Oh yeah. Building community every step of the way baby.
Anyways, first off, to recap the issue. There was basically the equivalent of a GM event in the Egyptian based crafting heavy community centered MMOG that is A Tale in the Desert 2.
In the process of the event, an avatar, possessed by one of the head devs, acted (key word 'acted'), well, like an ass. A jackass. Amongst his rogue like personality though, was an apparent sexism towards female avatars.
Uh.
Okay, obviously, as you probably already guessed, the reason I didn't mention this earlier is because it's stupid. The actual events of what took place are absurdly absurd. And, on top of that, I could really care less about a character being sexist in A Tale of the Desert of all games (though I believe the game has a lot of merit on a design level). Seriously though, anybody who played UO/EQ or AC pretty much only had to walk five minutes in any one direction to run into some guy, hitting on a female avatar, that, was, well most likely played by some other guy.
And the chicks who actually played chicks, half the time, glorified the fact that they were these super sexualized objects in game. Not all of them did, I've known some married women in games over the years who have kept a very low profile, but vice versa, I've met a lot of women who have gotten a massive self esteem charge out of the fact that by simply announcing: "I fem rl", they literally get legions of slobbering fans.
Yes. Legions. And they don't even need to be a super model to say the least. Hell. They don't even need to be a female. The simple announcement alone will bring them to be slathered with gifts, followed puppy dog like, hormonally imbalanced males, and hit on/flirted with constantly. TWENTY FOUR HOURS A DAY.
The only thing that makes this case any different than what happens perpetually in every other popular MMOG (literally, right now, some pervert nerd is making a move on a wood elf), is the fact that a developer was the one perpetrating the 'crime'.
Which brings me around to why I decided to bring this up at all. The outrage expressed was the fact that a roleplaying developer was being sexist to a female avatar.
An avatar.
What I'm curious about, yes, on a vaguely, toned down, academic level is what level of personal connection is appropriate to have with these games?
Humor me for a minute. Let's imagine the ATITD scenario. Now let's imagine that the person who caused the commotion, is in fact... a man.
Yes. For the sake of argument, and the fact that the internet at heart is a haven for anonymity, let's all put our minds together and agree that 'Tammy O'Sullivan' who was largely involved in the original protest against a developer acting in such a way, is in fact a fat man named Tom Sullivan.
What happens to the argument? How does it change?
Well, let's imagine. Tom comes out, and states that his female avatar was treated in a sexist manner by a developer...
And then he's laughed at. And slashdot doesn't link him. The Corp writes an article about perverts. Terra Nova never deigns to mention the episode, and Raph, with his search for 'highbrow' conversation, refuses to visit any website that is talking about it.
Yet, what's the difference? After all, how do we know Tammy isn't actually Tom? And if that's the case, then would there be an issue about an online game going too far?
Would the word 'riot' even be uttered? Or would the entire incident be globally connected with the label of 'laughable' and quoted forever more at underground MMOG communities such as this one.
Understand my problem with the whole thing? If I haven't made myself clear, let me give you the gist. These worlds by nature are virtual. There is no 'actual' connection with the people behind the players, apart from a few pixels moving from coordinate 'x' to coordinate 'y'. Yet, consistently, time and time again, we see issues like this. Do these issues have any validity?
Remember the weirdo writer who got banned from EverQuest for writing a freaky story about a dark elf raping a thirteen year old girl or something? Okay. Stop. What if that had been a woman writing that story?
That's right, what if a woman had been writing a story about a young girl being raped? Would she have been banned?
Julian Dibbell long ago wrote an article about an incident that took place in LambdMOO involving 'virtual voodoo doll rape'. In the article he says how one of the women participants who was taken over by the university run script, was crying, horribly traumatized at what was done to her character.
What if it had been a him, behind the computer screen?
What if I make a racial slur at a Caucasian Human Paladin, call him a cracker, and in life, he is being controlled by an African American? Can an act go too far, when the participants involved, are no more real or involved than actors in a movie?
If you say, he shouldn't be outraged, then arguably, neither should a female, playing a female character, be outraged. After all, the fact that her gender and character are matched with her avatar, doesn't actually make it any more 'real' than a white male playing a black female.
Yet, if you argue that she should have the right to be outraged, then you must also say that the outrage is spawned by the treatment of the avatar, and not of the person, in which case, when does the entire thing go too far? Are we suddenly going to be held accountable for how we treat gnomes in a fantasy MMOG?
To be honest, I'm not entirely sure. It's sort of a gray area. The reality is, our 'avatars' that we invest literally obscene amounts of time into, often feel very 'connected' to a person. This is why, people will quit guilds if they don't get loot. Or women will cry if somebody says something particularly nasty about their character.
Yet, at the same time, it's 'not real'.
Should we be reminding people constantly, that they really have no right to be emotionally involved with their character? Or should we accept that people do get emotionally involved with their avatars, and therefore, accept that a man, playing a woman, has equal rights to be upset and rally the woman's lib movement if somebody like Teppy comes up to him and discriminates against him due to his avatar gender?
To me, it seems common sense to remember, the only thing real about these games are the connections we make with other people. Everything else is virtual. So a 'slur' uttered on screen, is a 'virtual slur'. Sexism on screen? 'Virtual sexism'.
It's a distinction I think needs to be made, otherwise I feel it devalues the comparative real world issues. And if this is the way it is, I feel every game, based on the idea that everything that happens within the game is 'virtual' should make policy based on that.
So if a game like ATITD that pushes weird issues on its players allows 'virtual sexism' then the person in question has literally no right to be outraged or offended by anything. And the people involved in the discussion, should be reminding them that they in fact are 'in the wrong' and should calm down.
Vice versa, if a game makes policy against all manner of 'virtual abuse', then that should remain consistent, even if a female playing a male is acting sexist towards a male playing a female...
Which just seems weird to me.