Gamers and Their Avatars Photography Exhibition

tuite writes "BBC News Online reports on a photography exibition featuring online gamers and their avatars. The article has more information, including some pictures from the exibition."

Comments

wow

[astrokid]

The first two people from the exhibit fit the sterotypical profile that I had in my head but the girl in the 3rd one looked kind of cute.

:)

Re:wow

[Trikenstein]

WHAT AN INSENSITIVE THING TO SAY!

You'll never get your PC merit badge with that attitude!

Re:wow

[Trikenstein]

btw

I was just razzin ya.

Some of those pics were shocking.

In a completly PC and sensitive way :P

Not representative

[koi88]

I really look like Lara Croft.

Re:Not representative

[Profane MuthaFucka]

I agree. Everyone who looks at me says my name is exactly what I look like.

Re:Not representative

[jaredcat]

Q-bert?...

Fan Faire

[Ziak]

God knows why i'm actually doing this but i'm going to a Everquest Fan Faire... for the first time really just to meet my guild who i spent about 60% of my freetime with, Its sounds wierd to some metting somone you never ever met before but it makes sense because there just like you and you both have something in common you both know each other for sometimes 2-3+ years so why not meet each other...

Re:Fan Faire

[Reapy]

Probably a good thing to do. I chatted with someone online pretty frequently for about 5ish or so years when she just happened to be in the area visiting a relative instead of across the us. I went up there with my gf (now wife) to go meet her. She looked and sounded nothing like i had imagined (never exchanged pics or anything), but we got along tremendously well. It was a very strange experience to be talking with a stranger, cracking jokes about things that had happened to both of us with in the past 5 years. It was about as comfortable as visiting with any of my "real" friends.

I'm normally pretty uncomfortable around people but we just hit it off and conversation just went naturally and wasn't awkward for more then the 10 seconds it took to take in the other person's appearance. So go, it's not wierd, and you might meet some great friends that you already know.

Seriously, let me just reiterate. Anybody I've talked to online frequently for more then a year (usually gaming with them), i've been able to talk to them on the phone or in person just as easily. If you two can talk online easily, you can talk in person easily, and can hang out easily. Go meet em.

It truly scared me

[contagious_d]

...when I saw 5

Interesting.

[JavaLord]

It would have been nice to have seen how many hours a week each person played along with the avatars. Also, it would have been interesting if the writer actually followed the person around a bit and saw if their personality was the same online.

I usually model my character after myself, but I'm even more of an asshole online than I am in real life, which takes a lot of work. After seeing pic number 5, I might be a little less likely to grief/pk people in MMORPG's though.

yay internet!

[VendingMenace]

it is becuase of people like #6 that i am really glad that there are internet communities (including gamers). I have met several people online who had debilitating diseases and would otherwise have very little interaction with other people (verging on a dearth). It is so cool that they have a way to meet hundreds of people and make new friends -- people that sadly might have been scared away by their disease and would have avoided them in normal society.

It is always good to see something like that to remind me that while the internet may have its downsides (game addiction, ect.) there are some REALLY positive aspects to gaming and the internet.

AWSOME!

Gender-Bending avatars

[Slim Cognito]

What about those people who play the opposite gender in online games?

By at least one account up to 56% of male players and up to 33% of female players play an opposite gender character. Do these avatars reflect their real-life persona in some way? I personally don't feel I'm anything like my EQ level 63 Female High-Elf Cleric. I simply played a female because of the social advantage gained in a game like EQ.
___
Slim Cognito

Get your own FREE iPod and help me get mine at the same time.

If you're concerned about the legitimacy of the free iPod offer, check out this Wired magazine article.

Re:Gender-Bending avatars

[ctr2sprt]

Well, as a straight male, I prefer looking at cute girls, so that's usually the character type I create. The only real reason I create male characters at all is a practical one: clumsy come-ons by horny teenage boys. I can only take so much "r u hot 4 reel" before I quit in disgust. Christ, I wouldn't want to spend thirty seconds with a girl that line actually worked on.

Re:Gender-Bending avatars

[falcon5768]

A even more interesting example would be what I have gotten from playing FFXI... In it there is a all female race called the Mithera... basically cat girls, and nearly 80% of them are controlled by males. The take I got is that if Im going to be stairing at a ass all day, it might as well be a hot females...

NOW on the oposite perspective I got hit on in game by a male hume (Im a male Elvaan) who turned out to be controlled by a female... her take, its easier to party with people if they dont think your a girl. Girls are looked down on as not fighters but mages.

Looking at my girlfriend and 4 of my female friends who DO play as girls in game, 3 of the 5 ARE in fact mages, only two are melee, a ninja and a ranger who is one of the few mithra players who really ARE female that I have found BUT doesnt lead on she's a she, and infact wouldnt tell me her sex untill I eventually figured it out.

Re:Gender-Bending avatars

[JabberWokky]

I generally RPG (tabletop) as my same sex (male). I say generally because I often am GM, so I have to play many female NPCs. With most console RPGs, you have little choice who your main character is (and it usually changes a couple times).

In fighting games and so on, however, I almost always pick female. Not only for your reason (look at something attractive), but they tend to be more powerful versus their size.

SMB2 - Princess Mushroom all the way. Serious precision jumping.

--
Evan

Re:Gender-Bending avatars

[Anonymous Coward]

Looking at my girlfriend and 4 of my female friends who DO play as girls in game, 3 of the 5 ARE in fact mages, only two are melee, a ninja and a ranger who is one of the few mithra players who really ARE female that I have found BUT doesnt lead on she's a she

You people are all still in High School, aren't you?

Same here!

[antdude]

I also have multiple physical disabilities as well. I am not a type of guy who likes to go outside to socialize with others due to my disabilities (speech and hearing are two of them).

I love the Internet. I socialize a lot more than I did in the past before I discovered BBS'.

Correction. ;)

[antdude]

JavaLord: That should be #6.

Very Cool

[glowimperial]

I have actually ben considering making my SWG guildmates pose for virtual photos and then travelling to to their locations in the real world to get photos of the real folks. A year and a half of MMORPG gaming has raised a number of interesting questions in me regarding the way in which virtual worlds create "behavioral sandboxes" for people. The duality/multiplicity created when someone logs a lot of hours in an MMO is an interesting philosophical and psychological territory. Good to see that people are out there, investigating and exploring that territory.

What I wan't is...

[arose]

An exhibition of NetHack players and their avatars...