The popularity of games like Roblox has surged due to their open-world nature, enabling exploration, social interaction, and creative expression through avatars. Teens engage with these games not just for entertainment, but also for communication, vir...
The popularity of games like Roblox has surged due to their open-world nature, enabling exploration, social interaction, and creative expression through avatars. Teens engage with these games not just for entertainment, but also for communication, virtual purchases, and escapism. Consequently, there is increasing interest in studying the relationship between individuals and their avatars, much remains unexplored in this field. This study investigates the alignment between game motives and avatar perception among Roblox players. An online survey was conducted, featuring 20 questions divided into game motives and avatar perception sections, among 133 Russian teenagers. Results showed correlations between game motives and avatar perceptions. For example, the experimental motive is closely linked to perceiving the avatar as oneself (avatar-as-me) and symbiote, while social motive leads to the avatar as tool perception, moreover perceiving avatar “as me” correlates with all game motives. Also, this study showed the high importance of avatar appearance, which is connected to avatar perception but can't be explained only by this. Understanding avatar perception is crucial for cultivating a safer and more user-friendly online environment and creating new games that will attract more players and help developers.