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Avatars serve as complex sites for identity construction, allowing players to project a 'new self' that can differ from their offline identity.
This analysis examines how LGBTQ+ players, or "gaymers," utilize the MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV Online to construct and articulate visual identities. The research focuses on the intersection of avatar customization, modding, and virtual photography as tools for resistant play within a digital environment often dominated by heteronormative design structures. By exploring how players manipulate their avatars and document their experiences, the study highlights the agency users exercise to challenge traditional gender and sexual norms.
The findings suggest that avatar creation serves as a critical site for identity experimentation, allowing players to move beyond the constraints of their offline selves. Through the use of aesthetic tokens, character modifications, and the strategic selection of in-game spaces, players engage in "queer acting"—a form of resistance that pushes against the hegemony of mainstream gaming. Virtual photography emerges as a central practice in this process, functioning as a method for memorializing social connections, affirming queer experiences, and creating narratives that exist outside the game’s official, predetermined boundaries.
The study concludes that these practices transform the virtual world into a sandbox for identity articulation, where the avatar acts as a medium for both consumption and self-expression. By leveraging both official game assets and unofficial modifications, players create a "queer sensibility" that reclaims the digital space. Ultimately, the research positions these activities as a form of cultural production, where the act of capturing and sharing virtual images serves to validate the presence and influence of queer communities within the broader gaming landscape.
Each row is a game or company this document names, each column a document, oldest first. A mark means that document names it. Select a row to see those documents.
DiGRA · 2014
