Authors:
Nicolas Ducheneaut - Palo Alto Research Center
Ming-Hui Wen - National Chiao-Tung University
Nicholas Yee - Palo Alto Research Center
Greg Wadley - The University of Melbourne
Summary:
It is commonplace in today's society for many people to "lead second lives" in the online domain in the form of an avatar. In this paper, researchers explore the connection between users and their avatars focusing on the customization provided to the users in three different games. The games studied are Maple Story, Second Life, and World of Warcraft, each with a unique character customization system.
Through various questionnaires and online interviews, the researchers were able to extract key data to show trends in avatar users. It was found that the avatar's feature that is most important is the hair. Across all games, hair was a clear and consistent leader in features that users both spent the most time on and cared about the most. The study found that hair is usually the first and most distinguishing feature of any avatar and, thus, is used to convey some individuality of the user behind the avatar to the rest of the virtual world.
It was also found that the age differences in the users did not directly effect the user's personal connection with their avatar, but it did effect how much the user tried to make the avatar look like themselves. The older the user, the projected age difference between themselves and their avatar was much wider.
Personal Reflection:
I enjoyed this paper because I have played all of these games at one point in time for various different lengths of periods. I frequently found myself realizing the same things presented in this paper while playing these games. I did find it interesting that hair was a driving feature in all games and that it afforded the most customization.
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