Character Attachment

The study aims to clarify various ways virtual characters are stylised in digital games. The author works with the basic assumption that the appearance of avatars is formed in accordance with individual preferences of players, and that the consumers of digital games prefer to construct their virtual avatars as idealised versions of themselves. However, one question is yet to be answered – whether the manners in which players of digital games visually stylise their avatars reflect the hedonistic elements of sociocultural and media reality that are related to the cult of beauty and perfect body. The study defines the key terms associated with the analysed issue. The author pays special attention to game mechanics as means of interaction between the players and the digital game environments, especially to the game mechanics based on ‘serious’ entertainment, which are the only ones able to describe the simulative character of digital games in detail. As the author believes, simulation seen as imitation of real life is applicable to the process of constructing the looks of virtual game avatars. The study is based on the terminology of Media Studies, Ludology, Theory of Digital Games, Philosophy, Psychology and Sociology. The questions of stylisation of virtual characters appearing in
digital games are reflected on via logical thought processes that are applied on purpose,
in order to offer a thorough discourse analysis on the given topic.

In playing videogames, players often create avatars as extensions of agency into those spaces, where the player-avatar relationship (PAR) both shapes gameplay and is the product of gameplay experiences. Avatars are generally understood as singular bodies; however, we argue they are functional and phenomenological assemblages—networks of social and technological components that are internalized by players as networks of knowledge about the avatar. Different PARs are based on different internalizations (i.e., mental models) for what an avatar is and why it matters. Toward illuminating nuances in PARs, we examine the content and structure of players’ internalizations of avatars as evidenced by descriptions of those digital bodies. Secondary analysis of N = 1,201 avatar descriptions parceled them by PAR type (avatars as asocial Objects, psychologically merged extensions of Me, hybrid me/other Symbiotes, and authentically social Other). Aggregated descriptions for each PAR type were subj...

This study investigated how player-avatar interaction (PAX) and player-avatar relationship (PAR) are associated with spatial presence, social presence, and self-presence in video games, and additionally how the associations differ between Chinese and American players. American and Chinese players were recruited to answer a survey king about these variables. The survey was translated from English to Chinese for the different samples. Regression models and ANOVA analysis were used to analyze data, and the results revealed several significant associations between dimensions of PAX and the three types of presence. Additionally, results indicated that player-avatar relationships characterized by identity play and extension are generally associated with higher level of presence than the other two relationship types. Cultural differences were also found, with American and Chinese players differing in how PAR associated with social presence. Thus, the present study adds more understanding t...

Character attachment have been studied thoroughly from the view of psychology and media researches. In game playing, the player-avatar relationship is a form of character attachment and affects a good game design as well as management systems such as character customizing and in game purchasing policy. In this paper, we investigate such player-avatar relationship on the theme of team-based FPS where in general the attachment is not expected to be high. However, from the online survey for Tom Clancy"s Rainbow 6 Siege mania groups, we find that there are different character attachment patterns with respect to the role of players in the teamattacker, defender, and supporter. It shows that attackers think avatar as an "object, but the defenders show more "avatar as others" than the attackers. The supporters show high responsibility for the avatar and their play style is most like "avatar as symbiote" manner.

The study of the player-avatar relationship has been central to scholars of video games and virtual worlds. Work has attempted to explain the relationship by focusing on the technologies of social presence, the socio-emotional relationship between players and avatars as distinct social others, the capability of players to adopt the personae of their avatars, and the psychological merging of player and avatar as a unified person. While these approaches are useful in explaining specific forms and types of player-avatar relationships, they tend to adopt qualitativelydifferent approaches to the phenomenon that limit their ability to inform one another and, in turn, our understanding of the holistic player-avatar experience. To this end, the following paper demonstrates how player-avatar archetypes generated from narrative analysis can be reanalyzed for dimensions of character attachment to highlight intersections with agency and intimacy, and suggests the utility of such an approach to understanding the larger video game entertainment experience.

One's feelings of intimacy and connectedness with distal, fictional media characters are referred to as parasocial interactions. Video games have challenged this concept, as the distance between game players and characters is greatly reduced, if not completely removed, in virtual environments. Games encourage the internalization and psychological merging of a player's and a character's mind, a multidimensional concept known as character attachment (CA). Data from our study suggest that dimensions of CA are useful in understanding both pro- and anti-social gaming motivations. Pro-social gamers feel a greater sense of control over their characters, while anti-social gamers are more likely to suspend their disbelief of the game environment and not take responsibility for their virtual actions. Pro-social gaming was more prevalent in older gamers, and younger male game characters were motivated by anti-social reasons.

This paper proposes a new and reliable metric for measuring character attachment (CA), the connection felt by a video game player toward a video game character. Results of construct
validity analyses indicate that the proposed CA scale has a significant relationship with self-esteem, addiction, game enjoyment, and time spent playing games; all of these relationships are predicted by theory. Additionally, CA levels for role-playing games differ significantly from CA levels of other character-driven games.

This paper proposes a new and reliable metric for measuring character attachment (CA), the connection felt by a video game player toward a video game character. Results of construct validity analyses indicate that the proposed CA scale has a significant relationship with self-esteem, addiction, game enjoyment, and time spent playing games; all of these relationships are predicted by theory. Additionally, CA levels for role-playing games differ significantly from CA levels of other character-driven games.