A Matter of Closeness: Player-Avatar Relationships as Degree of Including Avatars in the Self

The relationship between players and their avatars was found to be critical to game use and effects. Past scholarship has, thus, explored the various player-avatar relationships (PARs) that can emerge during gaming. We argue that the Inclusion-of-Other-in-the-Self principle from the social-psychological Self-Expansion Model provides a fruitful theoretical perspective to systematize and explain the structure of the diverse PAR types. Based on the model, we define a PAR as inclusion of the avatar into the player’s self. The more characteristics of the avatar are included, the more a player adopts the perspective of and feels close to the avatar. We draw on in-depth interviews with 32 players from Germany and the U.S. to explore how PARs can be systematized based on the Self-Expansion Model. Consistent with the model, we found that the heterogeneity of PARs can be organized by a distance/closeness continuum. Five types of PARs were extracted from the data, ranging from functional relationships to weak or strong (para)social relationships to selective or complete identification. We discuss how this typology and the Self-Expansion Model can advance game research.