Player and Avatar

Main Part

Binding of Avatar and Player

The „avatar“ as an object of study surely can be considered an immensely important aspect of computer game studies, because there are a lot of topic areas that can be related to the analysis of this thematic complex, for example „representation“, „immersion“ as well as the avatars integration into the game‘s „narrative“ structures and many more. In her text „Who am I?- Theses on the Binding of Avatar and Player“, german scientist Britta Neitzel examines the key features of how a binding of the player and it‘s avatar can happen as well as she points out key assumptions of what an avatar actually is.

Avatar

Intitially, Neitzel decribes the (computer-) game as an event where execution of agency on the part of the player is necessarily required in order to play. Without any executed action within the game, there can‘t exist no game at all. Computer games are taking the happening of a game to an evoked, virtual world, which means that, in order to play, the (human) player necessarily must been given the oppurtunity to execute agency in the virtual world by controlling a representative equivalent, the avatar. As the author points out, there are several interpretations to what the term avatar stands for: sometimes the figure of the avatar is seen as a „second personality“, other interpretations assume that the avatar in it’s meaning is nothing more but a simple tool. With reference to Alison McMahan, an example of a definiton in the sense of the former of the two possibilities of interpretation shall be adopted here. According to the quote, an avatar can be described as

„[...] textual or graphic representations of uses that include a character designed to fit into the fictional environment in question, complete with a set of personality traits, skills, and health status“

Another point of view Rob Fullop put forward assumes that the avatar is functioning as a „cursor“, whose primarily purpose is to mark the player‘s position in the virtual world as a tool for positioning. Facing these completely different approaches, Neitzel decides to focus more on the actions the player is able to execute through the avatar. In order to analyse the player‘s agency, the author initially investigates icons which are marking a possibility of interaction within the virtual world. These icons can also be described as tool and a tool is constructed to manipulate objects. The argument here is that the icon as a tool enable the player to interact with the virtual world. If there were no icons, an interaction would not be possible. The use of the icons characterized as tools is declared to be a bodily use which extends the body in the sense of Marshall McLuhan. To go even further, one can state that an incorporation of technical devices, the icons Neitzel discovered to be tools, is happing. This leads to the metapher of the „cyborg“ which is definied by consistant cybernetic feedback in the meaning of Gregory Bateson. Nietzel however comes to the conclusion that the nature of the avatar can be defined as an intermediary between player‘s intended actions and the tools (icons) used to execute this action.

Gestures

The use of the tools, Neitzel continues, can be considered a gesture. Performing a gesture is a cultural practice which is charged symbolically. Following this approach, the gesture is said to gain its significance through imitation and repition. By transferring this observation to the context of computer games it may be noted that performing a gesture can be understood as a combination of the player pressing a button, for example, and the realisation of the intended action in the virtual world. This is also why Neitzel prefers the term „gesture“ over „command“, because a command necessarly implies a hierarchy between player and avatar, which is not given as their cybernetic relationship clearly illustrates. So by investiganting the abstract context of „gestures“, Britta Neitzel supports her theory of the the avatar being a intermediary.

Representation

Regarding the two very different interpretations of the avatar mentioned earlier, Britta Neitzels conclusions resulting from focussing on the cybernetic relationship between player and avatar as well as putting it into to context of the gesture are clearly more in favour of the second interpretation. Here, the avatar was characterized as rather beeing a tool than an autonoumus personality. But Neitzel also calls to mind that the avatar always retains a certain degree of independance because of its visual appearance. Even though this can be perceived as marginally, for example in first-person-games, there will always be a prevention of a full incorporation form avatar and player.

Role Play

As Neitzel emphasizes, it‘s often the case that people are talking about taking up a role while playing computer games. Especially when playing games which tend to develop complex characters as part of their narrative design, a player is perceiving to merge into the character and therefore adopt its „role“. But even if the player truly feels that way, from a scientific point of view this is to be regarded as false. The nature of role play is to imitate someone or somehing which the person playing the role game is definately not. While playing the computer game, there is no need of imitation because the computer already shows the player „who“ to play with. Another important aspect of role playing is performing a credible presentation. In the context of computer games, again there is no need in doing so: All the actions possible are already calculated and enrolled in the system.