• Journal of Korea Game Society
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• v.21 no.6
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• pp.41-50
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• 2021

Character identification is illustrated in terms of game players' altered self-perception during gameplay. Research has shown that players' identification with game characters resulted in game players aligning their attitude with game character. This study investigates the relationships among control, ownership, character customization, identification, flow with game charater, and the impact on game players' behavior toward item purchase and play intention. Empirical results showed that character ownership and character customization significantly predicted use-character identification, but the impact of character control was not supported. In addition, the positive relationships between identification and flow was supported.

• International Journal of Advanced Culture Technology
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.110-118
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• 2024

This study was conducted to analyze the metaverse usage behavior of college students through in-depth interviews and to explore the characteristics of the major metaverse platforms with a focus on keywords. This study derived elements such as metaverse participation activities, real-world order, metaverse system, presence, and self-expression from previous research. This study examined how college students who use the metaverse perceive these variables. We present the following research results: First, the college students who participated in the study showed interest in content with many interactive elements on the metaverse platform and appeared to participate more actively in such content. Second, college students cited the ability to engage in economic activities in the metaverse as their greatest strength. It was expected that social norms applied in the real world would also be applied in the metaverse. Third, the Metaverse system, such as the Metaverse UI, UX, and servers, was found to be a factor that needs to meet users' expectations and hinders immersion. In this study, the characteristics of the metaverse platform were analyzed, focusing on essential keywords from in-depth interviews. The analysis results are as follows: It was expressed with keywords such as Zepeto has 'avatar' and 'personality expression,' Ifland has 'free decoration' and 'communication convenience,' Gathertown has 'movement convenience' and 'video chat.' Roblox has 'game-based' and 'dynamic.'

• Archives of design research
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.145-154
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• 2001

These days, the products like Walkman, mobile phone, notebook PC, PDA are moving together with our body, and in the imaginary world like internet, our other self, Avatar is moving in place of our body on the cyber world. These products are related with our human body, and when considering the ones, attached to the human body, and having the meaning of mental combination like these, as the combination of the human and the products, it is necessary to examine these products in approaching them with respect to the combination relation between the human and the products. As a result of examining we can understand that the products, said to combine with the human body, are coming oui steadily. and recently, the inclination on the combination and the movement appears strongly. As this background, there are a breakdown of dichotomy thought, mixed sexual imitation, cyber culture, techno culture. concept of informative nomands, phenomenon which the division of human and machine becomes vague. and the miniaturization of products. imitation of human, phenomenon that the Inclination on the combination with human is more accelerated by networking. These products combine with human body at each wearing type in the various forms. Its functions become multi-layered, and closer to the human body physically. or its communication becomes high·graded and, they have the recombined form through the existing products which the human has And, they communicate each other. have the strong fashionable property, and the characteristics like the imaginary product to imitate the human body and substitute for the human behave.

• Journal of The Korean Association of Information Education
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.79-89
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• 2007

Considering the continuous increase of teenagers' Internet use and the high rate of their participation in online communities, educators need to devote efforts to minimize the negative function of teenagers' Internet use and to guide them to experience positive aspects of Internet. Through activities in online communities, teenagers can experience various socialities and explore their self-consciousness. However, on the other hand many communities do not provide teenagers with considerate care. This may cause conflict in their sense of value and mislead them. Through this study, online learning community is designed and developed, which can reflect teenagers' various needs and connect their needs with learning experiences. The community consists of the following categories: 'about e-Tivity'(community vision, general information, list of activities, Q&A), 'activity space for teens'(event hall, data park, e-Tivity center), 'administrative space for teachers and managers'(research room, management room), and 'teen's private space'(my room, my avatar).

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.120-133
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• 2008

This paper presents a novel approach for facial motion tracking and facial expression cloning to create a realistic facial animation of a 3D avatar. The exact head pose estimation and facial expression tracking are critical issues that must be solved when developing vision-based computer animation. In this paper, we deal with these two problems. The proposed approach consists of two phases: dynamic head pose estimation and facial expression cloning. The dynamic head pose estimation can robustly estimate a 3D head pose from input video images. Given an initial reference template of a face image and the corresponding 3D head pose, the full head motion is recovered by projecting a cylindrical head model onto the face image. It is possible to recover the head pose regardless of light variations and self-occlusion by updating the template dynamically. In the phase of synthesizing the facial expression, the variations of the major facial feature points of the face images are tracked by using optical flow and the variations are retargeted to the 3D face model. At the same time, we exploit the RBF (Radial Basis Function) to deform the local area of the face model around the major feature points. Consequently, facial expression synthesis is done by directly tracking the variations of the major feature points and indirectly estimating the variations of the regional feature points. From the experiments, we can prove that the proposed vision-based facial expression cloning method automatically estimates the 3D head pose and produces realistic 3D facial expressions in real time.

• Science of Emotion and Sensibility
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.75-83
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• 2005

Cyberspace is on its way to experience dynamic change, hereby encompassing technical and social diversities and multiplicities. The internet, with a history of no more than 10 years, has drastically changed the way, meaning and conduct of our lives, the structure and function of society and communication. Even in psychology, in which the purpose is to scientifically look into the human mind and explore its behavior, the in-depth inquiry into the human behavior and psychological features of the cyberspace have become an increasingly important issue. Research suggests that psychological features and concepts brought about during the process of communication in cyberspace have been influenced by the digital mode following the analogue one, and by the online mode following the off line one. It also suggests that, with new issues peculiar to information society, cultural structures should be re-conceptualized, reconstructed and reevaluated in various fields. This approach to the changing role, meaning and style within society should be rearranged and referred to as cyber psychology.

• Cartoon and Animation Studies
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• s.45
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• pp.397-415
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• 2016

This paper will investigate how animated practice can be a research form as practice-led research in an ethnography approach. This practice-led research will explore the issue of the construction of contemporary identities (based on the strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde) and in particular, the Korean youth culture and identity, exemplified, for example, creation of 'avatars' in the virtual characters of animated online games such as Massively Multiplayer Online Role-playing Games (MMORPGs). In this proposed discussion, I will argue that the sudden period of change in contemporary Korea bears some resemblance to the Victorian era as explored in gothic fiction (e.g. Jekyll and Hyde). In this sense, my animation investigates the connection between the fictional Jekyll and Hyde and a real murder incident by a young Korean boy, which actually happened on the 16th November 2010, in SouthKorea.I will, therefore, construct this practice-led research to obtain the primary data consisted of online and offline practices in 'social ethnography'. These practices engage with specific Korean youth identity, comparing the 'avatar' with the real lives of participants. However, this paper will only focus on the (ethnographic) research process and strategy, using animated (visual) practices, rather than giving the meaning of the specific case of 'Korean-ness'. Eventually, I will explore the four different animated representations as it presents the distinctive animated realties or documentaries by online and offline practices. My intention is to visually interpret the issue of 'Korean-ness' within its socio-cultural context, adapting the convention and code of Jekyll and Hyde concept into an animated documentary in the 'virtual' world (auto-animated documentary by recording avatar interviews and online game footages) and the 'real' world (self-created animated documentary, based on real people and events).

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.157-194
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• 2008

The popularity of communities on the internet has captured the attention of marketing scholars and practitioners. By adapting to the culture of the internet, however, and providing consumer with the ability to interact with one another in addition to the company, businesses can build new and deeper relationships with customers. The economic potential of online communities has been discussed with much hope in the many popular papers. In contrast to this enthusiastic prognostications, empirical and practical evidence regarding the economic potential of the online community has shown a little different conclusion. To date, even communities with high levels of membership and vibrant social arenas have failed to build financial viability. In this perspective, this study investigates the role of various kinds of influencing factors to online community loyalty and basically suggests the framework that explains the process of building purchase loyalty. Even though the importance of building loyalty in an online environment has been emphasized from the marketing theorists and practitioners, there is no sufficient research conclusion about what is the process of building purchase loyalty and the most powerful factors that influence to it. In this study, the process of building purchase loyalty is divided into three levels; characteristics of community site such as content superiority, site vividness, navigation easiness, and customerization, the mediating variables such as self congruency, consumer experience, and consumer to consumer interactivity, and finally various factors about online community loyalty such as visit loyalty, affect, trust, and purchase loyalty are those things. And the findings of this research are as follows. First, consumer-to-consumer interactivity is an important factor to online community purchase loyalty and other loyalty factors. This means, in order to interact with other people more actively, many participants in online community have the willingness to buy some kinds of products such as music, content, avatar, and etc. From this perspective, marketers of online community have to create some online environments in order that consumers can easily interact with other consumers and make some site environments in order that consumer can feel experience in this site is interesting and self congruency is higher than at other community sites. It has been argued that giving consumers a good experience is vital in cyber space, and websites create an active (rather than passive) customer by their nature. Some researchers have tried to pin down the positive experience, with limited success and less empirical support. Web sites can provide a cognitively stimulating experience for the user. We define the online community experience as playfulness based on the past studies. Playfulness is created by the excitement generated through a website's content and measured using three descriptors Marketers can promote using and visiting online communities, which deliver a superior web experience, to influence their customers' attitudes and actions, encouraging high involvement with those communities. Specially, we suggest that transcendent customer experiences(TCEs) which have aspects of flow and/or peak experience, can generate lasting shifts in beliefs and attitudes including subjective self-transformation and facilitate strong consumer's ties to a online community. And we find that website success is closely related to positive website experiences: consumers will spend more time on the site, interacting with other users. As we can see figure 2, visit loyalty and consumer affect toward the online community site didn't directly influence to purchase loyalty. This implies that there may be a little different situations here in online community site compared to online shopping mall studies that shows close relations between revisit intention and purchase intention. There are so many alternative sites on web, consumers do not want to spend money to buy content and etc. In this sense, marketers of community websites must know consumers' affect toward online community site is not a last goal and important factor to influnece consumers' purchase. Third, building good content environment can be a really important marketing tool to create a competitive advantage in cyberspace. For example, Cyworld, Korea's number one community site shows distinctive superiority in the consumer evaluations of content characteristics such as content superiority, site vividness, and customerization. Particularly, comsumer evaluation about customerization was remarkably higher than the other sites. In this point, we can conclude that providing comsumers with good, unique and highly customized content will be urgent and important task directly and indirectly impacting to self congruency, consumer experience, c-to-c interactivity, and various loyalty factors of online community. By creating enjoyable, useful, and unique online community environments, online community portals such as Daum, Naver, and Cyworld are able to build customer loyalty to a degree that many of today's online marketer can only dream of these loyalty, in turn, generates strong economic returns. Another way to build good online community site is to provide consumers with an interactive, fun, experience-oriented or experiential Web site. Elements that can make a dot.com's Web site experiential include graphics, 3-D images, animation, video and audio capabilities. In addition, chat rooms and real-time customer service applications (which link site visitors directly to other visitors, or with company support personnel, respectively) are also being used to make web sites more interactive. Researchers note that online communities are increasingly incorporating such applications in their Web sites, in order to make consumers' online shopping experience more similar to that of an offline store. That is, if consumers are able to experience sensory stimulation (e.g. via 3-D images and audio sound), interact with other consumers (e.g., via chat rooms), and interact with sales or support people (e.g. via a real-time chat interface or e-mail), then they are likely to have a more positive dot.com experience, and develop a more positive image toward the online company itself). Analysts caution, however, that, while high quality graphics, animation and the like may create a fun experience for consumers, when heavily used, they can slow site navigation, resulting in frustrated consumers, who may never return to a site. Consequently, some analysts suggest that, at least with current technology, the rule-of-thumb is that less is more. That is, while graphics etc. can draw consumers to a site, they should be kept to a minimum, so as not to impact negatively on consumers' overall site experience.

• Journal of Korean Home Economics Education Association
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.133-148
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• 2022

This study aims to explore the status and motives for using avatars and digital fashion items in the metaverse and to examine consumers' purchase satisfaction and future purchase intentions. We intend to provide implications for the development of avatars and fashion items, and the direction of the fashion industry and clothing education. For this purpose, the purchasing status, consumer motives for using avatars and digital fashion items, purchase satisfaction, and future purchase intentions were investigated, through a survey with 149 consumers aged 19 years or older, with the experience of using avatars. The results are as follows. First, the percentage of avatar ownership was high among women aged between 19 and 29, and those with low or high incomes. The younger group was more likely to make mobile phone purchases than the older group, and the older group was more likely to use credit cards. Even those respondents who owned avatars did not purchase frequently or spent a lot on items. On the other hand, in the case of fashion item purchases, the group spending more than 8,000 won was aged between 19 and 29, and the frequency and amount of purchases increased as income increase. Second, among the motives for using avatars and fashion items, the pursuit of pleasure had the greatest influence, and men paid more attention to self-expression through avatars than women. Third, the motive for vicarious satisfaction influenced purchase satisfaction, and the factors that influenced future purchase intention were vicarious satisfaction and stress relief. The results of this study suggests that avatars and fashion items should be developed considering factors that can relieve stress for all age groups, create a sense of unity among metaverse users, and provide satisfaction in a virtual world that is different from reality. In addition, education on how to use fashion items and consumption attitudes in education related to clothing life will be required.