Women of warcraft: an exploratory study about female players in MMORPG

Abstract

The present article addresses the dynamics of the Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPG) with the objective of understanding issues related with the limited female share of players and their reality as community members. This research reports on the interest to investigate relations about genders relations, based on a exploratory study develop with girls who plays games. There was employed a netnographic research method sourcing online interactions from the World of Warcraft game communities. The results indicate that there is a dominant male share of players which enforces sexism and other male-concepts on the female players. Although not all female players perceive such behaviours, it affects a significant share, influencing their choices and online behaviours. It´s possible to apoint that the theme explored on this study suggest an important topic for the gaming industries. However, it´s requires to develop further studies, specifically on the major points that refeers harassment, male chauvinism and discrimination of genders. This investigation explored the focus to keep up the game interest, to all kind of people, proposing how to engage the largest number of consumers possible, both males and females, according the marketing´s goals of the gaming industries.