From breakingnews.com:

The recent offer from World of Warcraft allowing its players to change their sex for a paltry $15 resurrected the controversy over sex on the most popular massively multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG) ever.

When game-maker Blizzard made the offer in December, WoW bloggers started posting reactions and comments rolled in at a rate of one per minute….and that was at 2 AM!

With more than 11.5 million subscribers, the topic of game sex is no small matter.

Critics of the game question the real reasons so many people spend hours playing the game, sometimes forfeiting sleep or other obligations. Game defenders say it is the action-packed quests for magical items. Critics say it’s the sex.

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From joystiq.com:

Shocking news: The half-naked human (elf, or cat-thing) female dancing for tips in the main city of your favorite MMORPG might actually be played by a real woman. The BBC reports on a study by researcher Scott Caplan at the University of Delaware, which examined gender differences in 2,400 EverQuest II players, and found that 40% of the gamers were female.

Although 40% does sound awfully high, it does help alter the stereotype of the genre which has a bunch of middle-aged men living in their parents’ basements. Caplan says the perception of video games is in a "cultural time lag" and that people are still ascribing decade-old stereotypes to video game players.

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