Call it a glitch. Call it universal karma. Whatever you call it, I find it amusing: Age of Conan, the MMORPG recently porn parodied in Whorelore’s “The Rage of Bonan,” has suffered inadvertent breast reduction. Apparently many well-endowed female avatars in the new online world awoke one cyber morning to find themselves visibly less well-endowed. Much to the chagrin users, the world’s last patch had rendered their chests more realistic. Needless to say, game creator Funcom has promised the problem will be fixed and the avatars returned back to “normal”–that is, to a state of gravity-defying breast magic. Crisis averted.
Of course, the obvious comment here would be how immature we gamers are: someone gives us the ability to design a character, and we want her breasts so big she could use them as a person flotation device. Then again, we could also point a finger at Funcom, the company that created the big breasted potential of these avatars in the first place. But really, I’d rather talk about big breasts as avatars. We think of them as something to stare it, but when we play as big breasted women, they become part of us. So when our breasts get taken away… In a strange, roundabout way it’s an issue of male power, about having something big and protruding and then not having it anymore. So let’s not get touchy boys. Your boobs will come back soon.
Bonnie Ruberg is a sex, technology, and video games journalist who contributes regularly to publications like The Economist, Forbes, and The Village Voice. She has an unapologetic passion for cultural analysis and a similarly undying love of all things shiny. Reach her at [her first name] AT [heroine-sheik] DOT [com].
June 5th, 2008 at 3:53 pm
Ouch.
Actually I see it as an issue of female gamer outrage as well as male gamer outrage.
I know if I made a character in an MMORPG with a daunting manpurse that was suddenly taken away I’d be outraged. I can see female gamers who wanted to play a powerful and sexually charged warrioress getting upset. It’s a fantasy game, and not the real you, but a projection of what you see as an ideal you (at least in that world.) Why take away a part of that fantasy?
June 5th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
I think we’re actually arguing the same point, I’m just saying it in a slightly more in-your-face way :). Part of the fantasy is the power of the body parts you carry with you, so when those body parts get reduced part of the power of that fantasy also goes away…
June 5th, 2008 at 10:44 pm
[...] From Porn Stars to Breast Reduction (gamers everywhere are crying in their soup) [...]
June 7th, 2008 at 10:08 am
XD
July 24th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
[...] virtual world Age of Conan, strapless bras can apparently defy gravity. Even female characters with chests of porn-star proportions can get away with skimpy, strapless tops that also appear to give support. Some don’t even [...]