Male and Female Game Players’ Preferences for Game Characters and Real-world Personalities in Japan

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Shibuya Akiko Okura Hibiki Shoun Akiyo Asou Naoko
2019 DiGRA '19 - Proceedings of the 2019 DiGRA International Conference: Game, Play and the Emerging Ludo-Mix

Game characters are important for game players. Based on in-depth interviews with 20 young game players in Japan, this study explores why male and female players prefer some game characters. This study revealed that some male and female players love to find hidden the aspects of characters, called gap-moe in Japan. Both male and female players find both stereotypical and non-stereotypical aspects of game characters of the opposite sexes, but male players focus on masculine aspects of male game characters. Some players recognized the influences of game character preferences on their attitudes toward persons in the real world, others denied such influence.

 

Building and Reconstructing Character. A Case Study of Silent Hill 3

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Lankoski Petri
2005 DiGRA '05 - Proceedings of the 2005 DiGRA International Conference: Changing Views: Worlds in Play

Characters are in an important role in many games. A good player character is likely to leave good lasting impression about the game. It has been argued that creating the personality for a player character is problematic. However, there are multiple methods used in games to inform a player about the nature of a player character: predefined functions, goals, possible and impossible actions, and more traditional audiovisual means. In this paper the player character of Silent Hill 3 is analyzed using presented categorization. This paper shows that the classification is a useful analytic tool, but it needs to be developed further to include belongings and space as elements describing a player character. The categorization also highlights aspects that need to be addressed when designing player characters.