Luis Saldana

Professor Rodrick

English 115

12/09/17 Identity in Video Games

When someone is in the process of making their avatar in a video game, what is their

thinking process? Are they making their avatars look identical to themselves or are they making

it look completely different? Well its the latter. Weve actually began to see an increase in the

number of people who have created these fake avatars that illustrate no resemblance to their host.

These changes can range from either chiseled body for the male avatars and bigger breast size for

the female avatars. In these video games, its not a mandatory rule to make a realistic avatar, but

only a mere suggestion. With the increase of these inaccurate avatars, we start to question, why

do the host decide to do this? I believe performing this action of changing one's avatar into

someone who does not resemble themselves, has both positive reasoning and negative

consequences.

Changing your avatar can be an exciting thing to do, however, it still has its downfalls.

Theres a difference between giving yourself a small tail and turning yourself into a monster.

According to Michelle Jana Chan, who wrote Identity in a Virtual World, states that in a

virtual world, online identity is potentially much more flexible than real identity, easily allowing

changes in race, class, gender, age, socio-economic background and even species(Chan) which

means that anyone can make themselves into someone/something completely different with all

their options to choose from. This supports my claim in which we are tempted to abuse the

choices we have but too much can also alter our image. As more options are provided for us to
choose from, the more we are tempted to abuse these physical changes. Eventually we give

ourselves so much stuff we find our true self to be too boring. So we stick to the vast changes we

give to our avatar. In Chans essay, she provides the reader with a visual example of someone,

Choi Seang Rak, who has made an avatar with really drastic changes. In the picture, we see a

comparison between the host (left) and his avatar (right). We can automatically see that Rak is an

older, taller guy while his avatar is a younger, smaller girl. With extreme situations like this

comes nasty accusations as well. In situations like Rak, people tend to label the host as a creep.

Rak might be giving himself a new identity for fun but others give him another identities with

negative connotations. Many people who alter their avatar alter their identity in a virtual world.

Many people alter their identity in a virtual world that goes beyond our choice of physical

appearance, but to also affect other parts of our identities.

The way we choose to design our avatar not only affects our physical appearance, but our

ethical thinking as well. It isnt the glasses we wear, shoes we walk in or hairstyles that

contributes into the way we think, its the gender the host decides to play as. The choice between

male and female seems to have different outcomes from each other. Karen Schrier wrote a

research article, Avatar Gender and Ethical Choices in Fable III, where she states that

research has also suggested that the gender of characters in a game or virtual world may affect

ones choices, behaviour, and perceptions(Schrier). Schrier is supporting my claim in which she

has seen this for herself that different genders creates different outcomes. We can see this in most

games today. Choosing a male avatar can lead to actions that would be considered aggressive.

Males tend to show off their strength, usually by creating havoc in the virtual world or putting

themselves in dangerous situations to be able to show off. On the other hand, female avatars are

portrayed as more helpless, and less likely to be aggressive or strong, according to Schrier.
They are the mostly used for support, for example, healing the men. This thinking process can

affect the host in which the actions the avatar demonstrates in the game should be how he/she

should be acting in society as well. This would cause men to assert themselves as the higher

power or leader in the real world as they would in the games. Women will gain the tendency to

think less of themselves, only as support for men. In conclusion, deciding to play as a male

avatar will give the host a sense of almighty power while playing as a women will lead to the

host thinking themselves as a fragile thinker. Altering the avatar can have its negative

connotations to our physical and mental states but it also gives us a sense of reality.

People place this negative stigma that video games brings negativity to our identity, but it

may also have positive influences to it as well. Looking back at Raks situation with his avatar,

he made a young small girl, nothing like him. People would see him as a creep, but what if

that wasnt his intention? What if he said that the only reason hes doing that is because he wants

to see how different it would be to play as someone else? Rak just wanted to experience

something without actually changing anything about himself. Charlie Ecenbarger, author of The

Impact of Video Games on Identity Construction, states that these virtual environments,

whether they are persistent online worlds or narrative driven experiences, allows players to

explore parts of their identity by providing a safe place to explore different aspects about

themselves(Ecenbarger). Ecenbarger is insisting that the host are changing their avatars the way

they do because it provides them with a safe space. We change our identities in the virtual world

to be able to hide away from the dark parts of society. This gives the host a secure feeling to be

able to test the waters. In the virtual world, no one can really judge you because its just a game

so it allows someone to give themselves a false identity to try out. Experimenting with different

identities allows the host to expand a sense of self and understand their world from a new
perspective(Ecenbarger). Ultimately, Ecenbarger is saying that people will change their avatars

to be able to acknowledge what it's like to be someone else so they can see how it would affect

them if they were to portray that identity in society.

The option to alter our avatar any way we want to is something of ease, but it will lead to

different outcomes in the end, each one affecting your identity in one way. These outcomes can

have both a positive and negative influence on our identity. The question in the first place is:

why make the avatar look very different from yourself? Most people would say its because of

our insecurity of ourselves and others say they just want to try something else for a change. Just

because a guy wants to play as a girl doesnt make him a creep. In the end we cant truly

understand why people do this and alter their identity but everyone has their own reasoning

behind their choices. All we do know is that the act of changing our avatars will affect our

identity one way or another.

 Work Cited

Chan, Michelle Jana. Mirror on America. Joan T. Mims and Elizabeth M. Nollen. Accessed 04

October. 2017.

Ecenbarger, Charles. The Impact of Video Games on Identity Construction. Academia.edu,

https://www.academia.edu/11915364/The_Impact_of_Video_Games_on_Identity_Constr uction.

Accessed 04 October. 2017.

Rak, Choi Seang. Me and My Avatar. Identity in a Virtual World, Michelle Jana Chan, 14 June.

2007. Mirror on America. Accessed 04 October. 2017.

Schrier, Karen. Avatar Gender and Ethical Choices in &Quot;Fable III&Quot; Bulletin of Scienc

Technology &Amp; Society, vol. 32, no. 5, 2012, pp. 375383.

http://journals.sagepub.com.libproxy.csun.edu/doi/full/10.1177/0270467612463800

Accessed 04 October. 2017.