"In games, when the player character says "I'm going to kill that man," the ending is a foregone conclusion. The ending is in the player's hands, and is therefore entirely controllable -- and predictable. How can we create narrative tension when player controls the outcome? By creating unconscious needs in the main character -- needs that clash with conscious desires."
As a gamer, I never find myself thinking about the end but rather what I need to do to achieve that end. In the best games I have played, I find myself buying into the game and feeling what my character feels and thinks. Whether this was the explicit goal of the designers and writers (D&W), I don't know. I think that might have been the ultimate goal for the D&W, but how I realized it might have been different than they expected. So did I empathize with an identity in the game or did I develop my own identity in relation to the game and community? A game I have increasingly spent more and more time playing is World of Warcraft (WOW). Identity formation in WOW is something I have never had in any other game. My identities as a person and as a player are separate yet closely intertwined things. This article highlights the aspects of how identity formation happens in WOW through character creation. Character visual representation plays a big part in WOW. How you look is associated with a number of things. Players know that there is a quest aspect to the game but also this visual aspect. Both parts play a role in the identity formation. As I think about these two articles, I will continue to refine this post. The various aspects of gameplay, interaction with other players, visual appearance, and NPC (Non-Player Character) interaction all contribute to identity formation. Feedback from these different sources are the building blocks of identity. So game design and writing plays a key in at least 3 out of the 4(other player interaction). As a fledgling game designer, I have become increasingly cognizant of the choices I will make that affect the player and their experiences. With this new perspective I have begun to take a close look at games I play and have been trying to identify the points where design choices have affected me. Stay tuned for my next post, in which I will pick out a couple games and highlight some design choices that had an effect on my identity formation.
*Edited for Spelling, Grammar, and added Acronym definitions.