Abstract
Video games are a suitable territory to experiment and play with identity, thanks to the use of avatars, which let players put themselves in someone else’s shoes, project values on blank slates or bond with virtual characters upon which they have a partial agency. Through the case study of Hotline Miami, this paper aims to examine how games can push players to actively question their identity, agency and role in the game’s systems and narrative. The end point of the paper is defining a new category of avatar, the meta-avatar, which elicits a sense of identity instability in the players, leading them to have a more conscious approach to the gameplay experience.
Keywords
Parts of this paper are an abridged, updated and translated reworking of excerpts from a previous publication by the authors [1].
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
The majority of characters in the game have no name, and this also applies to the protagonist, who is referred to as Jacket in online discussions and academic papers [23].
- 2.
Every mask has a name, in strong opposition to actual characters who, as said above, are usually anonymous. The masks could be interpreted as a visual representation of a multiple personality disorder suffered by the protagonist [23].
References
Papale, L., Fazio, L.: Teatro e videogiochi: Dall’avatāra agli avatar. Edizioni Paguro, Mercato San Severino (2018)
Knight, D.B.: Identity and territory: Geographical perspectives on nationalism and regionalism. Ann. Assoc. Am. Geogr. 72(4), 514–531 (1982). https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8306.1982.tb01842.x
Tutton, R.: “They want to know where they came from”: Population genetics, identity, and family genealogy. New Genet. Soc. 23(1), 105–120 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1080/1463677042000189606
Gibson, P.: Identity and career (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from Swinburne Research Bank (2001). http://hdl.handle.net/1959.3/26020
Nash, C., Jarrahi, M.H., Sutherland, W., Phillips, G.: Digital nomads beyond the buzzword: Defining digital nomadic work and use of digital technologies. In: Chowdhury, G., McLeod, J., Gillet, V., Willett, P. (eds.) iConference 2018. LNCS, vol. 10766, pp. 207–217. Springer, Cham (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78105-1_25
Ervin, S.: Language and TAT content in bilinguals. J. Abnorm. Soc. Psychol. 68(5), 500–507 (1964). https://doi.org/10.1037/h0044803
Ervin-Tripp, S.: An analysis of the interaction of language, topic, and listener. Am. Anthropol. 66(6), 86–102 (1964). https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.1964.66.suppl_3.02a00050
Koven, M.E.J.: Two languages in the self/the self in two languages: French-Portuguese bilinguals’ verbal enactments and experiences of self in narrative discourse. Ethos 26(4), 410–455 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1525/eth.1998.26.4.410
Bauman, Z.: Liquid Modernity. Polity Press, Cambridge (2000)
Turkle, S.: Growing up in the culture of simulation. In: Denning, P.J., Metcalfe, R.M. (eds.) Beyond Calculation: The Next Fifty Years of Computing, pp. 93–104. Springer, New York (1997). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-0685-9_7
Miller, C.R.: Writing in a culture of simulation: Ethos online. In: Coppock, P. (ed.) The Semiotics of Writing: Transdisciplinary Perspectives on the Technology of Writing, pp. 253–279. Brepols, Turnhout (2001)
Pecchinenda, G.: Videogiochi e cultura della simulazione: La nascita dell’‘homo game’, 3rd edn. Editori Laterza, Milano/Bari (2010)
Essig, T.: Psychoanalysis lost – and found – in our culture of simulation and enhancement. Psychoanal. Inq. 32(5), 438–453 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1080/07351690.2012.703571
Merriam-Webster Online. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/avatar. Accessed 24 Jul 2018
Fraschini, B.: Videogiochi & new media. In: Bittanti, M. (ed.) Per una cultura dei videogames: Teoria e prassi del videogiocare, 2nd edn, pp. 99–135. Edizioni Unicopli, Milano (2004)
PopCap Games: Bejeweled. PopCap Games (2001)
Polyphony Digital: Gran Turismo. Sony Computer Entertainment (1998)
id Software: DOOM. GT Interactive (1993)
Core Design: Tomb Raider. Eidos Interactive (1996)
Papale, L.: Beyond identification. Defining the relationships between player and avatar. J. Games Crit. 1(2), 1–12 (2014)
Papale, L.: Per una tassonomia delle relazioni corporee e mentali tra giocatori e personaggi dei videogiochi. Imago 12, 221–230 (2016)
Dennaton Games: Hotline Miami. Devolver Digital (2012)
Caracciolo, M.: Unknowable protagonists and narrative delirium in American Psycho and Hotline Miami: A case study in character engagement across the media. Acta Univ. Sapientiae Film and Media Stud. 9, 189–207 (2014)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Papale, L., Fazio, L. (2018). Player Identity and Avatars in Meta-narrative Video Games: A Reading of Hotline Miami. In: Rouse, R., Koenitz, H., Haahr, M. (eds) Interactive Storytelling. ICIDS 2018. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 11318. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04028-4_28
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04028-4_28
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-04027-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-04028-4
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)