Critical Studies in Media Communication

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Rethinking Game Studies: A case study approach

to video game play and identification

Adrienne Shaw

To cite this article: Adrienne Shaw (2013) Rethinking Game Studies: A case study approach to
video game play and identification, Critical Studies in Media Communication, 30:5, 347-361, DOI:
10.1080/15295036.2012.701013

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/15295036.2012.701013

Published online: 15 Nov 2012.

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Critical Studies in Media Communication
Vol. 30, No. 5, December 2013, pp. 347361

Rethinking Game Studies: A case study

approach to video game play and
identification
Adrienne Shaw

The video game play of individuals, in particular those who game alone, is rarely studied
outside of effects based research or autoethnographic explorations. Rather than focus on
gaming groups and gaming fans, this study situates the analysis of video game play with
the individual, solitary player. There were three main goals in this project. The first was
to see how video game play fits within the lives and media diets of those who do not
identify as hardcore video game fans. The second was to interrogate the hardcore/casual
and social/solitary gaming divides that define much popular understanding of video
game play. The final goal was to investigate the process of identification in video games
in a qualitative manner. While a small-scale pilot study, the methodology discussed
herein should be useful in future research on video game audiences and identification.

Keywords: Video Games; Audience Reception; Identification; Ethnography; Identity

Video game studies have grown exponentially over the past decade. Researchers look
at games as texts (Garrelts, 2006), cultural products (Halter, 2006; Kline, Dyer-
Witheford, & De Peuter, 2003), and cultures (Taylor, 2006; Williams, Hendricks, &
Winkler, 2006). How players experience self-contained video games as part of larger
media consumption practices, however, is rarely studied. To that end, this study
situates an analysis of video game play within the lives of two individual players. It
uses the experiences of two women who play video games as a resource for
understanding how game play intersects with their broader media consumption and
gender, without using gender as an explanatory framework. It looks at gaming
beyond the traditional hardcore/casual and social/solitary divides.

Adrienne Shaw is an Assistant Professor and Temple University in the Department of Broadcasting,
Telecommunications and Mass Media. Her research focuses on video games, feminist and queer theory, the
politics of representation, and the construction of identities and communities in relation to media
consumption. Correspondence to: Temple University, BTMM Office, Annenberg Hall, room 205, Philadelphia,
PA 19122. Email: adrienneshaw13@gmail.com

ISSN 1529-5036 (print)/ISSN 1479-5809 (online) # 2013 National Communication Association

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15295036.2012.701013
348 A. Shaw
By rethinking how and where game consumption is studied, this pair of case
studies also offers insight into the study of identification with video game characters,
by using Cohen’s (2001) identification measures as discussion points for interviews.
Although Gee’s (2003) discussion of identification with video game characters as a
‘‘tripartite play of identities,’’ usefully describes some types of interactions with these
texts, this study finds that focusing on individual uses of games and the way in which
specific games position the player in relation to an avatar are of crucial importance
when describing identification processes and video games. Although this was a small-
scale pilot study, the methodology discussed herein will be useful in future research
on video game audiences and identification.

Sociality, Identification, and Medium Myopia

Games studies often emphasize the sociality of gaming, the intense feeling of
identification achieved in the medium, and isolate game play from other media. Each
of these foci, however, results in a limited understanding of this medium. This study
expands on the games studies literature by answering audience studies calls to
understand media as part of peoples’ everyday lives (Allor, 1988; Bird, 2003; Couldry,
2004; Radway, 1988).
Studies on social gaming find, unsurprisingly, that the gamers are social (Williams,
2006). Whilst, according to Crawford and Rutter’s research, 55% of gamers game
together (1997, p. 273), a significant number of people do not, and, although textual
analyses focus on the individual experience, ethnographic research rarely does.
Gamers play on a variety of platforms, and come from and play within various
cultures, countries, genders, races, classes, ages, etc. They also consume games in
conjunction with other media, as Jenkins (2006) discusses, although they are often
studied as isolated texts or experiences.
One exception to the narrow study of video game play is Schott and Horrell’s
(2000) investigation of girl gamers’ relationship to gaming culture. Even that study,
however, isolates gaming from other aspects of the participants’ lives. Hayes’s (2007)
case study of two women playing Morrowind is another exception. Her focus,
however, is on their use of the game text, rather than the medium itself. Usefully,
though, she questions ‘‘how particular women . . . respond to the figured worlds of
particular games, or how those games might reinforce or challenge players’
perspectives on themselves and the world’’ (Hayes, 2007, p. 28). Research on
identification in video games can benefit from this close attention to players’
interpretations of their actions.
It is generally asserted that the possibilities for identification are greater in video
games than other media because of the interactive qualities of this medium (King &
Krzywinska, 2006, p. 169; Wolf, 2001, p. 3). Filiciak argues that digital environments
‘‘enable us*for the first time in history on such a scale*to manipulate our ‘selves’
and to multiply them indefinitely’’ (2003, p. 88). Gee (2003) discusses this in terms of
the ‘‘tripartite play of identities,’’ which is made up of the player’s own identity, the
 Rethinking Game Studies 349

identity of the avatar she/he plays, and the interplay between the two, which is
expressed as a projection of her/his own identity onto a virtual character.

It transcends identification with characters in novels or movies, for instance,

because it is both active (the player actively does things) and reflexive, in the sense
that once the player has made some choices about the virtual character, the virtual
character is now developed in a way that sets certain parameters about what the
player can do. The virtual character redounds back on the player and affects his or
her future actions. (p. 58)

What Gee points to here, however, is a problematic conflation of interactivity and

identification; interaction does not necessarily demonstrate or require identification
as this research explores below. It is integral that game studies more thoroughly
interrogate how and when specific games invite identification, as well as be more
attentive to the way in which individuals are more or less inclined towards
identification.
Studies of identification in contained video games often rely on textual analyses
(de Mul, 2006; McMahan, 2003; Murphy, 2004; Rehak, 2003). Little qualitative
audience research, however, has been done. Audience research on identification in
other media is also limited and often quantitative in nature (Basil, 1996; Cohen, 1991;
Hoffner & Buchanan, 2005). Translating these studies to video games, moreover, is
difficult. Linking the micro instance of identification with an expansive approach to
media consumption requires rethinking how both issues are studied methodologi-
cally. Generally gamers, like other media audiences, ‘‘are cordoned off for study and
therefore defined as particular kinds of subjects by virtue of their use not only of a
single medium but of a single genre as well’’ (Radway, 1988, p. 363). Rather than look
at media texts, however, one might look at media as practice, as Couldry (2000, 2004)
suggests. By studying people who play video games, rather than gamers or a specific
game text, this study interrogates many of the assumptions of game studies.
Moreover, this close study of individuals reveals the complexities of studying
identification in this medium.

Ethnographic Case Studies

Much of games research focuses too much on placing video game play at the center of
individuals’ lives. Claims about how players identify with video game characters,
similarly, is rarely examined in a qualitative, audience focused way. Ethnographic
methods are one way of correcting these imbalances. As Bird asserts, ‘‘only
ethnography can begin to answer questions about what people really do with media,
rather than what we imagine they might do, or what close readings of texts assume
they might do’’ (2003, p. 191, italics in original). This has been done effectively for
online gaming (Taylor, 2006) and to some extent for a single game (Hayes, 2007).
This project seeks to provide similar attention to two players’ game play, media
consumption, and thoughts about identification. The consistencies and differences
between just two interviews provide a starting point for future research, as other
350 A. Shaw
researchers have found case studies as a useful method in unpacking the complexities
of media use and everyday life (Caughey, 1994; Fisherkiller, 1997).
Video game studies often focus on gamers as a fan group, specific kinds of games,
or the game play of a specific demographic. In contrast, I chose my interviewees,
Norma and Jen (aliases), through my social networks in order to find people who
play video games but do not necessarily identify themselves as ‘‘gamers.’’1 The
‘‘strategic selection of cases’’ was useful in ‘‘testing theoretical ideas’’ (Hammersley &
Atkinson, 1995, p. 43, italics in original). My previous connection to the interviewees,
moreover, was methodologically useful. First, though, this is not a life history per se,
‘‘it is obvious that the taking of an adequate and reliable life history involves a degree
of intimacy with the informant’’ (Langness & Frank, 1965, p. 39). I was able to
contextualize interviewees’ responses to the formal interview with less formal
interactions outside the research moment.
As Griffiths argues, audience studies ‘‘produce’’ a particular type of media
audience, a function which has political implications (1996, p. 62). In this study, I
was specifically not studying social categories, and thus did not seek interviewees
because of a particular characteristic. Indeed, the benefit of this deep analysis of two
individuals is that it illuminates the problems of relying on demographics in isolating
research subjects. For example, I could make as many claims about why Jen and I
were similar because we were born on the same day and were women as I could for
why we were different because of racial and sexual identity differences.
Interviews were conducted as ‘‘gaming interviews’’ in interviewees’ homes. As
described in Schott and Horrell the ‘‘gaming interview . . . was devised to facilitate a
more ‘play like’ atmosphere’’ (2000, p. 40). Moreover, as Cohen (2001) describes,
‘‘identification engages the audience member during reception’’ and is better studied
during and immediately after media consumption. I began with questions about the
interviewees’ general background and then asked about their video game and other
media consumption. Next, interviewees played a game that they had chosen ahead of
time, which contained a character they liked (playable or not). While observing them
play, I talked with them about the game, what they were thinking during certain
periods of play, and what they liked or did not like about the game. When they
reached a stopping point, I asked more questions about the game, if they identified
with their character, and how that related to their other playing experiences and other
media. I also used Cohen’s (2001) identification measures as talking points during the
interviews.

Two People Playing Video Games

Norma was interviewed on a rainy Saturday afternoon in the living room of her
apartment. She is a white woman in her early 30s who grew up in an East Coast city,
where she also attended college. She described herself as, ‘‘a little bit shy but at the same
time kind of talkative [. . .] I like school a lot and I like to travel [. . .] I’m planning to
basically be a lesbian for the rest of my life but I’m technically bisexual.’’ She had
recently finished college and was working for a non-profit. She was a Buffy: The
 Rethinking Game Studies 351

Vampire Slayer fan and part of a performance group with friends. Her game for the
interview was Okami. In this game, the main character is a wolf, the sun goddess
Amaterasu, who must save the world from the demon Orochi. It earned critical acclaim
for its unique art style and paintbrush-based fighting system. Norma chose it because
Amaterasu reminded her of her dog, who died a few years ago, and because many of her
favorite games were on a system (Sega Dreamcast) that she no longer owned.
Jen was interviewed on a rainy, Sunday night in her apartment. The daughter of
Asian immigrants, she grew up in the Midwest where she also went to college. She
said, ‘‘I’m not sure if I would really identify myself as a geek, probably, in the sense of
having geeky interests [. . .] I’m 23 years old, I’m female, I’m a cancer.’’ She is also a
graduate student, knits, and takes hip-hop fitness dance classes. She played Katamari
Damacy because she liked the non-player character the King of All Cosmos. ‘‘I love
the King of All Cosmos [. . .] he has purple tights and a cod piece [. . .] He’s very cute,
very playful. Very cocky too.’’ In the game, the player controls the Prince who, at the
bequest of the King, rolls a ball, or katamari, and collects objects. If the player is able
to get the katamari to the proper size in the allotted time, the King turns it into a star.
Both interviewees listed Firefly and Dr Who among their favorite shows, liked food,
and had an academic interest in public health. Both began gaming in high school. For
Norma, because her parents were not ‘‘really into the whole technology thing,’’ she
did not grow up with digital games. However, Jen’s family did have a Nintendo
system, ‘‘when I was a kid I was never really into it.’’ Similar to the gamers in Schott
and Horrell’s (2000) study, both interviewees selected games without highly gendered
male or female characters. Although the Prince in Katamari Damacy is male and
humanoid, he is not a strongly gendered character. Similarly, although the wolf in
Okami is female, Norma misidentified the character’s gender several times.2
Interestingly, both interviewees selected games that received critical attention for
being unique in terms of game play and asethetics (Roper, 2006; Sulic, 2004). They
were also different from the types of games they typically played, but provided a
point of comparison when they discussed other games.

Gaming with Non-gamers

Knowledge of how and why people play video games often comes from fan studies.
What, however, do ‘‘non-gamers’’ get out of games? To answer this, we must first
understand why they did not identify as gamers. Jen, for example, did not identify as
a hardcore gamer because she is not part of a gaming community.

I feel like if you’re going to be a hardcore gamer you have to be really social about
it. You’ve got to talk to other people about playing games. You’ve got to play games
with other people. Whereas, I think I’m more just a casual player because I play by
myself for short periods of time. Ok that’s a lie [laughs]. But they’re not like World
of Warcraft or something like that.

Norma played more console games than Jen, but only at certain points in her life,
not as a persistent aspect of her media use, and thus did not see herself as a gamer.
352 A. Shaw
Just saying that they are not hardcore gamers, however, does not make them casual
gamers per se. As Juul (2010) and Consalvo (2009) describe, the casual/hardcore
divide encompasses both kinds of games played, as well as individual investment in
playing, neither of which are necessarily constant. Jen played casual games daily and
Norma went through periods of heavy console game play in different moments in her
life. Jen’s media tastes were very similar to the hardcore gamer stereotypes, including
sci-fi television and (previously) anime. In contrast, Norma played games that are
much more associated with typical ‘‘gamers,’’ but her general interests were very
different from the gamer stereotype, including going to art exhibits and hiking. Even
these dichotomies are problematic, however; both interviewees had qualities that fit
and countered gamer stereotypes.
Another way of understanding why they did not identify as gamers is by
understanding what about video games they disliked. Similar to Schott and Horrell’s
(2000, p. 45) participants, Norma did not play many video games because of what she
described as the difficulty of controls. Neither interviewee, moreover, wanted to
devote a great deal of time to playing a game, nor did they like leveling up in Role-
Playing Games (RPGs) or playing First-Person Shooters (FPSs). Research on
gendered gaming, often emphasizes that women enjoy games built around social
relations, romance, emotions, and role-playing (also described in Kerr, 2006, p. 97),
but that was not the case for these interviews. Unlike previous studies, my
interviewees did not mention games being non-competitive or containing open
exploration as reasons for playing.
Some studies assert that a major difference between female gamers and male
gamers is the latter’s taste for violence (Schott & Horrell, 2000, p. 44). It is true that
Jen played mostly time-management games. Her film tastes, however, included Kill
Bill, Fight Club, and Battle Royale, an incongruity she noted. Norma was not as averse
to violent games, but it was not her primary interest in games. Her enjoyment of
games, however, did often stem from violent actions within the game (i.e. beating
enemies). As Hayes (2007) finds, while her interviewees did like the aspects of the
game that were traditionally described as feminine, they also liked stereotypically
masculine play modes. Unlike the participants in Schott and Horrell’s study, Jen did
not mention a lack of female characters in video games as a problem, while Norma
was bothered by the issues of representation. Easy conclusions about how women
play games are called into question even when we look at just two women.
What these players ‘‘get’’ out of playing alone, offers insight into the uses and
gratifications (Katz, Blumer, & Gurevitch, 19731974) games offer. As Royse, Lee,
Undranhbuyan, Hopson, and Consalvo (2007) and Taylor (2006) explore, female
audiences play for many more reasons than social bonds, including mastery and
achievement. For Jen, time management games ‘‘are just like little snacks or breaks.’’
They fulfill needs: ‘‘it just sucks up my mental energy and focuses it. I really like that.
I look for time management games not because I identify with characters but because
it fulfills some weird OCD part of me (laughs).’’ Like Radway’s (2003) romance
readers, she described her desire for time management games as a drug habit;
 Rethinking Game Studies 353

‘‘Sometimes I feel like I’m a junky [laughs], always looking for the next fix.’’ In
contrast, for Norma games generally filled ‘‘down’’ moments in her life.

I used to play video games a lot when I was working retail. Because retail is this sort
of pit of going nowhere-ness you know [. . .] I usually play them when I’m struck
with an abundance of free time combined with that sort of period of lack of
direction that comes before you find your footing again.

The act of playing also fulfilled different needs for her depending on the game. She
enjoyed Tetris because ‘‘you can see yourself making progress at it.’’ She enjoyed
games that require puzzle/problem solving because ‘‘I want to be able to figure things
out and I want to be smart because that’s what I like to do.’’ Finally, she enjoyed
Pokémon, ‘‘mostly because I liked collecting all the little characters and developing
them [. . .] I like games where I can grow things like plants.’’ In turn, why people play
can impact their experience with games and in turn identification with characters, as
I discuss in more detail below.
Norma and Jen made many intertextual connections in describing their media use.
Jen’s identity as a geek was framed by cross-media consumption practices. As she
stated, ‘‘if someone knew that I played games, they’d probably guess that I enjoy these
other forms of media too.’’ Norma described a great deal of intertextuality in her
discussion of video games as well. She expressed a desire for games with playable,
strong female characters, characters with strong interactions with one another, and
characters with friends. This connects with her other media tastes, which include
shows such as Buffy and Firefly, which she described as being about teams of people
working together. Playing video games for both were not social, as it generally is in
studies of gamer culture or virtual worlds. Rather, playing video games fulfilled very
particular, personal needs and desires. That is not to say, however, that their video
game play was divorced from social factors.

An Anti-social Social Activity

Video games are both mass produced media and important forms of social
interaction (Lucas & Sherry, 2004, p. 501). Use of the medium, however, does not
require the social aspects of gaming culture. Norma and Jen felt less connection with
or did not participate in those communal aspects that help define ‘‘hard-core’’ gamer
identity. Jen did not identify as a gamer because she did not interact with other
gamers through gaming forums or magazines. Norma sometimes read video game
magazines, but found they rarely help her find games she liked and so it was not
something that drew her into the broader gaming culture.
Both interviewees described video games as an anti-social social activity. Even
while playing with others, they said, you are not really interacting with them. Jen
described the complicated social/antisocial divide in Dance Dance Revolution (DDR).

That is the most social way to be anti-social that I know of. That you can be
dancing with someone else, not looking at each other, just moving to some arrows.
354 A. Shaw
But nonetheless, I would go to the arcade and play and there would be a whole
group of people there, I think we had like maybe 15 or so people at the arcade every
weekend and we’d talk online and hang out together and it was just the coolest
thing ever. Not really. But that was a big part of my senior year in high school.

Norma’s take on the anti-social quality of social gaming was less favorable.

I have to say that’s one thing I hate is sitting around just watching other people play
video games. I guess I’ve had a lot of guys do it to me [. . .] like a video game is a
very personal activity and even if you have several people playing at once it’s very
personal for those people. You go in your own head and get engrossed in this thing.

That is not to say that video game play cannot be social, but their responses indicate
that the socialness of a given interaction must be defined as such from the perspective
of the actors, not from the outside.
My interviewees’ gaming was neither wholly solitary nor wholly social when looked
at broadly. Both started gaming because of friends, although both mostly played
alone at the time of the interview. Both had partners that also played video games,
although they did not necessarily play together; as Jen said, ‘‘a lot of the times we
were just playing games in the same room.’’ Although Norma’s gaming was not
normally social, in her 20s she was friends with ‘‘the nerdy video game store guys,’’
who helped her find games she would like. When Schott and Horrell note that ‘‘males
constituted a vital frame-of-reference for girl gamers’ gaming practice’’ (2000, p. 41),
they describe this in a negative manner. When my interviewees discussed the
relationship between their play and men at certain points in their lives, however, it
was in a much more cooperative sense. Rather than describe gaming as either social
or solitary, this research suggests that it is important to look at the ways in which
sociality functions in certain types of video game-based interactions. Such an
approach can also make researchers more attentive to the way individual approaches
to the medium affect their interaction with the texts.

A Closer Look at Identification

Much of what is known empirically about how individuals’ identities and
identification ‘‘work’’ in games has been in relation to online gaming, like Massively
Multiplayer Online Games (Chee, Vieta, & Smith, 2006; Mortensen, 2007; Yee, 2001).
These are different environments than solitary play, however, as they rely on complex
interrelations between online and offline identities in the playing of the game, and the
development of social relationships with other players. As Murphy describes, ‘‘Within
the ‘closed’ virtual worlds of most video games, occupying an avatar is a different
experience from going online and representing one’s identity as a different race or
gender’’ (2004, p. 233). Playing as an avatar that is like or unlike you is different from
performing as yourself (or another) in a social space. As this research suggests, the
process of identification in video games is often conflated with the interactivity of
video games.
 Rethinking Game Studies 355

Norma and Jen expressed very different levels of identification with the characters
in the games they played during the interviews. This is in part attributed to the kinds
of games they chose to play, but also must be understood in the context of how they
generally related to media characters. Jen, for example, did not identify with her
character at all.

I don’t really think about the Prince at all, I think about the ball and the stuff in
front of me. Like I feel like if I have to actually identify with something then I have
to have an idea of what that person is feeling or thinking at the time. And although
I imagine that the Prince, if he is indeed thinking, is thinking probably along the
same lines as what I’m thinking, but that would be more like the prince identifying
with me, not me identifying with the Prince. Does that make any sense? Like it
doesn’t start with me.

Jen saw her avatar more like a chess piece than a character she could relate to
emotionally. In the game she was playing, Katamari Damacy, the controllable
character functions as little more than a cursor; the internal motivations of the Prince
are of little consequence. The time management games Jen typically played position
the player in a similar position vis-à-vis the avatar. Norma, on the other hand, felt
much more viscerally attached to her character, but felt distanced from it when the
actions required did not seem logical.

Like running up the hill I really feel [. . .] exhausted but then there’s other times
when I feel like my characters . . . maybe I don’t get what they’re up to. Because I’ve
had a dog, like I feel like I can imagine myself as a dog. I can feel my mouth like
ready to bite some people, but I really can’t feel like I’m ready to paint someone
with my brush.

In this game the visual and narrative characterization of Amaterasu promoted this
deep level of sensory connection, according to Norma; the embodied connection she
felt was interrupted when what the character’s body was doing was illogical. The
kinds of games Norma enjoyed overall were ones that she felt were full sensory
experiences. The games the interviewees chose shaped the kinds of connections they
could have with their characters. Okami, it seems, enabled a greater level of
connection than Katamari Damacy. Their choices of games, however, must also be
understood as a reflection of the type of connections with characters each interviewee
was inclined towards.
Studies on identification often use texts with high levels of character or narrative
development or games that allow players to develop their own characters (see, for
example, Filiciak, 2003; Rehak, 2003). This focus on games with narratives has shaped
what knowledge is available about identification within this medium. It also,
however, presumes that all people are equally inclined towards identification. Jen, for
example, played primarily task oriented and time management games that do not
promote identification per se. Even when she consumed games or media with
stronger narratives, however, she rarely identified with characters; ‘‘When I think of
identity, I think of someone I can relate to because they have a lot of common
356 A. Shaw
feelings, common experiences, common traits. I don’t think I’ve ever came across a
character where I felt like that character is so like me.’’ At one point in the interview
she did mention one video game character she kind of identified with (in a game with
a strong narrative); ‘‘he was really short, like me, and he was kind of like the sidekick,
and he didn’t really know where he came from, but he actually found a family full of
people that looked like him, and that was really nice.’’ In general, however, she said, ‘‘I
don’t think that you necessarily need to identify with a character to really feel a
connection with the story.’’
Norma expressed greater interest in identifying with characters. In particular, she
expressed a desire for games with playable, strong female characters. For example,
while she often misremembered the gender of the avatar in Okami, she enjoyed the
character more once reminded it was a she-wolf. In her media consumption in
general, identifying with characters was important.

I especially appreciate the ones with strong female characters [. . .] I guess I’ve just
always tried to be tough [. . .] And well also because I’m a girl and I’m sort of little,
and people think I’m not tough at all and can walk all over me [. . .] I also enjoy
being tough and girly feminine . . . so I like characters that are able to do both at the
same time.

Both women’s answers point to the fact that identity and identification are strongly
linked, but in ways that do not map easily onto single social demographics. As Jen’s
comments indicate, moreover, researchers cannot assume that identification is an
important need fulfilled by media consumption.
What identification means in video games is not particularly clear. In media studies
generally, as Cohen (2001) argues, identification is talked around but it is not clearly
explicated. It is also often conflated with other responses to media like affinity or
parasocial interaction. Cohen goes on to provide a list of questions intended to measure
empathy for, sharing perspective with, and goals of a character in the text, as well as a
loss of self-awareness during exposure. Rather than use the questions as a measurement
tool, however, I used them as a starting point for discussing identification in video
games with my interviewees, and how it might differ from other media.
When asked if she felt like part of the action, Jen responded that she did ‘‘because
without me I mean there wouldn’t be any.’’ Norma felt both connected to and
distanced from her character based on whether she felt connected to the actions in
the game. ‘‘I really relate to the fact that I have four paws and a tail and a nice big
mouth for biting people*but now I’m being given a sword.’’ When asked if they felt
fully absorbed and forgot themselves, both noted that games they liked could do that
for them; in fact, that was what makes for a good and absorbing game.
Understanding what the character was thinking was more difficult, however, as
there was little in these games that told the player about the characters’ thought
process. Moreover, there are many things outside the game that are important for the
player but not the character, as Newman (2002) describes. Jen said, ‘‘you end up
thinking about all these things about the game itself as a game as opposed to a real life
 Rethinking Game Studies 357

experience so you know things like secret combos, things like that are not really through
the character’s eyes.’’ Thus, the very interactive nature of the medium undermines the
process of identification (in the sense of getting into the character’s head).
When asked if they had a ‘‘good understanding’’ of the character, neither Jen nor
Norma felt they did, but they had different strategies for compensating for this. Jen
said that a player just needed ‘‘to understand the goals of the game and how to
achieve them.’’ When Norma could not connect with a game character, however, she
relied on relating the game to extra-textual material, like her former dog or Buffy.
Similarly, when asked if they connected emotionally with their character, both said
that they often do not feel that way, in part because the character’s emotion and
identity are rarely developed in video games.
The interactivity of games, often assumed to produce a strong feeling of
identification, may in fact replace the process of identification. Many of Norma
and Jen’s responses to Cohen’s questions indicated that video games create a state of
flow: ‘‘the state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems
to matter’’ (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990, p. 4). This also explains why connecting with
play in the game is difficult when the player does not feel that the actions properly
connect with the character they are playing or the task they are doing; such
dissonance interrupts flow.
Cohen’s questions about whether or not audience members care when a character
succeeds or fails were also less useful for video games because, as both interviewees
pointed out, the successes and failures were theirs. As Jen put it, ‘‘Of course! [laughs]
I want my little chess piece to be able to, I don’t know, kill off the bishop or whatever
it is they are doing [. . .] but only because I’m the one controlling the character and
not because I empathize with the character.’’ As the goals of the player are the goals of
the character, there is a strong connection between audience and text. This is part of
what makes playing video game so different from consuming less interactive media,
as Norma explained.

I like enacting that drama and being the main character as opposed to watching it
on TV. And I like the idea of thinking and participating. And the successes and
failures are my own successes and failures and that I can play well. In a TV show, it’s
not about me failing or succeeding it’s about the character failing or succeeding.

Much of how the interviewees responded to Cohen’s questions demonstrate that

action in video games fulfill the role typically taken by emotional and empathetic
attachments in other media. Thus, as Gee argues, the interactivity of games is related
to identification with game characters. These actions, however, do not necessarily
engender identification, as what the interviews described was not identification with
the avatar per se.

Conclusion
This study explored the experiences of video game play for two women who do not
identify as gamers. There are as many ways in which these two interviewees are as
358 A. Shaw
similar as they are different. Similarly, their interests in video games are analogous
and distinct. Both help to complicate video game studies. This study on solitary play
demonstrates that more research on how different needs are fulfilled by different
types of gaming and the many ways sociality functions in gaming is necessary.
Moreover, it demonstrates that type of games played may have an influence on if
players identify with characters, but individual approaches to media may also have an
effect.
One of the things that was clear in this project is that identification requires that
players see the video game character/avatar as separate from themselves. In this sense,
we can think of identification much in the same way Butler does: ‘‘the one with
whom I identify is not me, and that ‘not being me’ is the condition of the
identification. Otherwise, as Jacqueline Rose reminds us, identification collapses into
identity, which spells the death of identification itself ’’ (2004, p. 145). This recalls
Gee’s (2003) ‘‘tripartite play of identities,’’ however, his model presumes that game
avatars are seen as distinct and developed entities from the players, which is not
always the case. Indeed, all attempts to describe identification in games must be more
attentive to how specific games promote different types of connections and
differences between player and avatar. Both interviewees asserted that character
development in video games is shallow. This contrasts greatly with the assertion
about comics by McCloud (1993), repeated in articles on video games (Barton, 2004),
that more iconic characters make it easier for audiences to put themselves in the place
of the character. Logically, video games without well-developed characters would
encourage players to take the place of the avatar. It would seem, however, that in the
case of these interviewees, the lack of detail caused them to be more self-aware than
engaged in identification; more research is needed to assess this.
Gee’s tripartite play of identities is not necessarily active in all games, which is not
to say that it is useless but needs to be understood as a function of a particular kind of
positioning of the player within a game. The assumption that players identify with
game characters at all needs to be questioned before researchers can address how this
process operates. Future research on how particular types of games promote (or
discourage) identification with video games characters is necessary; effort must be
made, however, to distinguish identification from interactivity. Moreover, researchers
must be more attentive to individuals’ tendencies towards identification in order to
better understand when and how this process operates, particularly across media
practices. This should not be towards the goal of creating a taxonomy of how types of
gamers (whether grouped on the basis of gender, age, kind of play, etc.) identify with
characters. Rather, understanding the complexity of identities, identification
processes, and media consumption must be made more central to game studies.

Acknowledgement
An earlier version of this paper, titled Relocating Gamer Studies: Two Case Studies in
Solitary Gaming, was presented at the International Communication Association
conference in 2009. The author would like to thank Liz Bird, Cathy Hannabach, and
 Rethinking Game Studies 359

two anonymous reviewers for their comments on this article as well as Norma and
Jen for sharing their stories with me. Work on this article was also supported by The
Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, the Mudra
Institute for Communication Ahmedabad, and the University of Pittsburgh.

Notes
[1] To maintain their anonymity, I cannot describe our connections in more detail.
[2] According to one anonymous reviewer, the wolf is referred to as both male and female within
the game and thus Norma’s confusion is not surprising.

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