Jessoteric

The Cafe World Avatar Screen

Lately I’ve been playing a fair number of Facebook games – checking out what sort of casual, social games are out there currently. Many of the games have very simple avatar systems, offering just the most basic of clothing for male and female avatars – but a few, such as Cafe World have taken it to an even more simple level and have made their avatars completely androgynous to start out with.

There are several reasons why having a genderless avatar is helpful – only one clothing library to worry about, and only one set of animations to create for that avatar, more variety for the users (Who says men can’t wear skirts?). However, in games with 3d graphics this could pose an interesting problem – you would need to create an avatar mesh which was extremely flexible as far as certain proportions go.

Though I doubt I will anytime soon – I would love to see how this would play out in a more detailed virtual space. I feel like giving users the option to create their avatar’s gender along two scales of masculinity & femininity as opposed to forcing people to choose between two extremes would be a positive experience for many virtual worlds and social games – no longer would it be the large busted tiny waisted ladies vs the muscular manly men.

At times  when I visit certain virtual worlds, I feel that I am looking at a woman wearing a woman-costume (as opposed to an actual woman). It’s as though being in that virtual space with encourages users to exaggerate the characteristics which “make” them male or female.  In the real world, not all women look like Barbie, and not all men look like GI-Joe. I am honestly unsure of if making androgyny the norm would make this more or less common.

In short – while I recognize this was probably a design choice made because it was easier to implement, not because it was making a statement, I would LOVE to see more virtual spaces put less emphasis on the differences between men and women, and encourage us to see them as just “people”.