The Importance of Avatars

Creator of the romance game Dinner Date, Jeroen D. Stout, released a paper detailing what he sees as a symbiosis between gamer and player avatar. Symbiosis is a concept where two or more entities form a habitual relationship where they each gain something from each other. Sharks are often followed around by tiny fish called remora, which eat the sharks’ leftovers. This is one instance of symbiosis.


In Stout’s paper, he states that human consciousness is not a single organism but something brought about by the collection of related thought patterns working together. And when a person uses a tool, such as a hammer, that tool becomes an extension of the person’s self. A builder swinging his hammer is one identity; a builder who puts his hammer down and decides to sit down to watch a show on the television at home is another person. The hammer forms a symbiosis with the builder when the builder is using it, in other words.


This extension of self is played out every day in the clothes we choose to wear and the belongings we carry around with us. When a person sits down to play a video game, especially an RPG, the player character becomes an extension of that person. When the player pushes a button or mashes a key, and the avatar jumps on the screen, the player doesn’t say, “My character jumped,” they say “I jumped.”


This sense of immersion in a video game through the use of a central figure, the player avatar, is as important to the game’s creator as it is to the player, because the creator can then motivate the player by threatening the avatar. Call it emotional extortion if you will, but the core conflict behind most games depends on it.


One interesting aspect in RPGs about this “extension of self” is that the player avatar doesn’t even have to be human. Lots of gamers prefer playing characters of their own specie, but the majority couldn’t care less. It’s the same mental reasoning we have for why kids love Disney shows and cry when the characters in those shows get hurt, even when those characters are animals. In fact, several RPGs offer gamers the choice of being human-animal hybrids, because many of their gamers are fond of that option.