Me, My Avatar or My Body? The Relationship Between the Body Esteem Of Rpg Players and the Created Character in the Game

Abstract

The aim of this article is to analyze the relationship between the assessment of RPG player’s own body and the appearance of the character created by the player in the wizard of this game. An exploratory study was carried out using two questionnaires: the Body-Esteem Scale by Franzoi and Shields (1984) in the Polish adaptation of Lipowska and Lipowski (2013) and the authentic Characters Body Assessment. 122 participants aged 18 to 39 were examined: 52 women and 70 men. The results of the study indicated statistically significant correlations in the male group in terms of similarity of the assessment of their bodies to the created character of the RPG game. The higher the men rated their bodies regarding physical attractiveness, body weight and physical condition, the more the characters they created in the game were similar to them. The article is an encouragement to explore the issue of game creators.

Keywords

• avatar
• body assessment
• character creator
• rpg games
• exploratory research