Avatar Choice

I think that avatar choice and customization has a lot to do with the game that your playing. I find it to be similar to everyday life in the fact the most people want to be considered "normal," which is very subjective because what is normal really? Anyways, I think that fitting in can be just as important in a virtual world as it is in the here and now. I think that being able to customize an avatar allows people creative freedom to be whatever character they would like to be, but at the same time these characters fit within a world. For example you would most likely not see sonic the hedgehog rolling into the mario bros world. So therefore there is some sort of limit as you have to pick a character within a subset. I think that in general people like choices and like the control of choosing different aspects of there characters. It helps to connect with ones virtual self. I think that it gives more interaction than if every character was just a standard unchangeable version. I think its a great feature, but i don't think that if a person truely enjoyed a game it would deter them if they were not able to customize there character.