Exploring identity through gaming?

Exploring Identity through gaming: True or false?

Everyone has their own opinion about it. Various scholars stated various opinions on whether RPG's are helpful in discovering your identity. When I first read this article I came in thinking that it was actually about video games. Sarah Bowman was actually discussing Role-playing. 

• But reading her article it made me realize that it was relevant towards the gaming industry. There are many RPG games out there that "provide a healthy, useful outlet for creativity, self-expression, communal connection, and the development of important skills over time" (Bowman). She made many arguments about RPG. 

• Bowman's key argument is that RPGs connect to a wide set of concerns and endeavors: They are game-based performance spaces, they foster explorations of identity, and they have relatively untapped potential for applications in education. 
• interaction within RPGs can provide community for players (for example, by building empathy; 
• Bowman concludes the book with a typology of nine different forms of role-playing characters (chapter 7).
•  These types—"the Doppelganger Self," 
• "the Devoid Self," 
• "the Augmented Self," 
• "the Fragmented Self," 
• "the Repressed Self," 
• the Repressed Self is Bowman's attempt to characterize how some RPG players express, as she puts it, their "Inner Child" through game play, allowing the performance of the "youthful, naïve self within each of us" (170).
• "the Idealized Self," 
• "the Oppositional Self," 
• "the Experimental Self," 
• "the Taboo Self"—
• The Taboo Self represents a classification of RPG play as a means to express often taboo behaviors (such as rape, incest, and transgenderism) in the relatively consequence-free environment of a game.

present the reader with a provocative starting point in attempting to characterize the forms of identity that evolve through the play of RPGs... Bowman's Selves, which are presented descriptively and supported by anecdotal evidence, are a potentially useful typology that could begin to capture the various ways by which players of RPGs make meaning of their activities within an RPG game space.

Now when I apply this article to the gaming industry, there are various games that do enable creativity and community. Little Big planet, for instance, enables people to be creative, and also to learn about organization and structure. Example: 

This is a marriage proposal someone made in little big planet.

Little big planet is a good game that enables creativity. There is a blog that I found that someone commented about finding their cultural identity through a game called: Saints Row 2.

Saints Row 2

Game play of Saints Row 2

Customization in Saints Row 2

He stated that he was able to find his identity by creating characters that looked just like him. 

"As I moved onto other games that featured character creation (Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Fallout 3 etc.) I began trying to recreate myself in the way that I’ve always wanted to look, resembling the man that has played the biggest role in my life: my father. As I’ve matured, I’ve come to terms with my appearance and my own cultural identity. I feel confident in my ‘British-ness’ even if I know that my physical appearance may never reflect this. But whenever I return to the world of gaming, I’m allowed to look like the man I want. Though that may never be able to extend to the real world, for the time being I’m okay with that."

In Charlie Appleton's case, he was able to find his identity through gaming. In other cases, I can see the cons to gaming and how it causes us to lose a part of our identity. There was a blog I posted about a clip that a friend shared with me. Midterm blog. In the blog it has a clip called Propaganda gaming. It gave me a new perspective on games. From the research that I have done so far, it seems like there is not real definitive answer to if gaming helps or prevents you from discovering your identity. I can see it either being beneficial or torture. 

Personal Experience:
In my experience with Little Big Planet or even with playstation, it was a easy process. First my username for playstation, I like my privacy so I'm not going to write down my sn, I chose it because it was easy to remember. Next a picture for my playstation, I chose a certain picture because I thought it was cute. This is how I am able to express myself.
In Little big planet, I chose certain characters because I thought they were cute and it was appealing. Example, I like wolves, so sometimes I would choose wolf-like characters till I got bored of it and moved on. 
In regards to other games, I don't admit this to many people, but I like playing final fantasy. The reason why is because it has a awesome storyline and character development, and it also has romance. Everything girls like reading in books. It is both appealing towards males and females. I enjoy playing those games because it takes you on adventures that you would never experience. In a way the characters become your avatars. In a way it seems like you lose a part of your identity or you gain a trait from the things you learn from the game. With every story there is a moral, it's up to the readers to decide if they choose to apply it in their lives. 

Exploring identity through gaming, I believe that it is possible to gain an identity. 




Below is a link is a book review of a article that was done on RPG and the blog that was posted

http://journal.transformativeworks.org/index.php/twc/article/view/356/229
Article

http://www.gamessavedmylife.com/post/14224185244/cultural-identity-issues-and-gaming

Blog