Men no longer allowed to create female avatars in Shanda's King of the World

Aurora Technology, a subsidiary of Chinese gaming company Shanda Entertainment, has frozen the accounts of all male gamers playing female characters in its King of the World online game.

The company said that all gamers who want to play female characters in King of the World will have to verify their gender via webcam before being allowed to create a female avatar.

It remains unclear how the verification system will operate, but commentators have already criticised the decision because it hinders one of the fundamental attractions of such games: the ability to be someone or something else.

Interestingly, the ban does not yet apply to women who play as male characters. According to reports around 17,000 accounts will be affected by the ban.

Shanda Entertainment is one of the biggest players in the Asian online gaming market, boasting around 460 million subscribers across a wide variety of games.

Blizzard Entertainment, creator of the hugely successful World of Warcraft, said that its players are approximately 84 per cent male and 15 per cent female in real life, but that 35 per cent of the avatars are 'female'.