Why do MEN create FEMALE CHARACTERS?

[keela]

Okay, I swear to god this is an honest and curious question.
this is something I've always been wondering, but never asked much, and thought I might get some interesting answers here

Why do men like to play with female characters in games that you can choose your gender?

(For disclaimer I'm talking only about games where you can choose your gender, I don't feel nothing by playing 2B or Geralt of rivia for instance)

I'm a girl, and I really like playing female characters, I don't see any appeal in playing men, I can't exactly explain why, but as dumb as it sounds, I like to create and play a pretty female character and I probably feel that way bc there's more connection with my character representing my own gender I guess?

I've been playing online for as long as I can remember, and in all those years, I've ONLY MET ONE girl who played a male character, and she told me she did it so she wouldn't be bothered.
As for men, almost every female character I could find was being played by a guy. I thought for a long time that it was because of the sexy appeal of the female characters, or maybe bc some people could get free items as female?

Anyway, this happens in singleplayer games as well, and is happening in Baldur's Gate too, naturally, but there's little sex appeal here and nothing to gain, so what makes you choose a different gender for your character in this game and possible others? Is it about the roleplay? Is it about appearance?

Just to be sure, there is NOTHING wrong with that, and I know for a fact that there are girls who play male characters, as well as MANY men who play male characters. All I'm saying is based on my experience where the amount of men who chose this is much higher than the women.
And obviously I'm referring to man as people who identify as male as a gender

EDIT: Something I want to point out, I'm not necessarily saying about creating yourself, only your gender.
As much I love creating a female character, I don't ever create myself, I create a CHARACTER that I find suitable.... aaaand after reading some answers, I guess I don't find that nice BECAUSE I'm also a girl, but because they're pretty to look/nice to create?
Someone said that you either wanna ♥♥♥♥ or BE the character, I guess that's right lmao
for a lot of cases anyway

[Izzy]

Personally because I like woman. It's really that simple. My character is someone else than myself. It's also a video game and not real.

I assume everyone is ok with watching a movie where the lead character is a woman? I don't see why it would be any different here.

[atsokwow83]

Originally posted by keela:

Okay, I swear to god this is an honest and curious question.
this is something I've always been wondering, but never asked much, and thought I might get some interesting answers here

Why do men like to play with female characters in games that you can choose your gender?

(For disclaimer I'm talking only about games where you can choose your gender, I don't feel nothing by playing 2B or Geralt of rivia for instance)

I'm a girl, and I really like playing female characters, I don't see any appeal in playing men, I can't exactly explain why, but as dumb as it sounds, I like to create and play a pretty female character and I probably feel that way bc there's more connection with my character representing my own gender I guess?

I've been playing online for as long as I can remember, and in all those years, I've ONLY MET ONE girl who played a male character, and she told me she did it so she wouldn't be bothered.
As for men, almost every female character I could find was being played by a guy. I thought for a long time that it was because of the sexy appeal of the female characters, or maybe bc some people could get free items as female?

Anyway, this happens in singleplayer games as well, and is happening in Baldur's Gate too, naturally, but there's little sex appeal here and nothing to gain, so what makes you choose a different gender for your character in this game and possible others? Is it about the roleplay? Is it about appearance?

Just to be sure, there is NOTHING wrong with that, and I know for a fact that there are girls who play male characters, as well as MANY men who play male characters. All I'm saying is based on my experience where the amount of men who chose this is much higher than the women.
And obviously I'm referring to man as people who identify as male as a gender

EDIT: Something I want to point out, I'm not necessarily saying about creating yourself, only your gender.
As much I love creating a female character, I don't ever create myself, I create a CHARACTER that I find suitable.... aaaand after reading some answers, I guess I don't find that nice BECAUSE I'm also a girl, but because they're pretty to look/nice to create?
Someone said that you either wanna ♥♥♥♥ or BE the character, I guess that's right lmao
for a lot of cases anyway

Why do "MEN " create FEMALE CHARACTERS?

[artha_penn]

I make male characters, female characters, and if the game allows, hermaphrodite characters...so, I see no problem with it. Hell, I even go one step further in some games and only play the furry/scalie characters.

[Herr Mainyu]

Originally posted by atsokwow83:

Originally posted by keela:

Why do "MEN " create FEMALE CHARACTERS?

Imagine, the Girl NPCs are created by male Devs!!!! What a disgusting perversion!!!11

[nobalkain]

Originally posted by AnHonestSoul:

Originally posted by Quillithe:

I suspect his wife knows that he likes how women look already, probably not a big secret

Absolute bs. I don't know of any woman that wouldn't punch you in the face, burn the PC, or leave you for saying something like that to her. Well, or you provoke her to look for someone else while you enjoy your pixels, if its the silent sort of girl.

And those are the kind of Women any self respecting Man will stay away from. No Women that is secure in Herself and her Man would be so Jealous of Fictional Characters. Its one thing if he gets obsessed about one, but we are just talking about regular Dudes playing as a Chick in a Game. Your Friends are on the bit of the "Extreme" side and will likely live alone with Cats.

[opus132]

I don't think this need to play as a female is an exclusive of "weak" men. It think it's more about being subservient to femininity, which can happen even to strong men.

Being born with a weak body doesn't mean you are invariably weak or unmasculine mentally, and vice versa.

[Herr Mainyu]

Imagine, the Girl NPCs are created by male Devs!!!! What a disgusting perversion!!!11

[Kurumachine]

for the same reason i play a strong good looking male caractere too.
beceause it's a game, i don't need to be close to the reality.
i create i character and i'm juste the spectator of is story.
i'm not projeting myself into, i just choose an actor and see is avdventure

[AnHonestSoul]

Originally posted by Josephus:

"Girly men"

"Weak ones"

"bow low to play as a woman"

No mind can be mature or even adult and hold these views.

Imagine being a woman in the lives of these men and hearing these messages. So sad.

We are all human and equal.

Lets go a step further. Everyone exclusively plays as the opposite gender. Literally. Equal in all contraries.

Hows that sound to you?

[Godrik Underscore]

Because I'm into hot chicks, that's why.

[Myth Alric]

Originally posted by Vindred:

Given that there were hundreds of thousands of test subjects, autism and sociopathy don't seem to falsify the study. It seems like they would constitute a statistical blip at most.

What are you basing the idea, that people who are good at facial recognition of emotions, are good at empathy on though? We already know for sure there is huge outliers to that theory. Even if you think they are only a small percentage of the group, it really damages the theory that the two are correlated. You need something to base the theory on, outside the two deal with emotions and might be related.

If you can't prove the two are tied together, the results don't mean anything. We know some people don't fall into the pattern, and it is possible no one does.

[Chaos]

Originally posted by Godrik Underscore:

Because I'm into hot chicks, that's why.

Now that is a man answer. "because ♥♥♥♥ you that's why" lol.

[Goosefeather]

Originally posted by Xype:

If I am going to stare at an ass all day it is going to be a female ass.

I was going to say exactly this.

[Astolfo]

first we like pretty things
secord ass and tits
third bikini armor

and bg3 let us play as nude or underwear nothing more sexy than that
now we need mods get big oppai and real bikini armor
and if i gonna play game 100hours+ i rather look woman ass than man ass

[homekeys]

Originally posted by Elizadeath:

Originally posted by homekeys:

oh okay ur one of those types, so this was never about empathy for women at all. i shouldve figured from the beginning u were going to peddle some nonsense about biology.

we are literally biological things. i do not understand what you are saying here.


that being said, about 30% of men play as female characters whereas only about 10% of women do the same. what we're asking here is "here is why do men have three times the instances of playing the opposite"?

while empathy might only play a small role, i do believe that it comes down to early socialization of children. like, those studies about recognizing emotions in others being relatively equal between the sexes, but the response to that information is different. the point here is that there is variation in this regard. my guess was that it comes down to the way in which one interacts with the characters on the screen. i've seen a lot of people say "i am a man who plays as a female character, but i do not empathize with her"

because when u say biology it means "men cant help themselves, theyre wired like that" and im reasonably wary of that sentiment. socialization is different, but when u link to articles blaming testosterone thats not the statement ur making.

frankly, when they say they just find women more attractive i believe them. i rly see no reason not to. everything said abt how women look better in video games r technically correct, theres always been less interest with depicting men in games. its also pretty straightforward to say that if ur main concern is looking at a womans ass, u probably arent empathizing with her. but it is a video game and i dont think men playing men in video games would solve any political issue, the stakes of someone picking a characters gender arent very high. and i deffo dont think we can apply any sort of statement unilaterally to men who play as women, since u have a lot of other ppl saying they play women for a variety of reasons.