The key to online games – it’s all about the ego?
I was interested to read this interview with Sims and Spore creator Will Wright on CNET where he said that successful games are the ones that feed your ego.
In other words, “most people are very narcissistic. The more you can make the game about that person, the more interested, the more emotionally involved they will get.” And so according to the writer who interviewed him, Caroline McCarthy:
“Even though games–especially role-playing games–have a reputation for being a lonely form of escapism, Wright suggested that mainstream appeal can be found in, well, getting to be yourself. And that’s where it gets back to the narcissism.”
In fact, research carried out at Stanford University showed that when you create an avatar you do think you are being ‘yourself’, even if what you create looks nothing like you.
A series of studies done by the Virtual Human Interaction Lab under the heading of the Proteus Effect shows that we quickly identify with our avatars to the point that virtual personality traits blend into the real.
So, not only are ‘taller’ avatars more aggressive in virtual negotiations, the humans behind them carry on acting this way after they’ve logged off (ditch the life coach and just get yourself a 7 foot avatar?). Similarly, you are more likely to want to date someone in real life if you have met them in the virtual via an attractive avatar.
And on that note, and linking into Will Wright’s comments, I’ve often wondered if virtual worlds like Second Life could be more successful if they simply turned a perceived weakness into a strength:
In other words, yes it is about escape, and about creating what I’ve heard called ‘the awesome you’ – the you, you’ve always wanted to be. Even if that is someone of the opposite sex, someone who is ten years younger or whatever.
Image – From Spore by emilychang
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