role of customization on avatar identification and performance in a kart racing game

• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2047/D20416826

As the gaming industry has grown, many games allow players to customize their character. Research shows that character customization enhances avatar identification, and avatar identification affects many aspects of a player, including psychology, behavior, arousal, learning, and self-building. Few studies focus on the interaction between avatar identification and performance in racing games. The character types in racing games are different from those in other games. In kart racing games, players can see their character and the kart at the same time. When players can customize two different types of avatar and see them simultaneously in the game, I wonder how avatar customization affects avatar identification and performance. A kart racing game was designed and developed to study the influence of the combination of different types of avatar on avatar identification and player performance. I compared four groups of participants. In the first three groups, players customized different avatar types: (1) driver and car, (2) driver only, (3) car only, and the control group with (4) the default character and kart. The research collects avatar identification and player experience through a questionnaire, and collects player performance through in-game data. The results showed that the Character Only group had significantly higher avatar identification than the Kart Only, and the Kart Only group performed significantly better than the Character Only group. There was no difference between the other groups. Different types of customizations affect the avatar identification and performance. Developers should pay attention to the type of customization, when designing kart racing games. --Author's abstract