Sony Home life bad for female avatars

16th January 2009

Sony Home life bad for female avatars

posted in Fat Bias, Feminist Topics, Pop Culture |

Brandon briefly got into Second Life a couple years ago before disbanding it for The Sims. I checked it out, but found it blasé. Not so for the half a million people who called Second Life their second home. Everyone from Duran Duran and Wells Fargo Bank to the Department of Homeland Security has funded real estate there, Second Life affairs are ending in real life divorces and some people are even ditching their jobs back on Earth to make their living entirely within the Second Life economy.

Now Sony is hoping to capitalize on the success of Second Life with its own version for the ridiculously-pricey PlayStation 3. The mundanely-titled Sony Home, a free download for PlayStation 3 owners, is being touted as the most realistic-looking implementation yet of a 3-D world. Part of the allure of virtual reality lies in its fluidity; you can change your shape, your sex and even your species. But in Sony Home, your options are limited. Writes Josh Quittner of Time magazine:

Much like the Wii system, your avatar’s features are customizable–within limits. Want your character to be 8 ft. (2.4 m) tall? Forget it. Humans are sized like the real deal. No really enormous noses either. Your character can’t even be as fat as your average tech-gossip blogger, since only the slightest of beer guts is permitted in Home. And if you want to create a female avatar, she’s got to look like something from Playboy, circa 1968.

…Home’s aesthetic is Larry Flynt meets Lake Wobegon: all the men are strong, the women big-breasted and the children–well, there are no children. Just shorter adults.

Unlike the adult-oriented Second Life, Sony plans to police its Home so that it’s family-friendly. But the gadget blog Gizmodo is reporting that there are so few women in Sony Home that the handful of female avatars that do appear are often mobbed by male avatars. As blogger Eric Rice so eloquently explains:

Some guys find it funny to make their avatar in Playstation Home female. This will immediately attract male avatars (presumably *actually* male in real life (RL)), who gleefully engage in whatever dance animation that even *remotely* resembles humping, grinding, or whatever your term is. Double dance-hump score if the aforementioned female is sitting on the ground, where the crotch is right at the level of the seated avatar’s head. They switch it up [called "Quincy'ing," it's when a female avatar quickly morphs into a male avatar] and everyone gets grossed out, and attempts to call each other ‘fags’, which of course, gets caught by Sony’s overzealous language filter…

Now in the off chance you get to witness a female avatar telling a group of male avatars, ‘Leave me alone’, followed by moving away from the dance-humpers, it would be safe to assume that she is, in fact, female. …The other night in Playstation Home, I witnessed an actual female change into a male avatar because of the depraved operators of the ultra-masculine manvatars

The Alley blog insists that “Horny dweebs will always find a way to introduce sex into any 3D experience and make things insufferable for female avatars.” Perhaps. But it doesn’t help when the only female avatars available to women players are hypersexualized and commodified. Virtual reality, indeed.

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This entry was posted on Friday, January 16th, 2009 at 2:52 pm and is filed under Fat Bias, Feminist Topics, Pop Culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

1 On January 16th, 2009, Bronwyn said:

Ugh. This is actually one of my pet peeves about any game with that many people. You get it in World of Warcraft, you get it even more in first person shooters (even if those same games have NO female avatars).

It’s just another way for people to be douches. I hate it.

posted on January 16th, 2009 at 3:42 pm

2 On January 16th, 2009, Bree said:

This is why I stick to word games, Life, and Gold Miner.

posted on January 16th, 2009 at 4:21 pm

3 On January 16th, 2009, Shinobi said:

It’s worse if you wear a skirt. My Avatar is Fat, wears jeans and glasses and has small boobs and I still occasionally get humped. It was pretty aweful the first few days, but the last couple foray’s I made into Home it wasn’t as bad, there were more chicks around and slightly less harassment.

However I think it could be a useful tool for demonstrating sexism to people who think it doesn’t exsist. Go make a female avatar and try to walk around Home without getting humped and then tell me that feminism is unnecessary.

posted on January 16th, 2009 at 4:38 pm

4 On January 16th, 2009, Rachel said:

Shinobi — How fat can your avatar be?

posted on January 16th, 2009 at 4:39 pm

5 On January 16th, 2009, Shinobi said:

Not that fat. She essentially has a belly and thighs.

posted on January 16th, 2009 at 5:23 pm

6 On January 16th, 2009, Richard Mullen said:

What a bunch of losers. If I ever get that bored that I want to play a game of pretending to be someone else I will promptly remind myself I have a life. So sad.

posted on January 16th, 2009 at 6:33 pm

7 On January 16th, 2009, Stella said:

RE: Richard Mullen

I’ll bet you don’t own a TV either, its for SHEEPLE!! Thank you for sharing your opinion with us sub-humans, its not often that we get a shiny, orb of perfect like yourself.

posted on January 16th, 2009 at 7:59 pm

8 On January 16th, 2009, RosyRedLotus said:

Hubby and I stopped messing with Home when the beta went public. They started charging insane amounts of money for stuff the beta-testers got for free, like basic furniture for the apartment spaces. I think the PS3 system is one of the best investments we’ve made, but Home is not getting any of our money. It’s very Microsoft-esque.

posted on January 16th, 2009 at 8:42 pm

9 On January 17th, 2009, Fangirl said:

I love video games. However, I’ve never engaged in any MMORPGs for pretty much this reason. I don’t have words for how sketched out/disgusted I would be if this happened to “me” in a game like this. It’s unfunny to the Nth degree; why don’t these guys see that?

About that picture: if someone came up to me in a game and said “nice rack,” my response would be pretty much the same as it would be in real life: “eff off, perv” and then me running away.

posted on January 17th, 2009 at 1:14 am

10 On January 17th, 2009, Jackie said:

To be honest, the gamer in me wants to beat these guys at their own game. I also do find it rather amusing, even though it is low-brow, to trick these losers into flirting with a guy and making them have to question their own sexuality. Actually, I think it would be much more offensive instead of turning into an ugly guy, for them to have the girl turn into an effeminate guy, which only would further emphasize their homophobia.

However, the rational side of me says, while picking on jerks is cathartic, I don’t want to participate in creating anymore homophobia than there already is. Clearly my concept of making the guy appear gay rather than ugly, would in fact make that worse for sure. So it is kind of a devil on one shoulder and angel on the other situation. I’m going to listen to the angel, cause I do have better things to do with my time.

posted on January 17th, 2009 at 6:00 am

11 On January 18th, 2009, forever_dreamer21 said:

I’ll stick to The Sims, some games that don’t frustrate me and real life thanks. This game doesn’t sound very appealing.

posted on January 18th, 2009 at 7:23 pm

12 On January 21st, 2009, Richard Mullen said:

You don’t see me calling individuals names Stella and I do agree that TV is for Sheeple. It’s not for me but for others it’s how they pacify themselves. I just think it’s sad that with the interesting world out there and lots of other people in need, spare time should be spent differently. To each their own but doing volunteer work or dare say exercise versus spending countless hours on a video game makes more sense to me. It is all about choice and for that you won’t see me picketing against video games like those other nuts hoping to press some overbearing agenda on others. I think of myself as equal making different choices so the implied “perfection” does not apply. I am very far from perfection.

posted on January 21st, 2009 at 3:49 pm

13 On January 21st, 2009, Rachel said:

I just think it’s sad that with the interesting world out there and lots of other people in need, spare time should be spent differently.

I have nothing against virtual reality kinds of games themselves — I’ve been known to wile away an afternoon playing The Sims — but I do think its sad that so many people now connect to other people only through their computer. The internet is a great way to meet new people and to network, but there’s something to be said for real-life relationships with other people, too.

posted on January 21st, 2009 at 4:05 pm

14 On January 21st, 2009, Lampdevil said:

I read this and… found myself extremely unsurprised. Yup. We’ve got all this new technology, and what do all those gamer guys go and do with it? Guh.

I had this happen years and years ago on an old MMORPG. The characters were sprites! Eensy one-inch tall sprites! And yet my little archer girl got surrounded by amorous dudes one day, spamming /heart and /kiss emotes and rapidly sitting up and down… My first reaction is to stop and wonder what kind of profound brain defect makes a person think that sort of behavior is okay ANYWHERE… but of course, hey, Internet! Serious Business, amirite? Go ahead, do anything you want, no one cares! Let out that inner fratboy! Hoot and leer and molest to your heart’s content!

Maybe I should be profoundly concerned about the psychology of so many young men out there, if THIS is the sort of thing they do when they’ve been freed to behave as they please…

But meh! I love MMORPGs. I am not about to let a bunch of crude bozos ruin my fun. I’ve got just as much a right to game as they do. Stopping would mean that they’ve won.

posted on January 21st, 2009 at 8:36 pm

15 On August 5th, 2009, Leah said:

I think an MMORPG could be fun.

It would be nice if you could somehow report them, so that they could be held accountable in the virtual community. I’m thinking a giant red “M” on their chest would do just fine! OOOOH, even better–a form of virtual pepper spray that, when used, immobilizes the avatar for 48 hrs.

I wrote yahoo about their emaciated female avatars and must not have been the only person thinking that way, because they created plus-sized female avatars (really just with less concave figures) a few months later. Granted, their clothing options are limited, but it was a small victory!

posted on August 5th, 2009 at 10:32 pm

16 On August 5th, 2009, Leah said:

“M” for Molester, not Man. Lol. ;=)

posted on August 5th, 2009 at 10:33 pm

17 On August 11th, 2009, Fat Angie said:

I play an MMO that my ex-boyfriend did the art for. My character (female) is kind of a big deal. She’s basically the kiss of death for whomever she fights, she’s one of three characters to have beaten the Lawman (and the only one to do it consistently). She’s a member of the most powerful faction in the game, the game’s Warrior Princess (my char’s name is Cinderella). And I’m STILL constantly getting humped, motorboated, etc. by pervy kids who call me a “betch” when I turn around and kick them, or getting called a stripper or prostitute because she wears a corset, or told what to do because I’m just a lay-dee with a simple lay-dee mind. (I am “out” as female, in spite of this I see no reason to pretend I’m a dude IRL)

posted on August 11th, 2009 at 12:16 pm