eD! Thomas The Semi-Coherent Rantings Of A Future Pop-Culture Footnote And Ambassador Of Awesome

Am I Seriously Defending The 'World of Warcraft'?

I guess it’s “People Who Are Wrong” day here on e! = A, ‘cause I just discovered another winner thanks to m’boy Brandon’s blog over at TimesUnion.com.

According to Katie Rossomano of DailyTitan.com, Blizzard Entertainment’s insanely popular “World Of Warcraft” (or WoW) is a sexist game that treats women like crap.

it’s no secret that I personally despise WoW, and constantly make fun of the tons of friends I have who play it, ranging from the innocent jab (“So, going out tonight, or sitting in your basement as per usual?”) to the downright nasty (“Does it bother you that your mother cries at night, thinking you’re sexually attracted to a virtual warlock named ‘N00bPwner’?”).

However, they’re my friends, and it’s my God-given right to mock them... it shows I care. Ms. Rossomano, on the other hand, doesn’t seem like she really played the game at all, or has friends who do, either, based on her article. Her complaints range from the fact that any female character you create is designed to look as “hot” as possible, encouraging sexism, the assumption that everyone is a guy, and, if a girl is playing, she must look like the love child of The Grimmace from McDonalds and one of the Garbage Pail Kids.

Where to begin?

Yes, you’re correct, female characters in video games are designed to appear “sexy,” just as male characters are designed to appear “muscular” and “handsome.” Let’s face it, none of the friends I have who play the game look like the massive he-men they have designed... these are “idealized” people, and you have the mass media to blame for pushing that “ideal.” Also, the idea that a 3-D model of a woman is going to encourage a sexist viewpoint is about as stupid as the idea that seeing a person do something “stereotypical” is going to make me a venom-spewing racist. It takes a lifetime to turn into that, and no video game is going to push you down a spiral of disgust and blind hatred, unless the game in question is “Pokemon: Silver.”

You discuss that it is assumed that female characters are actually being played by males, because, you suppose, that women are “incapable of learning and understanding a relatively complex video game,” ignoring the simple statistical fact that 84% of WoW players actually have a Y-Chromosome, and might not, in fact, have anything to do with a women’s inability to understand such a complex system as “click on an enemy, choose an attack, repeat.”

It is, sadly, the last part of your half-researched rant that is the most damning, where you flat-out state that if a women is (God forbid!) discovered in Azeroth, they are told that they are, quote, “fat, ugly, and acne-ridden.” To get to the bottom of this, I asked my friend Kraft, who has the distinct honor of being addicted to Warcraft like any regular person is addicted to breathing. The conversation, had moments ago:

Me: Hey, if you’re playing WoW with a group of you’ve never actually met before, and you find out one of them is an honest-to-God girl, how often do you hear someone say something like “you must be fat, ugly, and acne-ridden?”

Kraft: Not often. Usually she gets hit on.

Which leads me to my ultimate point; yes, you’ll find sexist people playing “World of Warcraft,” just like you’ll find racist people playing “Yahtzee!” However, just like in real life, you’ll find there’s a bunch more people who are just looking to get laid, and even more people who generally just don’t give a damn so long as you know what you’re doing and don’t prevent them from “pwning some n00bs,” or whatever the hell these loser friends of mine do. And, by condeming an entire game as a sexist experience, you’re no better than those who say stupid things like “girls can’t play games.”

But I suppose I shouldn't be too harsh... after all, "logic" and "self righteousness" don't often go together, as you so expertly demonstrated.