Continuing in the vein of parasocial interactions and our investment in fictitious characters, we can see the gradation of involvement in those avatars and how much we identify with them. Previously, I talked about how we tailor our heroes to our own identities and project ourselves onto them. Now, there’s […]
Dr. Dehumanization or: How I learned to stop worrying and love Commodifying NPCs Games make use of abstractions to codify and standardize interactions between players and non-player characters. This exists in every capacity and level of articulation. From the greatly simplified children’s board game where your only power is a […]
Desensitizing to Death For today’s article, I’m starting with a quote from our inimitable bard in reference to the recent rash of celebrity deaths: As time goes on, the amount of celebrity deaths is going to seem to increase. That’s because our metric of recognizing famous people has significantly increased. […]
Digital Beard Stroking Inertia – Overcoming the Inert The fundamental aspect of human motivation is that it is, by it’s nature, self-starting. If we’re not reacting to direct, threatening stimuli, we have to be able to generate this motivation to act from within. Granted, from a technical standpoint, it’s all […]
Digital Beard Stroking Media Avatar, Expressor of Efficacy pt 2. Today, I’ll be building on the concepts established in my last article, so check that out. It’s not like Star Wars, though, it’s much better if you read them in order. Or read the sequel first. What am I, a […]
