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Avatars Need Personal Space Too
Posted by
kdawson
on Mon Sep 11, 2006 04:28 PM
from the look-into-my-avatar's-eyes dept.
from the look-into-my-avatar's-eyes dept.
Nicola Jones writes to alert us to a study showing that avatars need their personal space. Avatars in the virtual reality of Second Life act like real people in this way: boy avatars stand further apart than female ones, and characters tend to avert their gaze from each others' eyes when standing close together. This result holds whether the avatar is being played by a man or a woman. From the article: "The authors say this means that these online gaming environments are a goldmine of social data as well as a potential experimental research platform." Obviously not all behaviours translate from the real world to the virtual one, notes UIUC computer game researcher Dmitri Williams: "There is no research on what translates and what doesn't.... People's willingness to take risks in online worlds is radically different. Death is not permanent online."
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Study Claims Men Play Female Avatars to 'Win' 266 comments
mytrip writes to mention a News.com article about the rationale behind male players playing female avatars in online games. The article says that, while some players are probably exploring 'gender roles, many just want free stuff. From the article: "Kathryn Wright, WomenGamers's consulting psychologist, earlier this decade found that 60 percent of male players who don female avatars, or on-screen personas, do it to gain an advantage in game play. An enthusiast with the online handle Jackpot649 nailed the zeitgeist in his response to the About.com query: 'I'm a guy, but if I gotta look at an avatar all day, I'd sooner look at a female avatar. Plus, people give you more free stuff.'"
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Yeah, whatever... (Score:5, Funny)
Uh huh. I've had a lot less people ask me "R U 4 SECKS CHAT???" in real life.
Re:Yeah, whatever... (Score:5, Funny)
You don't hang out in the right bars.
Parent
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The spelling/iteration isn't too far off, either.
more than one similarity (Score:4, Insightful)
Avatars act like real people in almost every way. They're extremely materialistic, cliquish, and superficial. "Playing" a game like Second Life is like hanging around with a bunch of thriteen-year-olds. The only difference is the conversation is less intelligent.
Re:more than one similarity (Score:5, Funny)
1) Script a device so it acts like a listening bug and plant it in people's houses. (Make sure to have it spawn a copy of itself every 10 hours so it doesn't get deleted!) Confront them when they talk smack about you, and blame any third parties in the room for ratting.
2) Name a device after someone nearby and have it make offensive remarks. By default, objects have green text when they speak, while humans have white text, so be sure to have it preface its statements "Hey, check this out guys, I can make my text green!"
3) Arrange to store your money with someone else before you get your "allowance" so it will think you're poor and given you more Linden Dollars.
If you just did some of those things, I'm sure you'd have more fun.
Parent
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1) is against the ToS, and would have you banned (in theory).
2) Only a moron would fall for that, seriously... Then again....
3) That, uh, doesn't work.
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Re:more than one similarity (Score:5, Funny)
-=(J) <-- Joke
( )
_|_ <-- You
|
/ \
Lameness filter
Parent
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*Woosh*
-=(J) <-- Joke
Lameness filter
( )
_|_ <-- You
|
/ \
Wow.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Nearly as original as putting up a DikuMUD, today.
what?!?!? that waifish female elfen thief is really a 57 year old cost accountant named Roger? I think I'll be sick first, then kill his ass!
I don't read too much into this... (Score:5, Informative)
Trying to draw any sort of conclusions about subtle nuances of communcation seems, frankly, rediculous.
Adman
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Re:I don't read too much into this... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
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Rediculous means to diculous again as opposed to dediculous, which means to remove diculous.
Anonymity (Score:3, Funny)
With the internet things like chat rooms or online games shield the person from most of the social or psychological repurcussions for certain behavior. 30 year olds act like 15 year olds. Accountability goes out the window. The moral boundaries are also changed. How many people do you know that would cheat in an online game but would not cheat on an exam?
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Sounds just like the real world to me.
Cheating is for losers (Score:2, Interesting)
I've tried to talk to players who have either "ganked" or scammed other players and I've found that even outside their role-playing they feel comfortable with unethical behavior. I've spoken to about 20 players involved in what I would consider online c
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"Second LIfe"? (Score:5, Funny)
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It also could mean that some of these individuals have self esteem issues, be physically challenged, or might just be lazy in the real world. If you tell me I can be a rock star in a game in a few hours or weeks great! Tell me to that to be a rock star in the real world that I have to have talent (talent is for sake of argument - we all know you don't REALLY need talent ie. Ashley Simpson), work a day job/play clubs
Death is not permanent online. (Score:2)
Death is not permanent online.
Need to read your copy of Neuromancer again, fuck with the wrong black ice, and death online is infact, permanent.
Oh, wait I guess I'm about 20 years ahead of reality.
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>
> Need to read your copy of Neuromancer again, fuck with the wrong black ice, and death online is infact, permanent.
>
> Oh, wait I guess I'm about 20 years ahead of reality.
And wouldn't it be great if it was...
Any doubts on the size of the market for software capable of killing a fucktard over TCP/IP can be resolved by spending 20 minutes in any MMORPG. 10 if the MMORPG is SWG and you're talking about Jedi.
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Obligatory bash.org quote here. [bash.org]
*Game Over* (Score:2)
No proof it's permanent offline either. Could be we have much longer respawn time. Or that "afterlife" thing... might be available for a small price... your immortal soul!
Second Life (Score:3, Insightful)
It was really laggy, maybe my housemate was killing my bandwidth with downloading again. That made it pretty much unplayable, but the fact it crashed no less than ten times (something my computer never does) in about 30 minutes turned me right off it.
What I did observe though was a lot of confused characters running around and telling each other to "get lost" and then LOLing heartily. Reminded me of school in some small way.
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*shrugs* Second Life isn't for everyone. You really have to get a feeling for it.
Second Life Sucks... (Score:3, Funny)
Or better yet, just make GTA into a MMORPG.
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What is really a risk? (Score:2)
And neither is herpes so go and get all the free love you want online.
Oh wait. I guess virtual worlds are still more "virtual" than they are worldly.
Is it really a "risk" if the consquences aren't real?
Exactly. (Score:5, Insightful)
Th risk of pissing off someone you 'met' 30 seconds ago is much lower than pissing off someone you work with every day. On the same token, there are plenty of people who have very bad behavior when interacting in 'the real world' with people they don't expect to see again - just hang around the customer service dept. of any retail establishment for a bit.
Parent
Re:Exactly. Almost. (Score:2)
The Actual Paper (Score:5, Interesting)
Nick Yee, Jeremy N Bailenson, Mark Urbanek, Francis Chang, Dan Merget, The Unbearable Likeness of Being Digital: The Persistence of Nonverbal Social Norms in Online Virtual Environments [nickyee.com].
(Given that the whole article is about a particular paper, they should have given a proper citation, or at least told us what the title of the paper was.)
My summary of their findings: on average, female characters stand closer to female characters than male characters stand to male characters. Distance between male-female pairs has larger variability than distance between same-gender pairs. This is the same as what happens in real life.
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Something I've noticed in Second Life - when gathering in small groups, people tend to congregate in a circle, avatars all facing inwards. There's no need for this, especially with a free-floating camera. To compound it, your screen might often be covered with browsers, vari
computer game research" = English Lit? (Score:2)
DEE Dee Dee (Score:2)
Death isn't permanent online? (Score:4, Funny)
Not only is Death permanent but it's humiliating.
Culture (Score:4, Interesting)
Huh? (Score:5, Funny)
See what?
That avatar looked at me...
C'mon man...avatars can't 'look' at anybody...
No, man...I'm serious as a heart-attack. I swear. That big red she-male avatar over there by the elevator looked right at me!
Listen. Avatars here are on display...that's all. They have no host and no history files so they can't do ANYTHING - get it?
Ok, whatever you say, but I'm telling you, that 'no-host, no-history' cross-breed stared at me as we floated by.
Risks online? (Score:3, Insightful)
This is true. I almost never try to infiltrate galactic death machines in real life without proper protective gear and never rely on finding all the ammo I need laying around in containers in empty rooms.
Aversion of Eyes?! (Score:3, Informative)
Now, as a semi-regular presence in Second Life, I must say that the statements above are not necessarily true. The SL avatar's gaze follows the UI mouse pointer, and considering that the average user spends a lot of time in the UI navigating through inventory/item edit/whatnot, I think it can be said that a good portion of an avatar's gaze direction is a side-effect of the real user's actions at the time. Even if they are "moving their character to face slightly to the right or the left of the other 'person'.", their eyes don't remain fixed on one location. It's just as easy to have [the virtual-world equivalent appearance of] eye-contact with the other individual(s) as if you're facing them directly.. It's all about what you're doing with the mouse at the time.
$0.02
--Weasel
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I guess subscribers just got a third life without knowing it (the identity thief)
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Isn't that a kind of a contradiction? If death isn't permanent, it's not really a risk, is it? I find comments such as this stupid.
Oh, there's a risk alright. You'll lose all your 1337 EQZ if you don't get back to your virtual remains quick enough. (I've always wondered when someone would institute virtual insurance policies, where your junk would be saved for so many minutes from anyone getting their mitts on it before you can recover it.)
lalala jejejeje mi lykes =)
gee, i miss it so much...
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The exception, of course, was in any situation where people expected to get AoEd. Then they would spread out. Don't want to get killed because you were too close to Leeeroy when he agroed the wrong mob. Even in realm vs. realm combat, most raids would travel in