Avatar creators need to be improved in video games. Here’s why.

When I dyed my hair pink earlier this year, I couldn’t wait to change my avatar in Stardew Valley. All kinds of real-world firsts were on my post-dye to-do list: take a selfie, show my friends, shock the hell out of my mom. But nothing felt more urgent than starting up my favorite game and taking 16-bit me from mousy brown to peachy pink, marking my real-world transformation with an equally awesome virtual one.

For me and many others, character customization is a cornerstone in satisfying gameplay. Whether you’re crafting your likeness with The Sims 4, picking between cartoonish expressions in Nintendo’s Mii Maker, or selecting the best armor for a Fallout mission, making your digital personage your own can turn an otherwise average playing experience into something memorable and meaningful. 

And yet, too often we find ourselves creating avatars from rudimentary setups equipped with only a handful of options — sometimes discovering more options available later in the game, and other times not. In an industry where user experience is not only paramount but also unlimited in its capacity for improvement, how is it most character creators are still so bad?

Throughout video game history, character design has been a lightning rod for controversy. Whether we’re criticizing Snake’s butt, Dante’s hair, or Mario’s nipples [shudder], how video game characters look matters deeply to the players that embody them. When professional creators miss the mark, we demand changes — which studios often deliver, since appeasing customers typically benefits their bottom lines. The level of importance gamers ascribe to character appearance only grows when we’re doing the designing ourselves. It’s something games researcher Dr. Selen Türkay, who received her doctorate from Columbia University and who currently teaches undergraduate game design at Queensland University of Technology, calls “the IKEA effect.”

“It’s not that high-quality of a piece of furniture, but because you spent time on it and you built it, it becomes yours,” Türkay explains. “There’s a similar thing going on with avatars. The more people spend time building and customizing their avatars, the more time they spend in-game getting attached to the player experience.”

Numerous studies have positively correlated the strength of player identification with avatars and extended, satisfying gameplay. In a Türkay conducted on customization in Lord of the Rings Online, she found that players who were able to substantially customize their character were more motivated to play the game again.

“It’s very much tied to the human experience of identity construction,” Türkay adds. “That’s a very fluid thing. We don’t have one dimension of identity. We always construct and reconstruct our identities, and for many people, avatar customization and playing with avatars in these environments provides a means to show that.”

“We don’t have one dimension of identity. We always construct and reconstruct our identities.”

By identifying more deeply with the characters we embody, and growing with them across sessions, players invest more time, emotion, and, in some cases, financial resources in their play experience. The more we feel that our characters are truly “ours,” the more we like the games we play them in. 

That’s what makes collecting costumes and retrieving gear from loot boxes such an effective means of enticing gameplay. Cosmetic changes can stand both as status symbols of in-game achievement (think the 1.2 million Bell Animal Crossing crown) as well as expressions of identity.

But who doesn’t remember a time they went hunting for an accessory, hairstyle, piece of clothing, or some other avatar choice, only to come up empty-handed? According to psychologist and video game enthusiast Jamie Madigan, those moments reflect a design failing that can severely undercut both gaming’s more personal aspects and the sense of satisfaction we receive from interactive entertainment.

“I sometimes wonder if the specific things you can customize or your specific options are as important as the fact that you have the ability to change those things,” speculates Madigan.

“What makes games intrinsically motivating, why people do them just for the sake of doing them, is that they get to make choices. You get to express yourself through those choices, and being able to choose and customize the appearance of your avatar goes a long way towards satisfying that basic psychological desire to make meaningful choices.”

When I changed my Stardew avatar’s hair from brown to pink, I was reflecting a major life decision on-screen — effectively imbuing my character with the meaning behind the salon plunge in the real-world. In games where having pink hair (or the right shade of pink hair) wasn’t an option, I felt constantly reminded of a choice I wanted but that wasn’t offered to me. 

As a white cis woman who made an optional cosmetic choice, that was an annoyance. For players of color, players with disabilities, non-binary players, players who wear religious attire, and more, limiting character creators represents of harmful erasure within video games.

“You get to express yourself through those choices, and being able to choose and customize the appearance of your avatar goes a long way.”

Avatar creation remains a largely toxic source of marginalization that functions as a way of othering identities that game developers have deemed unworthy of inclusion. Framing an intrinsic component that shows some players as “optional” add-on features is exclusionary and belittling.

“When you look at demographics of players, there’s a really broad range,” Türkay says, using avatar ageism as an example. “The average player age used to be early twenties or something like that. Then, it became mid-thirties or so. Now, we have people in their forties, fifties, and sixties. We’re different as we age. Older players want to be represented, whether it’s with white hair or balding hair or a body that is a bit saggy. That representation is really important, otherwise those games will lose that demographic.”

Türkay and Madigan are quick to point out that not everyone wants to make their avatars look like them; again, it’s about presenting all kinds of choices so gamers can create whatever it is they want: themselves, idealized versions of themselves, other people they know, fictional heroes, or some cool-looking weird shit. 

But when a game has a character creator, everyone should have the ability to make their likeness (or not). Yes, many PC games support fan-created mods, but that presents yet another obstacle between marginalized people and play. Technology has progressed to the point that gamers shouldn’t have to search for and download something that may or may not exist so they feel seen. Of course, they could create their own, but that requires the skills, time, and motivation. What’s more, some games simply aren’t intended to be modded. Narrative-driven games with fixed protagonists could stand to improve their diversity across the board.

The importance of representation across entertainment is well-trodden territory, and it’s clear some studios already understand its importance. Just last year, Cyberpunk 2077 made headlines with the announcement of its to gender expression. Sure, that garnered some negative reactions from trolls, but nearly all of the press was positive. 

That said, it should be noted that developer CD Projekt Red has received criticism for their representation of trans people within the Cyberpunk environment, and I’m not asserting that their approach is the gold standard.

The fact is, inclusion still isn’t the norm — and for an industry built on fantasy, that doesn’t add up.

After the 2019 E3 reveal of Marvel’s Avengers received negative feedback from fans, the game’s publisher Square Enix all five main characters — Black Widow, Thor, Iron Man, Hulk, and Captain America — and pushed back the game’s release date a full four months (though Square Enix said it was for “polishing” purposes and not specifically related to character redesigns.) 

It was apparent that making the Avengers actually look like Avengers was an essential component of player experience (and more likely than not, game sales), so Square Enix stepped it up and gave us the characters we wanted. Every studio and publisher should be doing their best to offer the same kind of improvement for the character creators we use to craft ourselves.

It’s the ethically correct thing to do, and even if we assume the worst in gaming execs, the financially wise thing to do. If we like games more when we can personalize them, for every game where that makes sense, personalization should be a high-priority feature on every studio’s checklist. It could function to not only increase individual sales, but also to enhance word of mouth around a release and make created content like YouTube videos and Twitch stream that much more unique.

“If games have camera modes or selfie modes where it’s easy to control the camera and take a picture of your character in the environment just the right way and then be able to share it, that pays dividends in terms of marketing and awareness,” Madigan notes. “Especially for games that continually add content through a year or throughout a life cycle of a game. People share that stuff, look for it, and subscribe to each other’s social media feeds in hopes of seeing more of it.”

Image: Bethesda softworks

Outfitted with sliding-scale color gradients, adjustable details, and accessories galore (all suited to the given game’s genre, of course), future avatar creators should offer a plethora of choice that players want to see, try, and share. 

When I ask Türkay why that doesn’t seem to be an area of greater importance to studios now, she’s hard-pressed to give me one answer. It could be that money and work hours are simply prioritized elsewhere, or that the popularity of first-person POV games has made this a moot point for some. And, of course, gaming’s notorious lack of developer diversity undoubtedly plays a role.

Still, when I think of games, I think of Stardew Ali with her pink hair, flourishing allegiance to the Junimos, and well-established farming business. If video games are meant to offer players an escape into a fantastic world with no limits, it’d be nice if we could be whoever we want once we’re there. Maybe someday soon we’ll have those options available at every level.