Paper Info
Title
Gender swapping and user behaviors in online social games
Abstract
Modern Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs) provide lifelike virtual environments in which players can conduct a variety of activities including combat, trade, and chat with other players. While the game world and the available actions therein are inspired by their offline counterparts, the games' popularity and dedicated fan base are testaments to the allure of novel social interactions granted to people by allowing them an alternative life as a new character and persona. In this paper we investigate the phenomenon of "gender swapping," which refers to players choosing avatars of genders opposite to their natural ones. We report the behavioral patterns observed in players of Fairyland Online, a globally serviced MMORPG, during social interactions when playing as in-game avatars of their own real gender or gender-swapped. We also discuss the effect of gender role and self-image in virtual social situations and the potential of our study for improving MMORPG quality and detecting online identity frauds.
Year
DOI
Venue
2013
10.1145/2488388.2488460
WWW
Keywords
Field
DocType
lifelike virtual environment,gender role,modern massively multiplayer online,novel social interaction,online social game,virtual social situation,user behavior,fairyland online,mmorpg quality,own real gender,social interaction,role-playing games
Swap (computer programming),Behavioral pattern,Online identity,World Wide Web,Computer science,Persona,Popularity,Gender role,Phenomenon,Social games
Conference
ISBN
Citations 
PageRank 
978-1-4503-2035-1
12
0.68
References 
Authors
19
6
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Jing-Kai Lou1536.22
Kunwoo Park213614.51
Meeyoung Cha34391237.20
Juyong Park410414.50
Chin-Laung Lei51686201.07
Kuan-Ta Chen61896136.86