In late 2017 I stumbled across a webisode series from Polygon titled Monster Factory. It was hosted between brothers Griffin and Justin McElroy via the Polygon network, and its premise, as clued by the series’ name, is in itself pretty simple: to create the most hideous, ridiculous, and hilarious characters conceivable using whichever game’s included character customisation menu. I highly recommend checking it out if you haven’t already as some of the final monstrosities they concoct are truly marvelous, pushing character creation to such unthinkable levels of absurdity to create monsters even Frankenstein couldn’t dream of.
Character customisation is a game feature with its roots in Role-Playing Games, where players are offered the chance to personalise their avatars in a wide variety of ways. As game engines have grown more sophisticated over the years, the ways in which you can customise your character have become radically and exponentially more malleable, giving players options to change weight, build, height, facial structure, skin, hair, clothing, the list just keeps growing with advancing systems. And why not? Games are always searching for new ways to immerse their players and give them the freedom to express themselves within the virtual environment they’re about to explore. Bruno Fraschini coined the term ‘digital prosthesis’ for player interaction with their game, a means of connecting a real person to the virtual environment, connecting human to code, in his editorial article Videogiochi e New Media (translation: Video Games and New Media). Dependent on which type of game the player is playing, input can be direct and unseen, like the invisible force on screen that will rotate and move our Tetris blocks or slides the confectionary in any Candy Crush Saga game. But this prosthesis can be actorialised: defined and authored figures given identities and narratives, examples include Snake from the Metal Gear Solid franchise or Senua from Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, who helm their own stories. These are identities created by the developers to suit a purpose, to tell a story. Luca Papale, in his article Beyond Identification: Defining the Relationships Between Player and Avatar, states that ‘the channel between the player and the video game is a character or avatar, which can be more or less defined, more or less anthropomorphous, and more or less customizable’, and pivots upon what the game’s main goal is; often then character customisation is dependent upon the genre of game, finding its way into role-playing titles or online multiplayers such as Runescape or World of Warcraft to grant players an input of individuality lacking that would be found in games attempting to tell a distinct narrative.
Why then do web series such as Monster Factory exist, and what makes them so popular, generating up to millions of views for just a single episode? Pushing the boundaries of character creation is nothing new either, with many ‘Let’s Play’ channels on YouTube doing their best to create interesting or laughable characters for their audience – some recreate celebrities, others like Monster Factory seek to build something uniquely extreme. The fact that a franchise like The Sims from Maxis and The Sims Studio still holds the title as being one of the best selling franchises of all time demonstrates more than just players’ capacity to engage with customization, but also a desire to. It demonstrates that players have found new modes of gameplay in customisation and that such features have in turn become games in and of themselves.
Sky Anderson breaks down the embodiment of avatars in his article Turning Pixels into People: Procedural Embodiedness and the Aesthetics of Third-Person Character Corporeality, stating ‘The third-person body becomes the location of an interactive and creative experience’ and agrees that character customisation marks itself as a distinct ‘game’ the player plays. He goes on to expound that the inclusion of such menus is an attempt by the game to create the illusion that such digital prostheses are ‘real’, as if flesh and blood. Whilst I would agree with him were this coming from a distinction between the pixel graphics of character sprites into the 3D world of RPGs and MMOs (Massively Multiplayer Online games), I don’t believe this is the case now considering that the gaming community has had a chance to acclimatise itself to the status quo of character customisation. We now have a considerable period in which the gaming industry has boomed, both in size as much as in technological capacity and understanding. At face value, character customisation does continue to be the average player’s means of creating the avatar they wish to play. Sillicur, in his article examining the importance of such customisation, states ‘Cosmetic changes to a character bring out the individualism of the player, making them stand out in the crowd.’ t is on this deeper level that players view characters as unique, to the point of being more than just identifiable, becoming memorable, whether for humour or for identity.
Just recently Blizzard’s latest hit game Overwatch released new team ‘skins’ for players to either win or buy. Overwatch implements a system of ‘skins’ for its roster of playable characters, outfits and other cosmetic changes that add flair to a player’s look when playing particular characters. Skins can either be bought or won by chance through the game’s loot box system, essentially opening a mystery box for random rewards. Blizzard has on countless occasions insisted that skins can and will only ever be purely cosmetic, whether you use skins or not your technical gameplay will not be impacted in the slightest, though releases of limited edition skins or event skins continues to apply a premium ownership on such things. But nevertheless it is still a feature, much like any character customisation menu is in other games, and the popularity behind these skins and subsequent audience response to being faced with the decision to actually buy such cosmetic changes suggests that though cosmetic there is some inherent experience to them that players want and need. Rationally it should not matter what a character looks like so long as the game is indeed playable – more to the point, these are not the player’s characters, they are defined identities created by Blizzard – and yet there is still a thriving market for players to engage with customisation. The recent release of the aforementioned team skins demonstrates a sense of interconnected identity amongst players, it adds a layer of competitiveness to what was already a team game – a game within a game.
As touched upon earlier in this essay, Papale observed that dependent of a game’s genre and narrative, character customisation is a precarious concept considering relationship between player and game. Much like one would relate to a character in a book or film, a video game character and its added interactivity invites the player to not just simply relate but to ‘be’ the character, to control its movements, its development and, in some cases, its design. But there is a difference drawn up between a developer’s desire to construct narrative and the player’s need to have authorship over their character. In cases such as Metal Gear Solid V: Phantom Pain it is almost ironic that though there is an offer of character customisation for the player to construct their avatar’s face, within minutes of the game beginning all this work is ultimately undone. It is the unfortunate battle of structure versus freedom, of developer versus player, and so far the best compromise that has been arrived at is to generate a main character for a narrative that isn’t dependent upon gender, age, or looks – even species in some circumstances. Examples of particular franchises that demonstrate this include Mass Effect, Fallout, Dragon Age and Elder Scrolls, as the player is often given chief status as the defining protagonist of the game. For instance the original trilogy of Mass Effect has the player take control of Commander Shepherd as they face off against the Reaper threat, a pre-space-faring civilisation-destroying race that come about every so often to purge the universe. I say ‘they’ for Shepherd because the game allows the player to choose between which sex they want to play as: male or female. From there the player can sculpt, shape, and form the face of the galaxy’s hero to their liking. But the element of customisation is an unusually odd one, especially in a game, like many others, where the player has a predetermined path laid out before them. This is the same for many other RPGs currently existing, not just within the Mass Effect franchise or any others listed. There are branching paths and subplots to explore, but the narrative is always conclusively the same, with details dependent on how one has played the game thus far. Customising the avatar then is a relatively moot point, since unlike an MMO you have not ‘created’ the character, merely adopted one provided by the game’s developers. Arguably this customisation of the character is just one feature of many that align the game to the role-playing tropes that have preceded it, and compliment the game’s other elements of dating various other characters you meet, but contrasted against more serious tones of story, it can appear to be frivolous. But as Anderson claims ‘customizing the digital body is a game in itself’, and he’s right. It is the meshing of one game, the customisation, melded to the main body of the narrative in a bid to marry the genre of an action-adventure to the core of an RPG. The customisation then comes not quite as an add-on feature included for the sake of the buzzword ‘immersion’ and player engagement, but it invites a sense of ownership and freedom to the game that otherwise would have been static in its characters.
Having considered then a hybridisation of role-playing against a narrative, it’s better to consider the more free-form flexibility of a game not strict in adhering to its protagonist. Primarily these games would be the MMOs that don’t rely upon a defining character to carve their way through whatever story there may be, but rather are an essentially blank figure created by the player to engage with the game just like every other players has before them. The separation of games such as Mass Effect to the likes of MMOs such as World of Warcraft or Runescape is that with the former, players do not mingle during play. When flying around the galaxy, fighting the Reapers, not once does the player bump into someone on the same mission or advanced to some later stage of the game. There is multiplayer functionality, but this is limited to rudimentary matches. MMOs offer a huge expanse of a virtual space in which every player, dependent on which server they’re using, can co-exist and play all alongside one another. Their presence is known, as much as the player is aware of the players around them. This is not just simply by circumstance either, the multiplicity of play enhances it, allowing players to band together, to trade resources and items, and to quest together through dungeons and worlds at their choosing. MMOs are games that expand the diversity of play as well as encouraging the individual to engage with others. Customisation takes a more prominent role, not just in the initial base design but choosing between what equipment to wear and best to load the character out.
Customisation in this regard becomes a game of how to personalise and customise to the point of standing out amongst the crowd, designing an avatar that’s memorable, that fulfils the fantasy of the world you’re in. Developers release new features such as Blizzard’s transmogrification patch for World of Warcraft or Yacht Club’s ‘body swap’ feature in their title Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove which emphasise the recognised need of the player to wield autonomy over the bodies they play. The ability to control every aspect of a character from their build to their race broadens the avenues of play and invites exploration on the player’s behalf. One run of Elder Scrolls: Skyrim as a Khajiit or an Argonian is going to offer far different aesthetic differences to the avatar than more human-like races. The game becomes several times over replayable for the sake of designing new characters alone. Other titles, such as The Sims franchise or Spore, are attempts of games to provide the player with the means of constructing and fully authored identity onto a blank avatar. Both in their conception were attempts at realism; the former generates the ‘dollhouse’ type approach to video games in which players could construct virtual spaces they wished to live in according to the world that existed around them, whilst the latter is in essence a god-like creator to evolve an organism into a fully fledged animal. Whilst these may have found their footing in realism, any look online at what players have made of these games demonstrates that was not quite the outcome the community envisioned. It’s important to recognise that this attitude is not indicative of all players, as some have embraced the realistic style of these games and treated them as such, but others have engaged with these games at an absurd level, finding a game within the game.
Why has this become the case? Many developers have chosen to embrace this absurdity and released games that revel in their own strangeness and warped entertainment in character creation. The Saints Row franchise is perhaps the best example, well-known for its own absurdism, where in Saints Row: The Third and Saints Row IV the level of character customisation can be taken to many extreme levels, and is arguably encouraged by the game’s candid and crude humour in itself. The games laud their ridiculousness as a badge of honour, from alien invasions to superhuman powers, bizarre and lewd weaponry, but most importantly of all, its character customisation options. Saints Row has set itself a precedent of providing the player with practically every conceivable dial, scale, or gradient it can think of to give them as much creative liberty with their avatar as possible. These were not features that began life intending to be taken seriously. They welcomed with open arms the twisted imaginations of their players and provided them with all the tools they needed to make it so. It illustrates a recognition in the community of gamers that character customisation has become something more than just transposing oneself into the game. The old adage ‘the player identifies with the character’ has become overplayed in its application and I believe some developers are beginning to understand as such. When VRChat was launched by VR Chat Inc. on Steam, it began as a community hub for traditional group games, but has been seized by ‘players’ and transformed into something altogether unexpected. From internet memes to favourite characters, the game has spawned a following not quite anticipated given VR technology is only just emerging with mainstream capability. Players have moved to reclaim character customisation, whether intentional or not by developers, as a means of their own entertainment.
Under the current climate of game development, I doubt little will change. Character customisation has always remained only a feature of gameplay, and I can understand why. Outright it cannot survive as a game itself – how could it? But whenever it is included in any title, the eventual response of players is to push boundaries as they always do, and to create using the tools they have been bestowed. Players have made a game out of customisation in a way some developers haven’t anticipated. With releases such as the Saints Row franchise and The Sims franchise, or arguably even the Dead Rising franchise, some are recognising that absurdity in semi-realistic games is not something to necessarily avoid. Titles that include character customisation often adhere themselves closely to fidelity for the sake of the role-playing genre, understandably needing their games to be seen as something not lost to weirdness, but nevertheless leaving potential for players to experiment with their avatars in all manner of ways. In conclusion though it is becoming more apparent that players are making their own games out of customisation as much as developers are providing them the means to do so.
The Arcademic 