Why do you play as the opposite gender?

I'm a guy who has no problem playing a female protagonist. It depends on the type of game. The storyline. How both characters look, etc. For some games, it simply makes sense to play it as a female over a male, based on the games setup and atmosphere. For example, most people believe that the female character is the better character to play as in Genshin Impact. The same is true with Assassins Creed Odyssey, which pretty much makes it clear that you want to play as the female to get the better flow of the story. And if I'm going to play a third person perspective game for many hours, I'd rather be controlling a female character over a male one... for obvious reasons. Though, now a days, many developers seems to be going out of their way to make their female characters as plain looking or even ugly as possible.

If a game doesn't give me a choice, the main character is overwhelmingly a man. So when I get a choice, I'll more often than not pick a woman to give some variety.

For far too many years, I grew up browsing the shelves of my local EB Games to find nothing but game cases populated by beefcakes taking up the entirety of the cover while they look ominously out in the distance and casually cradle a gun over their shoulder.

It's just a new/different/fresh perspective. It doesn't always feel like it's done right but its at least a welcome change from the triteness I played as a kid.

I'll generally play as a woman when I have the choice. I'm not so sure there's much trans/homosexual roleplay required to prefer spending your time around the opposite sex. It's how many live their actual lives. Sure, you could view it as creepy if you like. I'm not entirely sure what line of thought leads one to believe finding the opposite sex attractive makes you some kind of weirdo though.

The debate referred to in the OP's question seems to imply most of us play games for reasons pertinent to roleplay, which is pretty deeply flawed. Even most RPG's run the course of a narrative, rarely (if ever) allowing the character to be treated any differently to how they would have if they were male (this also extends to romance options more often than not).

If you look at this from the perception of someone studying inate desire to kill asking if we're all more likely to murder based on our chosen hobby, the notion starts to seem somewhat insulting (and ludicrous given the opposite seems to be true in so far as I'm aware).

I like looking at women more than i like looking at dudes, i think Dave Snider once said something like "if i'm going to stare at someone's ass for hundreds of hours...", that's basically the answer, i always think of that when this topic comes up.
As such it depends how a game renders its characters, i like male Shepard's default face so i play as male Shep, i like male Hawke's beard and voice in Dragon Age 2 and the sister dies if you pick female, i tend to use female fighters in fighting games because they have more acrobatic moves which are more fun to look at.

I'm nonbinary but if given the opportunity I pick women because I have played enough games with guy protagonists. Now if only my character creators let me choose any body type without assigning a gender, and let me choose my pronouns instead. :P

Super interesting thread!

I can only speak for myself here as a cisgender male, but I've realized whether I play as a man or woman in a game very much depends on the way the characters are presented and what the actual gameplay is. Thinking about how I've made this choice in the past:

• If the character represents "me" (ie they're an avatar like in Minecraft, or an anonymous person like in Halo multiplayer) or the game frequently talks to me I'll play as a man because I want my character to present me the way I see myself
• If there's romance I'm going to want to romance women, and that can mean I have to pick a male character (ex: Fire Emblem: Three Houses). This sucks because fem Byleth is very pretty. I don't see this as a romance between me and another character as much as between two characters
• If the game has significant character customization/fashion I'll play as a woman, because I enjoy the dress up/fashion side of things a lot (ex: my main guardian in Destiny is a female warlock). I keep her helmet off in the tower. I don't really see this character as me as much as they are my character.
• My other two guardians are a male awoken and female exo. They're mostly there for extra loot. I actually keep their helmets on all the time.
• My Smash mains are split pretty evenly male/female. My character in Pokemon is female. I play Rosalina in Mario Kart
• The "might as well look at a lady's butt while I play" thing always struck me as a cop-out. Wanting to play as a woman doesn't make you less straight or masculine in real life?
• I have no strong feelings one way or the other on nonhuman characters. I thought it was kind of cool that the aliens in Outer Wilds were not gendered (if they were, I missed it)

There isn't really a roleplay/trans angle for me, I make a pretty hard differentiation between characters that represent me, an actual person which are male, and characters that I look at but aren't me which I prefer to be female if possible.

For me, it comes from early MMORPGs.

They were really the first time where you could truly visually customized your character, and because it was a social role playing space, I didn't want to look like everyone else. I chose to stand out, and during that time playing as a female was the first step, and then choosing a different race the second.

In other games when faced with the choice of human male or female, I chose female for the same reason and it just stuck. I have a character look and name that I use in every human character creator, almost like she exists in different dimensions.

But, I never roleplay as her. She's simply an avatar. It's not sexual, it's just habit borne out of playing early MMOs.