The Afterlife of Avatars

Posted on October 3, 2006

ABC News has an article that discusses how avatars live on in persistent worlds like Word of Warcraft, Second Life and Entropia Universe after the gamers who controlled them have died. The screenshot on the right is an avatar from Second Life.

More than 7 million avatars play "World of Warcraft", and approximately a half million players are within "Second Life" and the "Entropia Universe."
"A few of those people are going to die unfortunately," Jacobs said.
And sometimes those in the virtual community can be left in the dark about the real-life fate of a fellow gamer.
"If a gamer dies in the real world, no one in the virtual community has a way of knowing what happened to their online friend," said Spaight, vice president of game developer Rapid Reality. "Does it just blink out of existence? Gamers will eventually need to think about what should happen to their avatar if they die in real life."

The article suggests that online shrines or memorials may be the way gamer deaths are sorted out in the future in persistent worlds. Similar memorials have been created in social networks like MySpace when the actual person behind the profile dies.