Last week we looked at how avatars have grown from a simple icon into a very useful tool for users and marketers alike. We have seen their
application change from a way to express your individuality into a way to express your identity online. Previously, we even looked at the real world application of the avatar. This week, however, we are going to shift gears a little and look at the avatar as a marketing tool.

I Just Wii’d Myself

I can hear you all screaming, “Dean, Where were the first real avatars seen”?

Well, looking back, one of the first true applications of an avatar was in the game Ultima Online (which was also one of the first MMORPG’s). This was the first time that we saw the avatar in its fully customizable form. At character creation you were able to not only pick the hair, hair color, etc but you could also dress him as you saw fit. This was one of the first applications of the “customizable avatar”. Gaming companies started to take notice of this phenomenon of customization and how much it attracted the user’s attention and soon after second generation avatar customization interfaces started to pop-up in video games.

Magical Bubba Is An Example Of An Ultima Online Avatar

EA (Electronic Arts) and Neversoft were probably the first two companies to go next-gen with this feature. One of the big draws of avatar
customization is personalization. These two industry giants saw the opportunity to capture users through use of a very in-depth character creation application. This was the first time a user could not only select but then adjust hair, hair color, eyebrows, brow size etc; they even built in a feature for bone structure customization which allowed the users to create very, very distinct images of themselves to use right in the game. Some companies took this a step further by allowing you to map your face to the avatar through use of a digital camera.
But how did this become such a selling point?

An Example Of EA’s Character Creation

A Character Made Using Neversoft’s Interface For Tony Hawk

Once marketers realized the immense popularity of customizing characters (i.e. using one’s own face online, in-depth physical alteration, etc) they eschewed the generic character models of old and started “create-a-character”. Create-a-character soon became a HUGE fad and every
single game followed suit. Often times you could not even see your character because it was a driving game or a first person shooter; however, people still ate it up and the gaming industry continued to thrive on this gimmick. It eventually died down, becoming less prevalent, but what started to emerge because of this were more finely crafted character creation systems. When used in conjunction with the right type of game, these creation systems completely enhanced the experience.

Sony and Nintendo (along with Linden Labs, who we will discuss next week) are at the forefront of this new charge of the avatar. They
have each created distinctly different interfaces and platforms in which the user’s characters interact with the online world. Nintendo has crafted a very unique and very Nintendo version of this called the Mii. A Mii is a very cartoony and quite funny version of the user that is fully customizable. You can use your Mii on your Wii as a virtual wallet to store all of your achievements and points. A Mii is also available to use in certain games on the Wii and once you take it online that is your online identity. The Mii offers a very cool stylized version of an avatar to take online and compete against others. On the Playstation front however, things are a little different. Playstation has modeled their HOME platform in more of a Second Life way. It is a giant interactive environment that acts as the central hub for all Playstation 3 owners going online. Here they will be able to meet and play games together as well as interact and chat. It seems there has also been mention of online stores for your avatar so that you can buy your character Nike shoes. Essentially, customizing your character has become a monetization opportunity for large companies and marketers. Platforms like HOME and Second Life have become the testing ground for this concept (although there have been some lesser known games from Korea testing this as well) and they are at the leading edge of the marketing revolution of avatars. They know that people will pay a small fee in order to get unique items for their character. Some companies have even gone out of their way to set up virtual stores.

An Example Of A Nintendo Mii

An Example Of The New Playstation Home Platform

Next week we will visit the land of Second Life and tie this whole thing together. We will explore their new online stores and how Second Life might eventually morph into Web 3.0 (they are certainly on pace to do so). If they can become main-stream enough and start grabbing merchants to integrate their stores more and more into the Second Life landscape, it seems that more and more people would be willing to give it a try. Eventually the Web will be a virtual landscape where you can walk around and explore and shop all in the same application.

Until Next Time…

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 30th, 2007 at 5:01 pm and is filed under Entertainment, Uncategorized, fringe marketing, internet marketing, new marketing technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.