Who Do You Think You Are: People And Thier Avatars
Avatar creation in an MMO can be a very personal experience. You get the chance to make yourself be and look like whatever you want, a choice we don't get in real life. In many cases, an avatar represents who the player is and in other cases, who they'd like to be.
The New York Times Website is currently hosting an amazing gallery of photo gallery of gamers side by side with their created avatars. Some of them are dead on representations while others are as far from the original as you can get. The range of MMO's covered is as varied as the players themselves with titles like Lineage II, City of Heroes, Star Wars Galaxies, Second Life and of course the ubiquitous World of Warcraft. The gallery is small, just 15 photos, but each one is a gem and shows a great peek into the mind of a gamer.
NYT MMO Avatar Slideshow [New York Times]
Fruit Brute
Posted to Miscellany, Video Games on 19 June 2007
· Comments (4)
Other stuff like this: avatar, mmos, new york times
Always interesting to see if people base what they look like in-game to what they look like outside.
I do understand some people try to get away from who they are in-game, and some try to improve on who they maybe.
Bunny
Avatars are the new drag. And you don't have to mess with eyelash glue.
I'd take the guy on the left any day, even if the guy on the right were somehow made real.
I've already been taken to task on a number of occasions for trying to make my online avatars look as close to my real appearance as possible. I spent a lot of time making my Mii "just so" even though the only people who play against me are always right there in the room with me when we play. Online, I hate that the Second Life "belly" option makes you look pregnant, not fat, for example, and that your walk looks like an MTV special effect from 1985, and that WoW avatars are basically not representational at all. In some ways I pine for the early days of Alphaworld. You know, "there are many copies." At least there was no point in trying to stand out.
I think this phenomenon happens because most people using online games want to use them to escape reality, not incorporate it. I can't tell you how many guys I've known, straight and gay, who have gone on IRC as women for reasons I can't possibly understand. But I only use these things to be a part of my friends' lives when they spend too much time in the games. Not to put too fine a point on it, but I do love me. If a game lets me be anyone I want to be, that guy would be pasty, bloated, barrel-chested old me.
When people see me in-game, I don't want them to go, "OMG, look at that godlike creature with the gigantic shimmering silver wings." I just want to make them think, "Hey, Rob's here." If I can't do that, why bother?
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