I intend to explore the idea that video games provide an outlet for each player to construct, observe, and alter versions or reflections of their own self/subjectivity/ego through the realization of their in-game avatar. This realization includes character creation/customization (designing the avatar), in-game choices/decisions, prioritized activity, speech (personality, style, dialect, etc.), internal dialogue over imaginative processes, performance of player-type characteristics, and so much more. Simultaneously, and arguably inevitably, I will also examine how players construct and critique the subjectivity and identity of other players by encountering their avatars in the game, so that all players are intersubjectively perceiving representations of each other through their interactions. I expect to use mostly role-playing video games (especially online ones) in my endeavors with this project.
Primary Source: Runescape 2 (Old School Runescape)
Secondary Source: Matheson, Calum. “Procedural Rhetoric Beyond Persuasion: First Strike and the Compulsion to Repeat”. SAGE, 2014. Web.
