“Celebrity Avatar” Feasting on In-Game Items: A Gamers’ Play Arena

Abstract

Gamers like to socially interact with other players and show off their avatar whenever it is conceivable in performance and appearance. This study aimed to develop a new construct—“Celebrity Avatar”—based on the celebrity endorsement model and player-avatar identification theory and add value to the survey using theory of consumption value (TCV) as a mediating role. As we know, celebrity and avatar identification show a positive influence on consumer behavioral decisions, so celebrity avatars altogether as a new construct showed positive results. The self-brand connection (SBC) and fantasy have a positive effect on the celebrity avatar. We found that four components of TCV, that is, enjoyment value, character competency value, visual character value, and monetary value, are applicable for depicting how celebrity avatars can persuade consumers to buy in-game items.

What is the Gaming Lifestyle?

“…In truth, the gaming lifestyle could only be established due to the maturity of its people and the evolvement of the mediatic setting [19]. The gaming scene, partially, was only popularized as a product of the protoindustry of social media entertainment in which any person may be fit to become its own show presenter and protagonist [10], [36], [39] [43], [59].…”

“…Similar to traditional media models, streamers and social media performers influence their audience with the cognate principles of mass communication [43]. Nowadays, these social media pseudo-celebrities are responsible for what is called the economy of attention [59]. It is a recent theory of mass communication that describes the rising importance of attention capital and how information and entertainment gave birth to a mental capitalism characterized by the value given to attention in place of other forms of capital [24].…”

“…Streaming channels, when treated as a form of mass media, can form opinions and create a more pluralistic and democratic online environment; so that the streamer, due to their proximity to the community, becomes both a spokesperson and a model to be followed [19], [57]. On the other hand, the whole relationship as a spectator, albeit as interactive as current technology has made this experience, is still a parasocial relationship wherein the viewer is watching a mediatic persona created especially for an online live performance [46], [59].…”

“…In fact, no stream is successful unless it can create and put into practice three concepts: identification -the viewer needs to see a little of themselves in the streamer -, projection -the viewer yearns to see whom he would like to be or establish an idealized relationship with the streamer -and presence -the streamer must be part of the lives of the audience on different screens or social media. This way, a content creator may influence gamer groups, their in-game and out-of-game consumption, create new fashions and develop as part of the entertainment industry [38], [46], [59]. This subject could be contemplated as a new movement of global media cultural expansion, colonized by brands and corporations commanding the attention economy [24], [22], [48].…”

“…For this article, the objective is to organize a concept of Gaming Lifestyle (GLS) based on online gaming behavior and out-game factors of influence such as streaming, social media activity, and marketing initiatives [39], [47], [58], [59]. The idea of the GLS is to portray the universe of practices that constitute the life of a gamer.…”