Customization, emotional bonds and identification with the player character : A study into the effects of text-based gameplay

The aim of this study is to take a closer look at how customization, or the lack thereof, affectsthe player to character emotional bond and identification in a digital game. Examining previousarticles and studies with similar aim, the lack of study pertaining to a certain game formatsurfaced and sparked a research interest. To gain some clarity into how character customization,and the identification and bond it inspires in players, would be affected by a non-audiovisualbranching stories digital game the researcher created a small game for this study. This paperexplores if previous research results on RPGs can be transferred to the format of a text-basednon-audiovisual branching story game. For this qualitative study, ten people, divided in twogroups, played a version of the game and answered follow-up questions in the form of aquestionnaire. In addition, some observations were carried out of the game play sessions. Theseanswers were studied to give the individuals perspective, as well as allowing for the study of thephenomena by reviewing multiple perspectives to distinguish patterns. The results indicate thatcaring for a character takes longer if the player is not allowed to customize it. It was also indicated that the actual customization was more important than the character created