Document Type
Book Chapter
Publication Date
2018
Abstract
Both players and game developers have great influence over how avatars—via their assembled components— manifest in digital game play. Developers craft their foundational platforms and draw on those infrastructures to craft dynamic code that enables movements, appearances, and abilities. But those potentials call into question whether avatars are avatars until they are played—players click avatars into being, customize their bodies and attire, drive their actions and interactions, and sometimes bring them outside the game world through physical representations. So, given avatars’ joint reliance on developers and players, and given legal frameworks such as copyright law, who really “owns” a video game avatar?
Automated Citation
Tyler T. Ochoa and Jaime Banks,
Licensing & Law Who Owns an Avatar?
(2018),
Available at: https://digitalcommons.law.scu.edu/facpubs/960