Search For Identity : A Virtual World

Have you ever wondered how so many people can play video games for hours? Or how gamers can connect to people in the “virtual world” and learn life lessons? In the book, Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World and the article “Becoming Part of Something Bigger Than ourselves” by Jane McGonigal says “the single best way to add meaning to our lives is to connect our daily actions to something bigger than ourselves and the bigger, the better” (446). In 2009, McGonigal’s best video game, SuperBetter, went viral. The popularity from the video game increased gamers to battle health challenges like depression and anxiety. Mcgonigal's video game also increased better communication skills between friends, family,

“You create. You control. You rule in The Sims 4” (The Sims). The Sims 4 is a real-life simulation game, sandbox, and RPG. In this video game, one can create “sims”, build houses, and decide the outcome of their life. Sims are the avatars of the game, or graphical personification of a human image in which you can characterize and control while playing. This game gives users the ability to live vicariously through avatars of their own creation in a game with endless possibilities. With those endless possibilities comes a Teen ESRB rating for crude humor, sexual themes, and violence. In the game, music choice and language selection has influenced the appearance to the users. Since released, on the other hand, the users have influenced updates

Individuals begin to feel isolated when they pretend to be someone they are not. In the modern age, individuals feel the need to be someone they are not in order to fit into the mainstream. Turkle states, “After an evening of avatar-to-avatar talk in a networked game, we feel at one moment in possession of a full social life and, in the next, curiously isolated in tenuous complicity

No matter how much a person desires to live according to their personal autonomy, he or she will never escape the influence of societal forces. Explicitly or subtlety, these forces shape our individuality. One intriguing manner that these societal forces manifests itself in is our name. As Ruth Graham writes, “It’s becoming increasingly clear today that names carry a wealth of information about the world around us, the family we arrived in, the moment we were born—and that they mark us as part of cultural currents bigger than we realize.” Names alone provide evidence that individuals are made by interactions with social institutions and groups. Ultimately, the inescapable nature of society’s influence demands individuals to ponder how much personal autonomy is actually autonomous and to what extent does the pursuit of personal autonomy lead to a life of emptiness and vanity.

Video games are progressively becoming a crucial medium today, despite the light connotation of its initial categorization. Today they are a business that produces billions of dollars and employs engineers and artists alike in an art form connecting interactive games, to virtual societies where millions of people dwell. However, like all human products, our same emotion, flaws and injustice show in the games, with the impression of hatred, racism and stereotypes that are our everyday background. What are the creators of these video games real intentions in the desire they produce in the human?

When I was younger I wanted to belong. I wanted to belong to a group of girls who were considered as ‘cool’. I wanted to be as pretty as them and wanted to have the same nice clothes they had. Back then I considered myself as ugly and unlovable. Being beautiful or at least good looking meant to me that I could be happier and more successful in life. However, I realised that I would never be able to be someone else.

Now that technological companies all over the world have set most of the seven billion individuals in the world with a computer, smartphone or tablet, it is time for better software to use with them. This is where games come in. Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello stated in a recent interview that PC gaming is the ‘fastest growing platform’. This shows the growing interest in gaming bearing in mind that gamers also have the means to play on. The term ‘gamer’ refers to an individual that plays a game or games, typically a participant in a computer or role playing game. The gaming community has grown so wide in the last few years because of the shift from single player games to multiplayer games on the internet

The OASIS is filled with millions of different worlds where people can forget about the real world. In the OASIS just like todays culture, people can communicate entirely on the virtual world and never face the awkwardness of face to face communication. The OASIS allows the user

A Lifeless Society by Joseph Heutel British Literature Period 6 January 30, 2017 Freedom and identity is something that we today never think of not having, it never comes to us. What would a life without our own freedom and identity be like, having no say in anything we, just be alive but not truly living. We have to think to ourselves how much do relay on our freedom and having our own identity. They make us who we are, having a choice of having a mind that you get to explore and be one of a kind. Aldous Huxley tries to show us what life would be with the loss of freedom and identity.

The World State was constructed based on three ideals: Identity, Stability, and Community. Brave New World was written on a different spectrum than these ideas. Instead of a utopian society, the World State followed the guidelines of a dystopian society. The creation of the caste system threw out any feeling of a community in the World State, while creating a barrier between the citizens in each caste. Self-identity is a huge flaw in the World State.

Personal identity is essential in the human experience. Identity is complex and can be broken down into two main groups: introspective identity, and bodily identity. Introspective identity is based off of the groups, mentalities, or beliefs that you align yourself with, and bodily identity is based off of the physical side of yourself. Whether physical or introspective, your identity impacts every action you take. Whether choices ranging from what colors you prefer to which college you want to attend are primarily based off of your introspective identity, which is a combination of both memory and consciousness, physical identity impacts how others perceive you. Consciousness is mainly the awareness of bodily identity as well as continuous introspective identify, while memory is awareness of introspective identity. These two different facets of identity are imperative in the distinction between bodily identity and introspective identity. In means of personal identity introspective identity (which is evident in memory), is essential, while bodily identity (based partially in consciousness) has less credit.

As kids, ‘The Sims’ game seemed like the picture-perfect game for the individuals to create their own characters and make them live the lives the way they wanted them to. Sounds like a perfect game, right? All the identities created by the kids or the teens were either largely different or there were small differences between each life created, reflecting on the idea that all the identities were produced depending on the persons own experiences which were then reflected upon the game and The Sims users. The notion of incorporating ones personal identity into the identity projected and created in ‘The Sims’ can cause one to become addicted to the identity perceived, appreciate the created identities differently depending on their own influences

Many video games use visuals to mentally immerse gamers into a virtual world filled with seemingly living, breathing people, animals, or cities. According to Michael Samyn and Auriea Harvey, game designers for Tale of Tales, video games increasingly develop into a true medium of artistic expression (Lamb). In just forty years, video games transformed from an abuse of the new computer for entertainment purposes into a sophisticated form of popular art. The development of video games recently produced results that arguably equal other similar, representational arts. Video games share many qualities with other forms of art, but they are also artistically significant in their own way. “This seems to be something

“In video games, the category of “first person shooters” has been controversial with critics concerned about what that means to players who actually perform acts of violence within the games. Instead of merely watching a character perpetrate a violent act, the player is actively encouraged to participate. Gamers will often refer to their characters as “he” or even “I.” “This suggests some confusion is brought on by the intense identification players sometimes feel towards their avatars. Players typically remain attached to a single character they can control; thus they have a very strong following pattern. Game designer, Will Wright, has argued that games may have a unique ability to make players experience guilt for the choices their characters have made in the course of action. Because players are making choices, they feel some degree of responsibility” (242-243).

In cognitive science there is a growing theory that cognitive processes develop when bodies and their environment have real-time, goal-directed interactions (IEP). The human mind is stimulated and developed when the mind, body and environment conjointly interact and influence one another. Embodiment is comprehended as the distinctive way a body can effectively interact with its environment through the body’s sensorimotor capabilities. In today’s world, modern video games have presented a new form of embodiment that is now being studied. The study focuses on the relationship between players, avatars and 3D-virtual worlds. There is a wide debate about whether the embodiment of avatars in modern video games can have an effect on the human