History Main / DigitalAvatar

* As of the 2000's, all major producers of video game consoles have now had some form of personal presence on their home consoles, with a 3D Digital Avatar. Creator/{{Nintendo}} gave the UsefulNotes/{{Wii}} its cute little UsefulNotes/{{Mii}}s first, which would continue to appear on their later systems. Sony introduced ''VideoGame/PlaystationHome'' to the UsefulNotes/PlayStation3 as one of many FollowTheLeader worlds being inspired by ''VideoGame/SecondLife'' at the time (but without most of the freedom) and the UsefulNotes/Xbox360 introduced Mii-like cartoon {{UsefulNotes/Xbox Avatars}} with its [=Xbox=] Live interface revamp. Also, there is a handful of games on both Nintendo and Xbox consoles that allow the player to use their own avatar as a PC, most notably the Wii's eponymous series of games.

* ''Anime/GoodDayToYouHowAboutAGame'': The manga is about school girls playing a TabletopGame/{{Mahjong}} mobile game, and it depicts each match as their cute animal girl avatars dueling with each other around a digital mahjong table.

[-[[caption-width-right:169:'Cause you can be way cooler inside a computer.]]-]
[-[[caption-width-right:169:[[http://nclaire.deviantart.com/art/Snow-Crash-Hiro-Protagonist-132297300?offset=20 Image]] by [[http://cryoclaire.deviantart.com/ cryoclaire.]]\\

* In ''LightNovel/SwordArtOnline'', players of SAO are initially able to design their own avatars, but are quickly forced to change to avatars that look like their real-world selves. ALO, meanwhile, only lets players choose their race, with the character's actual appearance initially being random.

[-[[caption-width-right:169:[[http://nclaire.deviantart.com/art/Snow-Crash-Hiro-Protagonist-132297300?offset=20 Image]] by [[http://cryoclaire.deviantart.com/ cryoclaire]].\\

** The exception is ''Anime/DotHackLiminality'' which was focused entirely in the real world. It should also be noted that ''.hack//SIGN'' was the only series to display the real world in an off-color shade of blue, while very other series has used normal colors. Real Colors appeared in one real world segment of Sign however [[spoiler: at the very end and Tsukasa's player An Shoji is shown awake leaving the hospital and accidentally meeting the player behind Subaru]]

* Anyone who jacks into LINC-Space in ''VideoGame/BeneathASteelSky'' appears as a purple, [[BarbieDollAnatomy semi-nude]] representation of themselves. Strangely, Robert Foster lacks his hair [[spoiler: while Anita doesn't]].

* In ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsII'', [=DiZ=] uses an Avatar whenever interacting with Roxas [[spoiler: while inside the Data Twilight Town]].

* In a variation in ''Fanfic/WithStringsAttached'', the Fans use avatars (preset, generic avatars) to interact with the four when they meet with them telepathically. When Shag mentions that they're using avatars, George mildly freaks out because he's only familiar with the [[{{Avatar}} traditional definition of “avatar”]] and thinks the Fans are divine. Shag hastily explains.

The modern form of {{Avatar}} that most people are likely to encounter in RealLife: a digital representation of a person in a computer world, broadly, the Internet. It can be as simple as the small graphic attached to posters' names on countless web forums, blogs, and the like; or it can be as complicated as a fully-animated 2D or 3D game character. For futuristic incarnations, add a dose of VirtualReality to the mix. In some definitions, "avatar" is taken to mean "any game character you control"; in others (which is the definition used for this trope), a line is drawn between game characters and avatars that's more in line with avatar archetype. If Alice is controlling a character, like [[Franchise/SuperMarioBros Mario]], designed solely by the game designers, she's playing as that character. If she's controlling a character made to reflect her desired persona, almost always with a considerable degree of customization, she's controlling her avatar. This includes pretty much every {{MMO|RPG}} since [=MMOs=] have had graphics, and many if not most computer {{RPG}}s also rely on it.

* Used twice over in ''LightNovel/AccelWorld'', where characters actually have two avatars. The first is their common, everyday avatars used when they net dive, typically chosen or even designed by their owners (main character Haruyuki's pink pig was forced on him by bullies) so there tends to be an element of wish fullfilment there. The second avatar applies to Burst Linkers and is used in the fighting game they compete in in the Accelerated World. What makes this second avatar so special is that, though it's the game that generates it, Brain Burst uses the player's psychological traumas and desires to generate the avatar's states. As stated with Dusk Taker, this means the fighting avatar can infallibly tell you something about the person controlling it. (In Dusk Taker's case it was that he felt he had nothing of his own and had to steal other people's stuff.)

The modern form of {{Avatar}} that most people are likely to encounter in RealLife: a digital representation of a person in a computer world, broadly, the Internet. It can be as simple as the small graphic attached to posters' names on countless web forums, blogs, and the like; or it can be as complicated as a fully-animated 2D or 3D game character. For futuristic incarnations, add a dose of VirtualReality to the mix. In some definitions, "avatar" is taken to mean "any game character you control"; in others (which is the definition used for this trope), a line is drawn between game characters and avatars that's more in line with avatar archetype. If Alice is controlling a character, like Mario, designed solely by the game designers, she's playing as that character. If she's controlling a character made to reflect her desired persona, almost always with a considerable degree of customization, she's controlling her avatar. This includes pretty much every {{MMO|RPG}} since [=MMOs=] have had graphics, and many if not most computer {{RPG}}s also rely on it.

The modern form of {{Avatar}} that most people are likely to encounter in RealLife: a digital representation of a person in a computer world, broadly, the Internet. It can be as simple as the small graphic attached to posters' names on countless web forums, blogs, and the like; or it can be as complicated as a fully-animated 2D or 3D game character. For futuristic incarnations, add a dose of VirtualReality to the mix. In some definitions, "avatar" is taken to mean "any game character you control"; in others (which is the definition used for this trope), a line is drawn between game characters and avatars that's more in line with avatar archetype. If Alice is controlling a character, like Mario, designed solely by the game designers, she's playing as that character. If she's controlling a character made to reflect her desired persona, almost always with a considerable degree of customization, she's controlling her avatar. This includes pretty much every [[{{MMORPG}} MMO]] since [=MMOs=] have had graphics, and many if not most computer {{RPG}}s also rely on it.

* ''Franchise/DotHack'' tells its story from the viewpoint of the character's {{Digital Avatar}}s in an {{MMORPG}}.

* Every major game console, bar handhelds, have now had some form of personal presence with a 3D Digital Avatar as part of it. Creator/{{Nintendo}} gave the UsefulNotes/{{Wii}} its cute little UsefulNotes/{{Mii}}s first, which would continue to appear on their later systems. Sony introduced ''VideoGame/PlaystationHome'' to the UsefulNotes/{{Playstation 3}} as one of many FollowTheLeader worlds being inspired by ''VideoGame/SecondLife'' at the time (but without most of the freedom) and the UsefulNotes/Xbox360 introduced Mii-like cartoon {{UsefulNotes/Xbox Avatars}} with its [=Xbox=] Live interface revamp. Also, there is a handful of games in both the current Nintendo and Xbox consoles that allow the player to use their own avatar as a PC, most notably the Wii's eponymous series of games.

%%(Because the DigitalAvatar is now rather ubiquitous, please restrict examples to the most prominent ones: in non-interactive works where they are a notable part of the story, and in VideoGames where their use is important and/or influential to others that came after them.)

* At the end of ''Fanfic/Plan7Of9FromOuterSpace'', Captain Proton realises that the President of Earth is actually just a [[ProjectedMan holographic]] DigitalAvatar of the [[MasterComputer Great Calculator]] that truly runs society. This is a MythologyGag to ''Film/TheAdventuresOfCaptainProton'' where the President of Earth is played by Voyager's Emergency Medical Hologram.

* In ''VideoGame/UltimaIV: Quest of the Avatar'', the PlayerCharacter fits the model of the DigitalAvatar, with its complex morality system and all, but the story of the game is about the player seeking to become the Avatar by embracing virtue and questing for the Codex of Ultimate Wisdom.

* Every current major game console, bar handhelds, now have some form of personal presence with a 3d DigitalAvatar as part of it. The UsefulNotes/{{Wii}} had its cute little UsefulNotes/{{Mii}}s first; they've now added similar functionality to the 3DS. Sony introduced ''VideoGame/PlaystationHome'' to the UsefulNotes/{{Playstation 3}} as one of many FollowTheLeader worlds being inspired by ''VideoGame/SecondLife'' at the time (but without most of the freedom) and the UsefulNotes/Xbox360 introduced Mii-like cartoon {{UsefulNotes/Xbox Avatars}} with its [=Xbox=] Live interface revamp. Also, there is a handful of games in both the current Nintendo and Xbox consoles that allow the player to use their own avatar as a PC, most notably the Wii's eponymous series of games.

While the {{Ur Example}}s can be found in old games -- the 1979 DungeonCrawler ''Avatar'', the use of the Avatar in ''VideoGame/UltimaIV'' in 1985, the first online social world ''VideoGame/{{Habitat}}'' in 1987 -- the TropeNamer and TropeCodifier is generally thought to be Creator/NealStephenson's ''Literature/SnowCrash''. Creator/WilliamGibson had written about 3D characters in {{Cyberspace}} roughly 6 years earlier, and Creator/VernorVinge even earlier, but ''Literature/SnowCrash'' used the name "avatar" for them and ultimately popularized the concept.

Compare DeepImmersionGaming. See also {{Virtual YouTuber}}s for a real life example of this trope.

Compare DeepImmersionGaming. See also VirtualYouTubers for a real life example of this trope.

Compare DeepImmersionGaming.

While the {{Ur Example}}s can be found in old games -- the 1979 DungeonCrawler ''Avatar'', the use of the Avatar in ''VideoGame/UltimaIV'' in 1985, the first online social world ''{{Habitat}}'' in 1987 -- the TropeNamer and TropeCodifier is generally thought to be Creator/NealStephenson's ''Literature/SnowCrash''. Creator/WilliamGibson had written about 3D characters in {{Cyberspace}} roughly 6 years earlier, and Creator/VernorVinge even earlier, but ''Literature/SnowCrash'' used the name "avatar" for them and ultimately popularized the concept.

* In ''Literature/SwordArtOnline'', players of SAO are initially able to design their own avatars, but are quickly forced to change to avatars that look like their real-world selves. ALO, meanwhile, only lets players choose their race, with the character's actual appearance initially being random.

* In ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsII'', [=DiZ=] uses an Avatar whenever interacting with Roxas [[spoiler: while inside the Data Traverse Town]].