My only memories associated with World of Warcraft center around watching my step-brother play 10+ years ago, but otherwise I have very little experience with the game. I started as everyone else does, trying to decide what “race” I wanted to be (troll, human, elf, orc, etc.) and then what “class” (mage, hunter, etc.).
I played around with different “races” and “classes” to figure out what level of customization was allowed for each kind of character, and to see what they all looked like in their various forms and occupations. What I found was a bit surprising, to me anyway.
First, I noticed the disparities between males and females of each race. The female character models were all slimmer, with much more substantial curves than the male character models. As far as skin, facial features, hair, etc. all of the character models (male and female) had similar levels of customization. My issue wasn’t so much with these cosmetic feature as with the bodies of the characters themselves.
While this image isn’t the best quality, it does show the disparity between male and female character models among a variety of “races” in the game. The aforementioned curves are evident across all races – even the Pandaren (Panda bear like creatures) have noticeably feminine body shapes. This wouldn’t be a problem if players were allowed to customize body shape (or even clothing) in the same way as they do facial features or hair color, but this isn’t an option.
Now, I’m not a game designer and I don’t necessarily understand the logistics of character models. But I have seen plenty of games (The Sims, for example) that have allowed body customization for years. What if I don’t want my character to have extremely large breasts; what if I want her body shape to be more realistic? Every female character model is inherently sexualized; with no way to change what their bodies look like, female players lack control over the perception of their characters.
World of Warcraft presents the female body through only one lens, even across races when comparing the female character models to the male character models of the same race. As discussed by Williams et al. in The Virtual Census: representations of gender, race and age in video games “imagery that is viewed or played repeatedly is more accessible when a person is attempting to recall information about that class of social objects (Williams et al. 191). If male players of W.O.W. or any other game only see female character models with large breasts and slim hips, there will be a perception that this is what a woman is supposed to look like. They not only associate that specific body type with women, but also as a basis for sexual harassment of female players.
While our avatars in-game do not necessarily reflect what we look like in real life, they are representations of the player within the game and do carry weight with other players in how they treat us. Allowing women and men alike to customize the bodies of their avatars in W.O.W. (to a reasonable extent) could help to transform how female players are viewed and treated in-game.
(Game sessions was 1 hour long, completed at home on my laptop)