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August 04, 2008
Avatar Survey: Time Spent In-World and Customizing Avatar
Gaming experience and time spent playing were not significantly different across the three environments. WoW players had a mean experience with this particular game of 2.15 years (Std. = 1.16). They played 4.36 hours per day (Std. = 2.32) and 5.53 days per week (Std. = 1.67). Maple Story players had a mean experience of 1.82 years (Std. = 0.98); they played 5.12 hours per day (Std. = 4.16) and 5.60 days per week (Std. = 1.88). Second Life residents had a mean experience of 1.71 years (Std. = 1.01); they played 4.55 hours per day (Std. = 3.56) and 5.91 days per week (Std.=5.91). Note that our respondents' experience was not limited to these three environments: their total MMO gaming experience ranged from an average of 3.5 years for MS players to 4.4 years for WoW.
However, Second Life residents spent significantly more time (F=9.434, p <.001) customizing the appearance of their avatar (mean=92.75 minutes, Std. = 208.70 minutes/week), compared to WoW players’ 9.99 minutes (Std. = 15.185) and Maple Story players’ 12.95 minutes (Std. =16.18). This result makes it clear that avatar customization is a very important activity in Second Life compared to the game-based virtual environments - in fact, one could even argue that avatar customization is the game in SL.
Posted at August 4, 2008 09:51 AM
Comments
I'd be very curious to see how this (and the alt data) applied to City of Heroes. Although it is clearly a game-based platform like WoW, it sports one of the most robust character customization systems out there.
Making new appearances (and new characters) there seems to be a large part of the appeal. It would be interesting to see how that demographic appears.
Posted by: Chas at August 4, 2008 12:17 PM
PlayOn> "one could even argue that avatar customization is the game in SL."
Not surprising that this was the reported finding, since WoW does not allow you to spend much more than 9 minutes on what players might think of as appearance customization. However, if they really thought about it, becoming Level 70 -- the goal of WoW -- is essentially an exercise in avatar customization. It makes your avatar appear to others as a Level 70 [whatever]. Same goes for gear sets. Same goes for battlegrounds.
So... one could actually make the exact same argument about WoW, or Maple Story, or the whole MMORPG genre, for that matter.
Posted by: Greg Lastowka at August 5, 2008 12:06 PM
play on? (1st time)
(=)
i like avatars......
Posted by: rafael at October 1, 2008 01:38 AM
The idea of "customizing avatar appearance" in SL could simply mean shopping for clothes.
Posted by: Key MacMoragh at October 8, 2008 11:06 AM