Maria Michelle Baldazo

July 26, 2018

Linderoth, J. (2005, October). Animated game pieces. Avatars as roles, tools and props. In Aesthetics of Play Conference Proceedings (pp. 14-15).

Summary:

In this article, Linderoth draws upon the relationship of the player and avatar in a game. The researcher broke the relationship up by explaining it in three functions, that of, roles, tools, and props. The role would be a fictive character which gamers can pretend to be, tools would be avatar as a piece of equipment in which extends the players’ game activity, and props which is the avatar being used as part of the players’ self.  The observations of two groups of children, group 1 (two sisters) and group 2 (three 8-year-old boys-friends), were recorded and transcribed. The findings of the observations suggested the childrens’ play is, “a complex relation of identification” (Linderoth, 2005). This means the children would use the game as a presentation of self in the social context by using the pronoun of “I” while playing the games.

Respond:

In my opinion, this is something that is frequently seen when children get fully engaged within the game. The socio-dramatic play within the game was evident and not as interesting to study in my opinion. I would have like to have seen the more of the assumptions of how the game was played and the different ways on how the children represented the game’s goal.