After an interesting post made by Eldorian, I thought this little study had some enligtening facts from the Deadalus Project. This should give you players some incite when you interact with others and make you think a little bit on who may be playing along with you. I found this absolutely fascinating as a member of my own guild plays a lot of female characters.
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23% of male players (N = 939) listed a character of the opposite gender as their most enjoyable character compared with 3% of female players (N = 184). In WoW, men are about 7-8 times as likely to gender-bend than women.
Given a hypothetical pool of 1000 players:
840 would be male players
160 would be female players
Of the 840 male players:
193 would be playing a female character
647 would be playing a male character
Of the 160 female players:
5 would be playing a male character
155 would be playing a female character
Thus, altogether there are 348 female characters of which 193 (55%) would be played by a male player.
And there are 652 male characters of which 5 (< 1%) would be played by a female player.
In other words:
about 1 out of every 2 female characters is played by a man
about 1 out of every 100 male characters is played by a woman
The RL gender distribution is 84% male vs. 16% female.
The in-game gender distribution is 65% male vs. 35% female.
Men over the age of 18 are more likely to gender-bend (25%) than men under the age of 18 (10%). Players who gender-bend score significantly higher on the Customization and Mechanics motivations than players who do not gender-bend. In other words, the two primary reasons why players gender-bend are to be able to be more stylish and to optimize their character (via gifts?).
Given a hypothetical pool of 1000 players:
840 would be male players
160 would be female players
Of the 840 male players:
193 would be playing a female character
647 would be playing a male character
Of the 160 female players:
5 would be playing a male character
155 would be playing a female character
Thus, altogether there are 348 female characters of which 193 (55%) would be played by a male player.
And there are 652 male characters of which 5 (< 1%) would be played by a female player.
In other words:
about 1 out of every 2 female characters is played by a man
about 1 out of every 100 male characters is played by a woman
The RL gender distribution is 84% male vs. 16% female.
The in-game gender distribution is 65% male vs. 35% female.
Men over the age of 18 are more likely to gender-bend (25%) than men under the age of 18 (10%). Players who gender-bend score significantly higher on the Customization and Mechanics motivations than players who do not gender-bend. In other words, the two primary reasons why players gender-bend are to be able to be more stylish and to optimize their character (via gifts?).
More...