What video game character creation predicts about the metaverse
Video game behavior suggests that we may need to prepare for a less male metaverse than previously thought
A Reddit comment in June may indicate bigger dynamics at play for the metaverse. A gameplay producer of League of Legends (LoL) shared the following in June:
Our data shows that female players primarily play female champions [playable characters]. In fact, it’s something like 97% of female players only play female champions. Male players are evenly split between male and female champions, so male players play 50/50 between male and female champions. If anything, whenever we make a male champion, we are abandoning most of our female players since most of our female players won’t play male champions at all.
This selection imbalance is particularly stark given that LoL’s roster of 161 champions is about 60% male / 40% female, with multiple options for each type of playstyle.
This begs the question: even when controlling for gameplay differences, is there a recurring pattern of male gamers choosing female avatars much more frequently compared to the reverse? Emerging metaverse research discuss male vs. female consumer behavior differences, but do they also account for behavior based on avatar gender?
Online games have long skewed towards female avatars, driven by male players
This trend of men being more open to other genders for their avatars is a long-time one. Rewinding to 2014, a study conducted that year of World of Warcraft players saw 23% of men choose female avatars while only 7% of women chose male ones.
As for preference for their own gender, a study by Quantic Foundry in 2021 saw 48% of men preferring male avatars, compared to 76% of women preferring female avatars. Interestingly, only 10% of non-binary gamers would choose a male avatar, while 33% prefer female (and 38% prefer non-binary, though I think this would be higher if non-binary options were more widely available, which we are trending toward). Non-binary avatars are also preferred by 5% of the binary population, with women four times more likely to choose a non-binary avatar compared to men.
Across the world of gaming, playable game characters see more female and non-binary representation than their real world player population. “If gaming is the forerunner of who uses the metaverse,” per McKinsey & Company, then we could very well see a virtual world that is significantly more female and non-binary than the user population piloting them. It could do well for the companies that have been emerging to serve these avatars to consider the gender breakdowns of not just their end customers, but also their avatars.
Today, the metaverse userbase is approximately 53% male, 46% female. Now imagine a future, mature adoption state where the male and female user populations are roughly equal, like the real world. If we go by LoL’s user behavior, then the avatar population could look as lopsided as 75% female / 25% male. But I think a better analog would be MMORPGs. These games have close to zero differences in gameplay or characterization attributed to avatar gender, and players feel attachment to one primary avatar due to the time, effort, and finances invested in it. Basically, MMORPGs can be seen as one of the closest analogs for metaverse. So it could be more accurate to apply the 2014 WoW study results, which would suggest a metaverse that may be 40% male, 60% female.
Wearable NFT fashion will need to be mindful of the virtual gender distribution
Implications of a more female and non-binary metaverse are particularly relevant for wearable NFT fashion projects that aim to clothe and accessorize metaverse avatars. These include both the web3-native startups (e.g., Space Runners, RTFKT) and the fashion houses venturing into NFTs (e.g., Dolce & Gabbana via Collezione Genesi).
These companies should prepare to serve a higher relative demand for women’s virtual fashion compared to men’s fashion. The demand will also reflect the varying preferences of the end users piloting the avatar. Given the long, proven history of catering toward the straight male gaze when designing virtual women, it is quite likely that a male consumer and a female consumer may seek very different fashions for a female avatar.
Game developers have long understood this higher yet different type of demand for female fashion, as many have invested much more in female character and cosmetic offerings vs. male to cater to these preferences. In the same vein, NFT fashion projects should be mindful of these differences compared to real world fashions and consider a similar strategy.
Parallels and differences between metaverse and video game avatars
Admittedly, this thought piece so far assumes that the wider consumer population will represent themselves in the metaverse similarly to how gamers have done so in MMOs. But I think metaverse avatar creation may feel like a weightier decision than it does for an MMO. If so, then it could be possible that the metaverse population may skew less female than the MMO population (though still more so than the real world).
After all, the metaverse will take virtual worlds one step further beyond MMOs. People will not just be roleplaying a hero/heroine in Azeroth, Eorzea, or San Andreas, where they can also still easily switch games or stop playing. Instead, in the metaverse, people will be representing their actual selves in a single, interconnected world for work and play, with real investments in NFT clothes, accessories, and real estate. As a result, people may want to accurately represent their real selves within it, which could mean higher rates of choosing an avatar that matches the actual gender they identify with.
But all of this is my speculation. The metaverse is still so nascent and under-populated today that it is difficult to form any solid conjectures as to how behavior in the metaverse may mirror or diverge from that of MMOs. In the meantime, fashion NFT projects would do well to track the evolving space and be prepared for virtual gender demographics and preferences that subvert real world expectations.
