Beings in the game-world: characters, avatars, and players

Abstract

Immersive and engaging are words often used interchangeably to describe the player's experience of gameplay without clear distinction between what these terms refer to, and without investigation of the underlying basis of each experience. This paper aims to build upon previous work by other authors on the nature of the player's experience of gameplay by focusing on how these experiences are mediated by the player's point of control within the game-world. The relationship between the player and their point of control in the game-world is discussed in terms of embodiment to articulate differences between the terms avatar and character, distinctions that are in turn used as a basis for understanding how different attitudes towards the activity of gameplay arise from the interplay of different relationships between the player and their point of control. Finally there is a consideration of how the relationship between the player and their point of control and resultantly their attitudes towards the activity of gameplay may influence different types of an experience of being-in-the-game-world, namely immersion, engagement, presence, and telepresence.