When given a choice between a male and female when creating and customising a new avatar for a game, more often than not I’ll choose a female. My primary alter ego in most MMOs is a redheaded, ponytailed lady, when customisation options allow.

This isn’t a gender identity issue, I don’t think I’m a woman trapped inside the body of a manchild. And it isn’t the oft-repeated reason of other male gamers – if you’re going to stare at an arse for hundreds of hours it may as well be a ladybum. Nor do I ever pretend I am a lady in real life, mostly because the people who ask such things are only asking because they’re sleazebags.

No, the reason I do it is because when it comes to customising a look and choosing an outfit and all the rest of it, it’s a lot more fun doing so for a woman than it is a man. In part because it’s not something I could do ordinarily, where I could dress a bloke up however I wanted, whenever I wanted, because I am a bloke.

But also because most games offer a more interesting set of options for female avatars. Sometimes that just means more “revealing” clothing or a slider for boob size, but not always.

I know it seems a little silly, especially in games where designing an image for a character is lost on most due to combat oriented gameplay being at the forefront.

But what it comes down to is that this:

Is much more interesting to me than this:

Maybe it is an issue that exists more in my mind than in reality. Most games do offer plenty of options when creating male characters and have heaps of clothing/armour to choose from. Yet most of the time I get sick of trying to create a guy I’m happy with and start the creation process over as a chick.

I really wanted to post some more pictures of past female characters but it turns out that, even when I do remember to take screenshots, I don’t have any sort of plan to keep track of the resulting files.

Since I have a blog, I might start taking a nice picture or two of my character/s when I inevitably play more games. Maybe I’ll include a little bit about whatever the game is, what that character’s goals are… maybe I’ll just throw a picture up.

Maybe I’ll forget altogether and this will be the last entry on the subject.