Abstract
Video game avatars vary from game to game in their aesthetics, dimension, perspective, and abilities, yet the function of the avatar is singular: it is the mediating technology through which a player is able to interact with the game world to achieve a specific objective. Reflecting on the operation of the avatar and the similar juristic function of legal personhood as mediating technologies, this chapter examines how the video game avatar re-enacts law’s everyday fragmentations of the self but also uniquely makes visible the gaps between these elements.
By drawing parallels between the connection of the player to the avatar and the connection of the natural person to the legal person, this chapter analyses the different modes of interaction with the avatar (the figures of the player, the gamer, and the fan) to perform a cultural legal reading of legal personhood. In doing so, it also demonstrates the ways in which legal analysis of video games is not limited to the narrative and ludic features of the game proper but extends to the affordances and context that structure the experience of play itself.