, up until games started actually taking that into consideration.

Nothing quite like being called a girl to reassure you that you're not an egg :P

edit: and of course if the game doesn't offer options I don't care.

@needthosepylons I mean I always play khajit in skyrim, doesn't make me a furry.

I like playing things that are not me.

Me playing female characters is the same reason why you will never see me play a human if I can get the option to be literally anything else.

That title makes it sound so much like they only care about women's character development now because they only just realized some men like to play as women lol. I know that's probably not what they were going for but goddamn

An aspect that I haven't seen mentioned explicitly is that female characters for the longest time were just easier to pick out in a 3rd person view.

They have a different silhouette, often more flamboyant garb (to stick out among the male dominated aesthetic), and sometimes even different animations making them easier to pick out in a group fight.

Also, I have fewer stereotypes of females in medieval or sci-fi settings, which makes it slightly easier for me to explore both the world and different roles in ways I might have missed playing a stereotypical male.

I've always played male characters, just because I identify with them more. Playing female characters gets all those lonely simps thinking your a girl and I don't like attention in games. I have played women in games, and it doesn't bother me though - I do have plenty of female characters just because they fit the 'theme' better sometimes. I don't think it really says anything deep about you. It's just a preference.

I really don't care. I'm fine playing genderless shapes (and if PacMan didn't have "man" in his name nobody would even know he was a he) if the game is fun. Even when finishing the first Metroid back when I was a kid and discovering Samus was a woman didn't really blow my mind like it did for so many others.

The only time I care is when it actually matters in the game. Such as Fallout 2 and being able to skip fighting the Slavers to rescue Vic but only as a woman, or older FPS games where the smaller frame of a female model came with a smaller hitbox, or even Demon's Souls where male and females have different armor sets so my gender changes with my build.