Roleplay with Chatbots on Character.ai: A New Direction for Online Gaming?

This paper investigates the use of chatbots for roleplaying on the Character.ai platform, arguing that game studies offers valuable insights into human-chatbot interaction. The central thesis posits that Character.ai functions as an open-world, text-based roleplaying game driven by user-generated storylines, representing a new direction for online gaming and a significant practice within gaming fandom. The research draws on an ethnographic study conducted from 2022-2024 on the Character.ai platform.

The analysis focuses on the remediation of the character Simon "Ghost" Riley from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II as a chatbot, noting the unexpected following among women and queer fans that emerged on TikTok and subsequently migrated to Character.ai. The study highlights that chatbot-based roleplay gains meaning from two key factors: pre-existing affective connections developed through fannish engagements on other platforms, and the interactive, intimate, and emotion-driven play afforded by Character.ai's technology.

While the platform lacks explicit rules or winning states, gameplay is structured by implicit limitations, such as the bot's memory capacity, and through the deliberate deployment of tropes and conventions from fanfiction and romance. Human players and chatbots collaboratively create play experiences often centered on imaginary relationships and romance. The paper concludes that the popularity of roleplaying with chatbots on Character.ai exemplifies the ludification of culture, where play characterizes both leisure time and engagement with new technologies, even for users who may not identify as traditional gamers.