Effects of Game Design Features on Player-Avatar Relationships and Motivation for Buying Decorative Virtual Items

A 2019 DiGRA study examines how game design features shape players' relationships with their avatars and, in turn, their motivation to purchase decorative virtual items. Drawing on a survey of 376 players across 15 multiplayer online games, the research investigates design elements such as avatar death frequency and penalty severity, pet systems, and decoration flexibility, alongside four dimensions of player-avatar relationships: shared feelings and actions, avatars as companions, avatars as roles, and avatars as tools. The work builds on literature concerning avatar identification, shopping motivation, and the distinction between functional and decorative virtual goods.

The principal findings indicate that design choices meaningfully affect how players relate to their avatars. Greater death frequency reduced players' sense of shared feelings with their avatars (p = .042), while harsher death penalties increased the perception of the avatar as a tool (p = .012). Pet-owning players scored lower on tool perception (p = .03). One hypothesis linking design features to relationship dimensions was not supported.

Relationship orientation proved central to purchasing motivation. Players who regarded their avatars as functional tools reported stronger motivation to buy decorative items for flaunting and peer approval, and weaker motivation for customization. Conversely, players who viewed avatars as companions or role-play characters showed higher hedonic and customization motivation. Across the sampled games, titles selling larger quantities of decorative items had markedly higher tool-relationship scores (M = 9.10 versus 7.29, p < .001).

The authors acknowledge several constraints. The multi-game questionnaire produced low Cronbach's α values, generalizability across cultures, regions, and genres is limited because all sampled games were multiplayer online titles, and alternative explanations such as reverse causation remain untested. Proposed future work includes qualitative and cross-genre studies, research on non-avatar social games where decorative sales dominate revenue, and examination of hedonic drivers of purchasing in online games.