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“I Harbour Strong Feelings for Tali Despite Her Being a Fictional Character”: Investigating Videogame Players’ Emotional Attachments to Non-Player Characters
Journal article   Peer reviewed

“I Harbour Strong Feelings for Tali Despite Her Being a Fictional Character”: Investigating Videogame Players’ Emotional Attachments to Non-Player Characters

Jacqueline Burgess and Christian M Jones
Game Studies, Vol.20(1)
2020
url
http://gamestudies.org/2001/articles/burgessjonesView
Webpage
url
https://gamestudies.org/2001/articles/burgessjonesView

Abstract

Film, Television and Digital Media Communication and Media Studies videogame characters non-player characters Mass Effect emotional attachment qualitative research player-centric
This study investigated players' emotional attachment to two non-player characters, Tali and Garrus, from BioWare's Mass Effect videogame series. Two forum threads, created soon after the release by BioWare of Mass Effect 2 in January 2010 dedicated to these two characters, were downloaded and analyzed using thematic analysis. The results found that players had developed intense emotional attachments to the characters, but the emotional attachment for the female character of Tali was expressed from the players' point of view, while the emotional attachment for the male character of Garrus was expressed from the player character of Shepard's point of view. These emotional attachments influenced how players engaged with the game mechanics of Mass Effect 2 (BioWare, 2010), for example players customized their player character's armour to match that of Tali or Garrus. As previous research into videogame characters has focused on playable characters, this article advances knowledge by considering the relationship between players and non-player characters in videogames.

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