Nottingham Trent University's recent study, that found 70 percent of females and 54 percent of males prefer to play as the opposite gender, is the sort of online worlds story that the media absolutely loves. But Richard Bartle, arguably the father of online worlds, says on his blog that it makes him "sad."

He argues that the study is being used to push a stereotype of women being treated badly online, for one thing, as he saw a Guardian headline that read: "Sexual Harassment is Rife Online - No Wonder Women Swap Gender." Says Bartle:

"Now yesterday's article is actually correct in reporting the research results, in that it says the survey found that a majority of players had switched gender while playing (er, obviously not literally, but they had played a character of a gender not the same as their real one). This makes the context for the later assertion of "up to 70% of female players said they chose to use male identities for internet games" a little clearer. What the survey found was that up to 70% of the 32 female gamers they surveyed had played as a male persona in an online role-playing game at least once.

By today, this had turned into up to 70% of the 32 female gamers they surveyed had played as a male persona in an online role-playing world at least once. We're then treated to a diatribe as to how awful it is to be female online, without any apparent realisation that if it were that bad then why would any men play as women, as many do?"

There are also many flaws with the research that Bartle calls out -- an ineffectually small sample size, no real way to verify the responses as concerns identity or the verity of the reasoning provided. After all, as Bartle says, lots of people use excuses to mask the real reasons they do certain things in the anonymity of an online society.

He concludes by stating the research reminds him of some similar initiatives in the mid 1990s that, without proper study practices, and by treating well-researched phenomena as brand-new, studies such as these ultimately undermined the view of virtual society rather than contributed to its growth and the broader understanding thereof.

[Thanks to Giff Constable for pointing out Bartle's response!]