It has often been suggested that identities created online are fragmented bits
of the self, cycled through and easily discarded. The focus has often been on
the creation of the digital persona and its representation, the avatar. Through
auto-ethnographic research and informed by the literature culled from Game
Studies, Sociology (Symbolic Interactionism, Structural Functionalism) and
Social Psychology, this text explores the way interwoven patterns of play in
massively multi-player online games create multi-layered digital identities.
Through character creation, gameplay, and role identities, relationships
between the player, their avatar, physical environment and other players
develop and redefine meanings which create harmonized identities. Far from
being fixed internally in the player, these identities are interwoven through
internal and external interactions, creating perceptions and performances of
play that emerge as complex negotiated selves, interacting between the self
and the social. This book is addressed to those interested in understanding
the complexities of identities developed online from both a personal and
theoretical perspective.