Men who would be Lara

Clive Thompson has a nice column at Wired about what he thinks is the real reason Tomb Raider is so popular: Not because they get to look at Lara Croft's chest, but because they get to be Lara Croft.

He compares the male player's identification with Croft to the male moviegoer's identification with the last girl standing in 80s slasher movies. "Playing as Croft was an emotionally catalytic experience," he writes. "Young guys had played tons of male characters before, from Nintendo's Mario to the anonymous marines of Doom. But being Lara was different; it got its hooks into their psyches like no game before."

I think this is more a case of conventional wisdom being superficial and worthless than anything else. I mean, nobody's going to sit through 10 to 20 hours of 3-D adventure gaming just to see some poorly rendered breasts. Clothed breasts, no less. Of course Tomb Raider players identify with Lara. Thompson acknowledges this: "Of course, in today's gaming world, the idea that young men secretly crave to be hot, imperiled virtual women doesn't seem as unusual as it might have in 1998. After all, half the women in online worlds are played by young guys who've actively chosen their virtual gender."

Still, it's a good read.