ABSTRACT
Past work has revealed that humans apply social rules to computers that exhibit human traits through voice or morphology. The drive for social connection inherent to virtual worlds is also evident in the popularity of online games that foster teamwork and cooperation among players. When female players do reveal their identity in online games, they tend to receive unsolicited help and sexual advances by male players, thus leading some female players to remain silent or choose opposite sex avatars that conceal their identity. However, considerations of warranting value can be reconciled with the evolutionary psychology approach, as the tenets of sexual selection would suggest that the diagnostic value of the cue should be contingent on the degree to which it aids the correct identification of prospective sexual partners. Given that the average player of online games is 18 to 25 years old, the player base for massively multiplayer online games is already a population strongly motivated by reproductive demands.
