Aurora Technology, a company based in China, has frozen game accounts of male players who play a female character in its in-house developed MMORPG King of the World. They say only female gamers can play as female characters, and they have to prove their sex with a webcam. Give me a break, some folks just like playing a hot female character in a fantasy game and they don’t have a valid reason for freezing those accounts! What about women who want to play a male character in King of World, do they get banned too?
Aurora Technology to its employees: Stop being a bitch and get a male character, you pussy!
September 25th, 2007 at 3:41 am
Well, in Korea to play ragnarok online, you have to provide a social security number to prove you are either male or female. And you can only make one gender of character in your account.
So Gravity (makers of ragnarok) has been doing the same thing for a long time. You can still cross-play in other countries, but you would have to have and extra account to play both branches of the gender tree.
September 25th, 2007 at 1:52 pm
China is a freaking barren wasteland when it comes to human rights, and this is the very least of it. China sucks, it’s no place to live… seriously. No human rights.
September 26th, 2007 at 1:21 am
who fucking cares about the chinamen!?
September 26th, 2007 at 2:50 am
If it’s a roleplay-heavy game, I don’t really see what the problem is. If it’s a more casual game (like WoW or something) this would be pointless. It’s not like somebody’s forcing them to play online games. Just gender enforcement, and if you’re a guy who needs to play a girl so badly that youre actually upset by something like this then you probably have some deep underlying issues.
September 26th, 2007 at 3:55 am
Do I have to prove I’m an elf, and I can’t chose to be a dwarf, too?
Gilmoth
September 26th, 2007 at 5:45 am
well i play WOW, my pref is alliance.. and i would only play a male character because i would not want anyone thinking i was a female. even though it might be refreshing. it does seem i am nicer to female characters where as i might not be willing to help a male character of same lower lvl.
weird it seems to me that i have this kind of sexist gaming mentality. i would always wind up choosing a male elf.
September 26th, 2007 at 12:39 pm
I don;t see why it’s such a problem to be honest. Just some rather silly people overreacting over something trivial.
September 26th, 2007 at 9:05 pm
Just wait until the first female tries to prove her gender.
She’ll get on the webcam, and the people checking it will say it isn’t enough, and she needs to show her breasts or vagina to prove she is female and not just a cross-dressing male.
September 26th, 2007 at 9:07 pm
Er, I suppose I should also mention that, before randomly hitting this article (via StumbleUpon), I had never even heard of “King of the World”. That screenshot looks all right, but how much does it cost, and how enjoyable is the game itself?
September 26th, 2007 at 11:16 pm
Frankly I think its ridiculous. Its not that you are being misleading, its just a game! I have both male and female chars on WoW depending on what kind if character i set them after. For example, I have a fire mage named Lina (from Slayers anime) and a frost named Naga (same series). If you are too afraid to use a female character model in game because “you don’t want to be mistaken for a girl” you are the ones with masculinity issues
September 26th, 2007 at 11:52 pm
China has a lot more pressing issues than gender in video games at the moment. Sure, this is incredibly stupid, and pretty much just another example of making homophobia official policy, but come on. Good government first, then the right to play video games.
September 27th, 2007 at 10:23 am
Like Iran, China probably believes that gays don’t exist in their country either. So to wipe out any chance that one of those males choosing a female character to get “play” they freeze these accounts. This is exactly something a far left-wing country would do.
September 30th, 2007 at 3:29 pm
I wrote a comic about the whole transgendered affair: http://www.postmodernsideshow.com/content/view/132/31/
October 6th, 2007 at 2:35 pm
vjg…. I think you meant to put right wing. not left. left wing is liberal not conservative like China and Iran…
it’s silly that they would put such restrictions, but what-ever. it’s the company’s policy. I know guys who play female character models just to have something nice to look at while playing. Not really for the role playing aspect.
postmodernsideshow: LOL
November 24th, 2009 at 9:49 am
I kinda like the idea.