We from MeinMMO wanted to find out together with you whether most female characters in MMOs are really played by men. The results shocked us.
This was the survey: Does the stereotype hold that most men prefer to play female characters? In a survey, we asked you this question and let you vote on which gender you prefer in MMOs.
The survey ended on March 5th. 4,610 readers participated. According to their own statements:
- 4027 male
- 484 female
- 99 non-binary
Each of you was allowed to cast only one vote.
This is how you voted
This is the overall distribution of votes among all who participated in the survey:
- I am male, prefer to play male: 33.33%
- I am male, prefer to play female: 31.74%
- I am male, have no preferences: 22.28%
- I am female, prefer to play female: 7.85%
- I am female, have no preferences: 1.43%
- I am female, prefer to play male: 1.22%
- I am non-binary, have no preferences: 1.19%
- I am non-binary, prefer to play female: 0.59%
- I am non-binary, prefer to play male: 0.37%
Surprising, isn’t it? It turns out many female characters in MMOs are indeed played by men, as long as there is no gender lock.
Who would have thought?
Men play heroines and heroes in MMORPGs
This is how the men voted: Of the 4027 male readers, 1536 voted for the option “I prefer male characters.” That is just over 38%.
Just behind them was the group of male readers who prefer to play female characters in MMOs. Those scamps. For this option, 1463 male readers voted, which corresponds to about 36.3%.
Men who prefer to play their own gender cited the identification with the game character in the comments as justification. While for female characters, aesthetics, animations, and generally appearance play a significant role:
I am male and only play male characters! […] I think I want to identify a little with my character in an MMO/RPG?
Comment by ThePig
[…] I would primarily say female characters, but there are several reasons: […] For example, I just find the running animations much better. Male characters often have the most terrible running animations. Also, armor for the most part looks better […]
Comment by Nico
1028 of our male readers, about 25.5%, had no special preferences when it comes to the gender of their character in MMOs. As justification, you mentioned in the comments that for example the appearance and classes should fit the gender:
In MMOs, I have no preference for a gender. It usually matters to me that it fits the class, race, and faction. How do the armors look on the respective types? And depending on what looks better, I take a man or a woman.
Comment by Darkyll
The majority of women also play women
This is how the women voted: In stark contrast, the results among the female readers who voted were that a whopping 74.79% of women prefer to play female characters. That is 362 votes.
Only 56 of the surveyed women prefer to play male characters in MMOs, which corresponds to about 11.5%. Thus, this result is even lower than “I am female, have no preferences,” which was chosen by 66 of the women. That is about 13.6%.
This is how the non-binary readers voted: Among our non-binary readers, the option “I have no preferences” dominated with 55 votes, making up 55.56% of the respondents. Immediately behind them were those who preferred female characters with 27 votes, and finally came the non-binary readers who prefer to play male with 17. That was about 27.2% and 17.1% of the votes respectively.
Are you as amazed by the results as we are? Or do you have clairvoyant abilities and could predict the voting distribution?
More results from our surveys are, by the way, just as astonishing. You can find them here:
