Wolfendale, Jessica - Virtual Harm and Attachment

Avatar attachment and the possibility of virtual harm has been dismissed by some writers, Wolfendale argues. But it is because players are attached to their avatars that immoral actions can occur. Harm must occur to a real person, but avatars are virtual, so therefore for avatar harm to be real it must travel through the avatar to affect the real person. Virtual harm is minimized by earlier writers by assuming avatar attachment is not as meaningful as other kinds of attachement, like to property.

Actions in VW are real because they are speech acts with intention and action. They have 'illocutionary' (intention) and 'perlocutionary' (social effect and significance) force. Avatars are 'conduits' for this force as well as reflexive acts of a player, who redefines himself by experimenting with identities online.

Belief over appropriate and inappropriate avatar violence demonstrates that avatar violence has real moral consequences. That is to say, some avatar violence has been normalized, other violence is outlawed.

An avatar creates a sense of virtual presence.

Avatar attachment does not cause internet addiction or withdrawal from normal social relations. She cites several studies to this effect.

The article needs a sense of the alternate uses of avatars. Not everyone identifies strongly with their avatar. The avatar can be a tool, as in a MMOG. The article is talking about a specific kind of world and a specific kind of attachment, where creating a virtual space and self with significance is the goal. She argues that 3D worlds cause greater avatar identification but this is not necessarily the case, if the world is of a different genre or the player has alternative goals. Griefers form no such attachment to their avatars; MMOGs operationalize avatars into tools for success. Attachment requires a set of shared symbolic values, it is not emergent from the 3D space.

One distinction I think is not clearly made in this article is the difference between harm to the avatar and harm to the player, which can obviously become confused, but can also be an important distinction. I think there's a difference on folk-understanding level between harm to the avatar, being killed in a MMOG, and harm to the player, like the LambdaMOO rape.

That is to say, we should be careful not to conflate the actions of and on avatars with the actions of and on players. Using frame theory: the frame of the avatar is within the frame of the player which is within the frame of the person. A person could be harmed through a VW directly, like if someone's boyfriend broke up with them over WoW. A player could be harmed by being called a noob or being left out of a guild. An avatar could be harmed by being attacked and killed, but this would not harm the player unless they took it personally. If the act is just 'part of the game' (the avatar frame) then the attack can be compartmentalized. Griefing attacks are designed to harm someone on a player or personal level. Corpse-camping or insta-killing attacks the player frame by interrupting the play practice. Games and play serve to build up the division between avatar and self. Thus, typical reactions of people to being 'too attached' to your avatar. We have a cultural assumption that play is distinct from reality that results in building these frames of person/player/avatar.