If I'm going to watch a character for 40+ hours I prefer to watch a pretty girl rather than a sweaty muscular guy, but I understand that not all males are attracted to the same things.

Female. Because I'm already a male irl so there's no point being one virtually speaking.

Female

Most male characters just end up looking ridiculous (overly buffed, ugly faces, ugly hair cuts etc.). It's a bit of a vicious cycle. Many players will prefer playing female, thus less work is put into the male characters. This, in return results in more players choosing female...

I usually use Male characters, so I can be lazy and just tank to death whatever that needs to be done because if I choose a Female character, I would feel bad if I didn't take care of it.

I like to play as both. If I had to pick a preference, then I'd probably say female, just because if I'm going to starring at someone ass for hours and hours upon end (as most RPGs tend to be third person), it might as well be a shapely woman's behind. Really though it depends on factors like what type of class I wanna play, or what I imagine might be the most appropriate character for the game I'm playing. In some cases I'll also pick a gender simply depending on who did the voice acting.

Both really, I have multiple playthroughs of games and each time a different gender (and race depending on game). Although I usually do my first play through with a female character.

This includes even Skyrim and Fallout where most gameplay is done first person so you don't see the person's arse (the excuse people are using above).

Funny that you say that.

A couple of years ago someone made a similar question in a spanish site (yes, I have good memory) and the best answer was someone who said

"I play as a woman. Because if I had to spend dozens of hours watching someone's ass, at least let me see a pretty ass"

OT: Depends, but I usually try both options (1st and 2nd playthroughs).

im very split. Males on Pokemon (first play), then it just depends on the game.

I choose female because I like their screams when they die, sounds like an orgasm. Games like Dark Souls or Dragons Dogma, etc

Well, it wasn't me for sure :D

TBH, if there are gameplay differences (classes restricted to a certain genre, for example), I'd go with the class I play better or have more fun playing with. If it isn't the case and there aren't other drawbacks then I usually apply the rule in my first post.

Plus frequently male characters are bad. Really bad. It isn't a RPG, but sometimes I felt embarrassed by the characters in Gears of War (and Kratos in God of War too).