Why must online games make such attractive female models? Oh sure, the hunky men and cool and all, but heterosexual men are finding out that they'd rather not ogle their men for 70+ hours and are instead creating female avatars for the eye candy, but are finding themselves slipping down a slippery slope when they start playing up their characters and pretending to be female online in some cases.

From the article:

But as a result of that early experience, I began to play female characters more and more frequently, and my male ones less and less. With the rise of Massively Multiplayer Online Games in 1996 and 1997, virtual worlds had finally become graphical, and once again I dived right in. But I soon found that there were noticeable differences in how male and female characters were treated in online games, even when everyone knew there was a good chance the female's player was really a guy.

Female characters are often given free stuff, either from males looking to impress them, or from females looking to help out their own. They're more likely to receive help and assistance in game when they ask, and less likely to get ganked by fellow players. Male characters, on the other hand, are often viewed with more suspicion by females, and as a competitive threat by their fellow males. And there are other forms of more subtle gender discrimination. The true extent of these elements in virtual worlds, and their psychological origins, are a subject of frequent debate. I can only speak for myself when I have found them to be
generally true in my experience.

But there are other, far more visible reasons for males to play female characters in modern graphical MMOGs. Let's be blunt - female video game characters are frequently hot, and a sexy girl on the cover of your retail box can help sell your videogame. And it's not just games like Tomb Raider and Dead or Alive - look at the box covers for the MMOGs EverQuest, Lineage II, Guild Wars and World of Warcraft, not to mention those notorious Anarchy Online ads. Who doesn't want their character to look good? As one fellow player once put it to me, "If I have to stare at an ass in game for hours and hours every day, it might as well be a female ass." And don't the game developers know it. This year at E3, while playing the upcoming MMOG title Soul of the Ultimate Nation from Webzen, I was positively giddy to discover that the half-skirt on the female Elementalist character actually flips up when she jumps into the air, exposing her shiny panties underneath. Talk about your fan service!

Read the full article over at escapistmagazine.com