Gender Ratios in City of Heroes
By
Agonus,
Posted on: 2009-08-19 17:56 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
My guess? Characters: male 55 %, female 45 %. Players: Male 80 %, female 20 %.
//Jack
The Kickers base.
Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others.
-Groucho Marx
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Since we're just making stuff up, I'll guess 46.5% male, 48.2% female, 3% robot, 2.1% hermaphrodite and .2% none of the above.|
Originally Posted by Jack_Power
My guess? Characters: male 55 %, female 45 %. Players: Male 80 %, female 20 %.
//Jack |
And the same ratio for players.
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Originally Posted by eltonio
This is over the top mental slavery.
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Piece of cake to get a random sample:
1. Record a demo file while flying around Atlas Park.
2. Parse the file for all the "COSTUME" lines, indicating a player costume.
3. If the first number after "COSTUME" is 0, character is male; 1, female; 4, huge.
I'll report with results in about 10 minutes.
www.SaveCOH.com: Calls to Action and Events Calendar
This is what 3700 heroes in a single zone looks like.
Thanks to @EnsonsDeath for the GVE code that made me VIP again!
Right this minute in Atlas Park, Freedom: 89 male characters, 43 female characters, 10 huge characters.
www.SaveCOH.com: Calls to Action and Events Calendar
This is what 3700 heroes in a single zone looks like.
Thanks to @EnsonsDeath for the GVE code that made me VIP again!
Everyone know 78% of all statistics are made up
so i would say 85% male play the game to 15% female
I have no real numbers for you, but I'd like to give the observation:
I am female, I play tabletop rpg's and often make male characters for them. However here in the City, I *play* more female characters than male. I have my share, out of 14 or so characters on my main server 5 of them are male.
Please read my FEAR/Portal/HalfLife Fan Fiction!
Repurposed
Well, I have almost a 50% to 50% male to female ratio. My wife has slightly more females, I'd guess (40% male, 60% female.)
You can probably extrapolate some good info from Nick Yee's research on EQ and WoW.
Here we see that 'gender bending' (males playing female characters) appears to be associated with age: older males are more comfortable with the concept. Speculation is that younger males may see accurate gender representation in characters as valued (hoping to possibly meet someone online, or uncomfortable in their masculinity).
Here's another with WoW gender ratios and likelihood of playing one gender or another. Of note, in that game:
The RL gender distribution is 84% male vs. 16% female.
The in-game gender distribution is 65% male vs. 35% female.
If you assume, as some have, that CoH has a slightly older average male population, you can assume that the number comfortable with playing a female character is likewise greater.
I captured 456 characters on Freedom, and the ratio stayed at about 2 males per female:
Male 271 / Female 152 / Huge 32
Next I headed to Virtue and did the same thing. Since Virtue has a certain... reputation... I expected a lot more females around. But after capturing 308 characters, the male to female ratio is still very high:
Male 170 / Female 105 / Huge 32
I can run this tomorrow when other people are online and capture another bunch. I'm recording each character's name and gender locally to avoid duplicates, and I can share the lists if needed.
Edit: I just visited what I'd consider the "worst case scenario", Pocket D on Virtue. The split was completely even there: Male 37 / Female 36 / Huge 1. However, since dialog (in Local!) included things like, Red Komodo turns his attention to Petite, "Come now, Petite... you know I am so much sexier... -- I'm not counting people on THAT zone as playing the same game as everyone else.
www.SaveCOH.com: Calls to Action and Events Calendar
This is what 3700 heroes in a single zone looks like.
Thanks to @EnsonsDeath for the GVE code that made me VIP again!
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I am male, and ALL of my characters in the 2 years I have played (minus 1 joke character) have been male.
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Originally Posted by Alliekat
It was recommended by the Support team that I come here and post this question in the hopes that someone might have the answers I seek.
I am going to be leading a discussion group for my Gaming Meetup on the subject of Gender Stereotypes in Gaming. I would really like to use City of Heroes as a point of interest. What I am looking for is an approximate number of Female Characters vs Male Characters. The actual gender of the player (male vs female) is not necessary but if that is included that would be great too. I don't want to invade any privacy issues but I think that it would make for a great discussion point as I do (and I know a few of the Meetup as well) play CoH. Any help that someone could give me would really be apprecaited. |
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I think that speculation is faulty. I have 100% male (or neuter, like robots) characters and my wife has all female and we're neither spring chickens nor are we uncomfortable in the least with our gender identities. Neither of us is out to date, and even if we were, we'd probably find somewhere better than a video game to do it.|
Originally Posted by Chase_Arcanum
Here we see that 'gender bending' (males playing female characters) appears to be associated with age: older males are more comfortable with the concept. Speculation is that younger males may see accurate gender representation in characters as valued (hoping to possibly meet someone online, or uncomfortable in their masculinity).
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My wife says male characters just "look clunky" on the screen to her and so she has a hard time enjoying playing one. She tried and said she just couldn't do it.
As for me, I've been GMing PnP games for over 25 years, which means I've roleplayed characters of all types, even roleplaying the female romantic lead opposite a male character (with the male player sitting about 3' away) without breaking a sweat, so it's not a comfort level at all. I've just frankly never been interested in creating a female character in this game. I don't know why, but I'm just not. If I had an idea for a female character that interested me, I'd play one. But I simply don't.
By contrast, I've known more college age people to gender-bend on characters than people my age. It's possible I'm just more set in my ways at this point. I don't know.
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Originally Posted by eltonio
This is over the top mental slavery.
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My wife plays 100% female characters, mine are 55/45% female/male.
Badging in a PvP zone?
If you are treasure hunting on a battlefield wearing an enemy uniform, there is a high probability that you will be attacked.
This is an enjoy-the-ride game. "50" is only a number, not the goal of the game. - Noxilicious
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Good call.
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Originally Posted by Leandro
Edit: I just visited what I'd consider the "worst case scenario", Pocket D on Virtue. The split was completely even there: Male 37 / Female 36 / Huge 1. However, since dialog (in Local!) included things like, "Red Komodo turns his attention to Petite, "Come now, Petite... you know I am so much sexier..." -- I'm not counting people on THAT zone as playing the same game as everyone else.
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Originally Posted by eltonio
This is over the top mental slavery.
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When dealing with aggregate data, you never use a single personal anecdote to explain every instance. |
Originally Posted by Smurch
I think that speculation is faulty. I have 100% male (or neuter, like robots) characters and my wife has all female and we're neither spring chickens nor are we uncomfortable in the least with our gender identities. Neither of us is out to date, and even if we were, we'd probably find somewhere better than a video game to do it.
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If you bothered to look, you'd see that although older married males are more likely to gender-bend, it still isn't predominant behavior. The question isn't "Why doesn't EVERYONE gender bend" which you seemed to think it was by your answer. it was "Why is there ANY difference based on age?"
Based on personal testimony and anecdotal experiences given during the surveys, this speculation arose to explain that little difference. That speculation could lead to topics to be tested in further surveys.
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Were you counting non-human males and females?
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Originally Posted by Leandro
Edit: I just visited what I'd consider the "worst case scenario", Pocket D on Virtue. The split was completely even there: Male 37 / Female 36 / Huge 1. However, since dialog (in Local!) included things like, Red Komodo turns his attention to Petite, "Come now, Petite... you know I am so much sexier... -- I'm not counting people on THAT zone as playing the same game as everyone else. |
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe neither do you use idle speculation.|
Originally Posted by Chase_Arcanum
When dealing with aggregate data, you never use a single personal anecdote to explain every instance.
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| If you bothered to look, you'd see that although older married males are more likely to gender-bend, |
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Originally Posted by eltonio
This is over the top mental slavery.
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383 is the sample size required for a confidence level of 95% with an accuracy of +/-5%.
Do the other servers now, Leandro!
My Going Rogue Trailer
Virtue (blue) - Wes The Mess
Virtue (red) - Jess The Best
@Razoras
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Incorrect, if you read the whole series of articles.|
Originally Posted by Smurch
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe neither do you use idle speculation.
But correlation does not prove causality, correct? So your "conclusions" about why some males gender-bend with characters and why some do not is flatly nothing more than a wild guess without any grounding in the available evidence. It's PRECISELY as scientific as my anecdotal experience, thus making my case EXACTLY as valid (or invalid) as your conclusion. |
Again, I used the term "speculation", because as far as I know, there was no verification of the observation. I didn't want to give the observation too much weight.
They did, however, use observation, use additional questions from these and other surveys to see what peoples inclinations and preferences were, and noted that younger people ARE less likely to be in established relationships, ARE more likely to think favorable to encountering someone online leading to offline relationships and generally, ARE more uncertain of their sexuality than older people.
Given that these metrics ARE there DO exist, and given that they'd dovetail rather well into an explanation of why representing gender accurately would be more important, it creates a nice working hypothesis for future research. it doesn't PROVE causation, granted, but few things do. The field of research is still young
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Actually I have 456 for Freedom now, and 308 for Virtue. I just updated the numbers in my last post without making a new one. I'll visit the other servers tomorrow, I have to be up for work in 6 hours.
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Originally Posted by Razoras
383 is the sample size required for a confidence level of 95% with an accuracy of +/-5%.
Do the other servers now, Leandro! |
www.SaveCOH.com: Calls to Action and Events Calendar
This is what 3700 heroes in a single zone looks like.
Thanks to @EnsonsDeath for the GVE code that made me VIP again!
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You said "THE speculation is..." not "MY speculation is" which is a distinct difference. In the first case, you're implying that there's some kind of causual evidence. In the second you're just making stuff up like the rest of us. And the articles you linked to? Those aren't even the authors' speculations. Did you get those speculations from the blogosphere comments? If so, then you just rejected MY anecdotal experience as being unscientific, but embraced someone ELSE's anecdotal experience because you agreed with it.|
Originally Posted by Chase_Arcanum
Incorrect, if you bothered to read.
Again, I used the term speculation, because as far as I know, there was no testing. |
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| They did, however, use observation, use additional questions from these and other surveys to see what peoples inclinations and preferences were, and noted that younger people ARE less likely to be in established relationships, ARE more likely to think favorable to encountering someone online leading to offline relationships and generally, ARE more uncertain of their sexuality than older people. Given that these metrics ARE there DO exist, and given that they'd dovetail rather well into an explanation of why representing gender accurately would be more important, it creates a nice working hypothesis for future research. |
Any guesses why that is the case is entirely groundless based on your beliefs about what being an older male means. It's not scientific. It's you reading what you want to see into statistics. I can read those same statistics to say that married, older men secretly want to be girls and are MORE confused about their sexuality, not less... and there is JUST as much proof of that as your conclusion. In fact, I'd argue that older generations are less likely to be comfortable with their sexuality if it veers outside the plain vanilla because lets face it, alternative sexual orientation as being anything but a snickering joke if not a source of outright hatred to most people is a pretty new thing in our society. While things still aren't perfect, most older people grew up in a much less tolerant world than we live in now. I know I sure did.
You're basically, like everyone else here except that guy who's doing the server zone fly-bys, doing nothing but making stuff up. Your imaginary evidence is no more valid than anyone else's imaginary evidence, even if you have real statistics to "support" your conclusions... because correlation does not prove causality.
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Originally Posted by eltonio
This is over the top mental slavery.
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Awww, recognition! Just for that, I monitored Atlas Park on Infinity for a little while to capture 114 characters and get you these numbers:|
Originally Posted by Smurch
You're basically, like everyone else here except that guy who's doing the server zone fly-bys, doing nothing but making stuff up.
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Male 64 / Female 40 / Huge 9
Now, really, sleepy time!
www.SaveCOH.com: Calls to Action and Events Calendar
This is what 3700 heroes in a single zone looks like.
Thanks to @EnsonsDeath for the GVE code that made me VIP again!
For just taking a stab in the dark I don't think I did half bad according to Leandros numbers. But you can argue how close is close?
//Jack
The Kickers base.
Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others.
-Groucho Marx
i'm female and I play all female (1 huge panda) toons. I encounter a 60/40 amount of male/female toons on Triumph, but only 4 of them were actually women IRL. Only two of my globals out of like 40 is a girl irl. Bottom line: haven't met many girl gamers outside of the forum
Triumph Lurker: mintmiki 50 emp/archer
basically, if you see a miki on Triumph, it's probably cute and it's probably me.
Huge thanks to cuppamanga and all the folks in the mac help forum for prolonging my borrowed time on this game.
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Originally Posted by Smurch
You said "THE speculation is..." not "MY speculation is" which is a distinct difference. In the first case, you're implying that there's some kind of causual evidence. In the second you're just making stuff up like the rest of us. And the articles you linked to? Those aren't even the authors' speculations. Did you get those speculations from the blogosphere comments? If so, then you just rejected MY anecdotal experience as being unscientific, but embraced someone ELSE's anecdotal experience because you agreed with it.
Again, correlation does not prove causality. This is the cornerstone of using statistics in any scientific way. Just because there is a Correlation between Older Males and Gender Bending it does NOT mean that BEING an older male is what makes you likely to gender-bend. That question is NOT answered by the data. Any guesses why that is the case is entirely groundless based on your beliefs about what being an older male means. It's not scientific. It's you reading what you want to see into statistics. I can read those same statistics to say that married, older men secretly want to be girls and are MORE confused about their sexuality, not less... and there is JUST as much proof of that as your conclusion. In fact, I'd argue that older generations are less likely to be comfortable with their sexuality if it veers outside the plain vanilla because lets face it, alternative sexual orientation as being anything but a snickering joke if not a source of outright hatred to most people is a pretty new thing in our society. While things still aren't perfect, most older people grew up in a much less tolerant world than we live in now. I know I sure did. You're basically, like everyone else here except that guy who's doing the server zone fly-bys, doing nothing but making stuff up. Your imaginary evidence is no more valid than anyone else's imaginary evidence, even if you have real statistics to "support" your conclusions... because correlation does not prove causality. |
ok, this is distracting from the thread and really getting ridiculous. I'm glad to take it to PM's to continue if you wish but.
1) I'm sorry, I found the anecdotal testimony irrelevant because it was assuming there was only one absolute reason. Looking back, you did use the term 'faulty' which was probably intended to be conditional (not representative of all cases), where,as I always considered it VERY conditional (few things in social science are EVER an all-or-nothing thing) I took as trying to claim it was "dead wrong."
2) When one finds unexpected trends in data, like the fact that older males have a slightly greater tendency to gender-bend, the next obvious question "why." In this case, I saw this conversation evolve in, yes, blogs, AND the academic world. Nick's one of the first to do these self-report studies to this degree, so he's often referenced, and there's whole courses of study in communications for "avatar mediated communication" that are wondering how known and observed psycho-social factors in interaction change in this new medium.
What I DIDN'T want to do was imply any conclusions.
"Speculate"
a: to meditate on or ponder a subject : reflect
b: to review something idly or casually and often inconclusively
I used the word to make clear that this was NOT a conclusion, but a direction of thinking that people were going to. If anything, I under-represented it, because these were often educated guesses based on other data (some gathered in the same survey, some gathered differently (so of lesser value, but still somewhat useful if carefully applied) that could serve as a rationale for the behavior, and if so, might be a useful hypothesis to test in future studies to see if any hold.
Wherever you're getting that I'm ATTRIBUTING CAUSATION by intentionally using the least-weighted wording I can come up with, I have no idea.
EDIT: Also, I used Nick's "gender bend" terminology because it seemed less weighted. Some academics use the term "virtual transvestism." Maybe I have too much negative weight on the word or I'm too defensive, but I really REALLY dislike that one.
I'm female, and I only have one avatar anyway - my superheroic self 
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
It was recommended by the Support team that I come here and post this question in the hopes that someone might have the answers I seek.
I am going to be leading a discussion group for my Gaming Meetup on the subject of Gender Stereotypes in Gaming. I would really like to use City of Heroes as a point of interest. What I am looking for is an approximate number of Female Characters vs Male Characters. The actual gender of the player (male vs female) is not necessary but if that is included that would be great too. I don't want to invade any privacy issues but I think that it would make for a great discussion point as I do (and I know a few of the Meetup as well) play CoH.
Any help that someone could give me would really be apprecaited.