Avatar survey: “Mains” and “alts”

31 July 2008 | PlayOn authors archive

Before asking our participants detailed questions about how they chose to customize their avatar, it was important to assess whether or not they had one they considered to be their “main” identity (as opposed to alternate characters or “alts”). Indeed, if participants split their time between several avatars it would be more difficult to link their in-world appearance with their physical world demographics. Broadly speaking, we found that a large majority of users across the three environments focus their energy on one main avatar. The extended entry below presents our findings in more detail.

We found that many users own multiple characters on their accounts: an average of 8.08 (Std. =7.80) avatars per account. Specifically, WoW players have an average of 12.30 (Std. = 8.89) avatars and Maple Story players have an average of 5.22 (Std. = 3.91). Because Second Life allows user to create only one avatar per account, users have to create another account if they want to own multiple avatars. We found that each Second Life resident had an average of 2.92 accounts (Std. = 1.40) for creating other avatars. But it is worth noting that each Second Life resident designed on average 40.76 outfits (Std. = 36.62) stored in their inventory, so that they could quickly switch their avatar’s appearance to another one. While not strictly “alts” (the avatar’s name remain the same), it illustrates the need for a flexible appearance – a need that can be fulfilled only by creating another character in game-based environments.

Although users have multiple avatars on their account, 90.1% of answered positively to the question: “do you consider any of your avatar to be your main identity?” There is little doubt users can readily identify which is their main avatar and which are their alts. There are minor differences across worlds: more Second Life residents can identify their main avatar (97.6%) than WoW users (87.8%) and Maple Story users (86.8%).

Finally, it became clear that users can not only identify one avatar as their “main” but also that they focus on it almost exclusively. Across all worlds, users spent 76.03% (Std. = 21.5%) of their total playtime on their main avatar and 18.19% (Std. = 16.96%) on their main alt and only 8.63% (Std. = 11.08) on other alts. There are significant but minor differences between the three environments concerning the time spent playing a user’s main avatar (F=10.02, p <.001) and main alt (F=8.14, p <.001). The ratio of time spent on their “main” by Second Life residents (87.82%) was relatively higher than in WoW (70.45%) and Maple Story (75.79). WoW players allocated 21.64% of their playtime to their main alt and 10.26% to other alts; Maple Story players allocated 20.31% to their main alt and 7.75% to other alts; and Second Life residents only allocated 9.29% of their playtime to their main alt and 4.90% to other alts.

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