Calling all Avatars
October 12th, 2009
What is your ideal avatar, would it replicate a virtual you? Or not resemble any of your physical traits? I recently attended a Metanomics event that discussed ways in which avatars are perceived. Among the key takeaways from the event is that it is hard to look older in Second Life (something I never really thought of before).
Avatars are able to offer a sense of anonymity to the user; you can replicate yourself to a tee or completely transform the way you want to appear in a virtual world. Are my real name and my own identity over rated? Do others really believe that this is the way I look in real life? We come across this issue quite often when pitching virtual worlds for business use to potential clients. Most organizations have done limited research (if any) on virtual worlds and the perception is that all training products that have avatars will look much like Second Life avatars (whether they are risqué or not I will leave it up to your imagination). Now consider this scenario: When developing a virtual world simulation for a client we placed in a younger “30-something” character in as a lawyer. When we previewed the virtual world (complete with lawyer avatar) to the client- they said that lawyers wouldn’t take the training seriously because most of them are older. (Not to offend the older or younger generations of lawyers- we went in and added some gray hair onto the avatar). So perception can be everything. I’m sure that you have heard the idiom “Don’t judge a book by its cover,” well the same holds true for avatar characters within virtual world environments.
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