Avatar economies: affective investment from game to platform |
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| Authors: | Luke van Ryn Thomas Apperley Justin Clemens |
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| Affiliation: | 1. School of Culture and Communication, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australialuke.vanryn@unimelb.edu.au;3. Centre for Excellence in Game Culture Studies, Tampere University, Tampere, Finland;4. School of Culture and Communication, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia |
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| Abstract: | ABSTRACTVideo game avatars have been understood as a key site of players’ “affective investment” in play and games. In this article, we extend this conversation to explore the avatar’s role in engaging players with gaming platforms. Through a case study of Team Fortress 2 (Valve Software, 2007) and the Steam platform, we demonstrate the avatar’s function beyond gameworlds as a tool for encouraging certain kinds of play. Team Fortress 2, we argue, is a crucial testing ground for Valve’s experiments with gaming economies via the Steam platform. By extension, we show the importance of video game avatars for encouraging affective investment in platforms more broadly, including Microsoft’s Xbox Live, PlayStation Network and even workplace dashboards. |
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| Keywords: | K 4 m miscellaneous K 8 0 general K 1 the computer industry video games avatars platform |
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