Racialized Trafficking in World of Warcraft
by Elizabeth Harper 
May 23rd 2006 at 4:00PM
Last week I mentioned an article that talked about the cultural borrowing we see in World of Warcraft, and today I ran across a post on New Game Plus that looks at the same topic from a different perspective - the commodification and trafficking of virtual items and characters. The article points out that female avatars tend to sell for less than male avatars, leading to the question of how the racial typing may also impact the perceived value of the character. Interesting food for thought.Filed under: Virtual selves, Odds and ends
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
academy May 24th 2006 4:52AM
The first thing that comes to mind to point out is that people are unlikely often choose a character tat’s a gender besides that of their own identity. Without actually looking at the demographics, my first impression to that would be to suggest it’s a matter of males playing more and not giving much thought to having a non-male character.
But that’s the fun thing about studying social issues, you never know what seemingly nonsensical trends will pop up when you look at the numbers. It’d be a fascinating thing to study indeed.
As far as racial issues in these sorts of games, it is my instinct to attribute this to the history of the fantasy genre: authors like Tolkien and Lovecraft and the racial ideas they implaned in their works. But again this is just sort of a first impression and I’d have to look at all into it to have beter ideas about it.
Stormgaard May 24th 2006 6:30AM
Oh God. Another stupid-ass "IS EVERYONE SECRETLY A BIGOT" post.
Are you THAT desperate for material?
Please... go smash your typing fingers with a hammer... or something... but for God's sake quit making us suffer this sort of crap.
Greg May 24th 2006 9:21AM
Got to agree with Stormgaard on this one. The article was total 'look at me, I'm applying to grad school' wankery - the enemy of everything fun and rational.
For good academic research - based on stats rather than impressionistic noodling based on unprovable assumptions about 'institutional racism' - see Nick Yee or the Play On blog.
jpc May 24th 2006 12:46PM
Ouch! You guys didn't have to read it if it bothered you that much. I thought it was interesting... Although, I don't see how using the borrowed racial themes would be insulting to anyone. I mean the tauren are the most noble race in the game, and I'd be honored to be compared to them. If I was compared to the UD, then I might be insulted, but even they are compred to certain goth/emo ppl who no doubt feel proud of their UD kindred.