The Effects of Self-representation & Immersive Experiences on Social Presence in Emerging Markets

Abstract

As smartphone adoption surges in new markets, casual gaming has become a fast growing vertical. Emerging markets typically experience three challenges: network connection, network bandwidth, and device storage capacity [1]. To deploy new technologies such as augmented reality with high fidelity assets, novel approaches are needed. High fidelity assets are necessary to generate a sense of presence, or being there, in virtual environments [2]. In our paper, we explore the deployment of a mobile application to 2.5 million users across South Asia. This application allows users to build their own interactive 3D avatar. Our work discusses novel approaches to deploy high fidelity assets in emerging markets. We next explore two topics central to virtual worlds: self-representation and self-presence [3]. Key to virtual environments are the realism and connection to avatars [4]. The stronger the human-avatar connection, the more likely virtual experiences are to have an impact on physical world identity. While self-representation has long been a concept explored in research, only recently have emerging markets gained technology for culturally accurate virtual representations. As such, our work is one of the first large scale field explorations of self-avatars’ impact on identity in new markets. Our paper explores the quantitative and qualitative engagement with a user’s self-avatar. We find that self-representation, particularly clothing and animations can strongly influence user’s connections to their virtual self. This leads to positive associations with the user’s avatar. Long term implications of virtual identity via mobile experiences are discussed.