This week in class we discovered quite a bit about in game identity, and what it means to customize a character in a game. When I set about creating my character in World of Warcraft I had originally thought to simply look for why certain options were missing, but I slowly began to take notice as to why I made some particular decisions in regards to customizing my character.

What I considered most when customizing my character was the idea of “sameness identity” from Adrienne Shaw’s “He Could Be a Bunny Rabbit for All I Care! How We Connect with Characters and Avatars”. In it Shaw states how “sameness identity describes feeling that one has become or is the character–sameness identity refers to the way games make players think about their actions in terms of themselves rather than in relation to characters in the text as separate beings” (Shaw). Though I only went through the customizer and didn’t actually interact with other characters or story I viewed my character as me, and not a separate entity I simply controlled.

When it comes to my decisions in terms of customization I tried to consider why I made the decisions I did, some of these were easy to trace back, while others were more difficult.

The first aspect of my character I chose was its “faction” which was essentially its species. As to why I chose a member of the Draenei, well its rather simple. When I think of myself being a human I think of all the problems humans have caused, and how flawed we are, so I prefer to think of myself in game as something “other”. Then of course there was gender, which there were only the two options, male and female. When it comes to gender I am not usually conflicted, I always choose the female. Why this is I had to think about though, and it goes deeper than the stereotypical “females are nice to look at” or “I wish I were a female”. Gender, in and of itself, I view as a social construct. We’ve limited ourselves to particular fashions, looks, accessories, jobs, responsibilities and such all because of simply…sexual parts. I do not wish to be of the female sex, I am fine being of the male sex, but I do not wish to conform to the limitations of the male gender. Therefore I often choose the female gender in games, not to go against the male gender but to look beautiful, and accessorize as I please, which is often only an option as a female character.

With hair color, face, horns and hair style I didn’t think  too much about it, I just thought what looked most like how I would like to view myself in a mirror. I think the end result is something that somewhat mirrors me in a fantasy world, though the breasts are a bit too circular and large for my liking.

Overall my interaction with the character customizer in World of Warcraft was interesting, I felt that the choices offered were very limited, and that the options for different genders were missing. Additionally the gender choices seemed to fit the two binaries of what “male” and “female” are defined as through looks, and the difference in armor for women was a bit unsettling in how it showcased the breasts on most of the female characters, but that’s a discussion for another time.