CYBERPSYCHOLOGY & BEHAVIOR Volume 11, Number 4, 2008 © Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. DOI: 10.1089/cpb.2007.0137 “They May Be Pixels, But They’re MY Pixels:” Developing a Metric of Character Attachment in Role-Playing Video Games MELISSA L. LEWIS, M.A., 1 RENÉ WEBER, Ph.D., M.D., 2 and NICHOLAS DAVID BOWMAN, M.A. 1 ABSTRACT This paper proposes a new and reliable metric for measuring character attachment (CA), the connection felt by a video game player toward a video game character. Results of construct validity analyses indicate that the proposed CA scale has a significant relationship with self- esteem, addiction, game enjoyment, and time spent playing games; all of these relationships are predicted by theory. Additionally, CA levels for role-playing games differ significantly from CA levels of other character-driven games. 515 INTRODUCTION T HE HISTORY OF MASS MEDIA RESEARCH has been rife with discussions about how audiences build friendships and identify with media characters. Theories of parasocial interaction (PSI) explain that audiences form a feeling of intimacy with a distal, fictional character. 1 Identification can be thought of in terms of a deep, internalized phenomenon in which audiences imagine being somebody else, 2 in- cluding a media character. 3 As scholars have increased their study and scrutiny of the video game medium, 4 questions about how the individual gamer interacts with the game character have become central to the research paradigm. In interactive video games, there is no parasocial interaction with a fictitious character, no felt connection per se, but an actual, tangible con- nection between the gamer and a fully functional, completely controllable avatar. Of particular inter- est to our study is the increasingly popular role- playing game (RPG) genre. The central element for RPGs is character and story development as a re- sult of the player’s actions. The main purpose be- hind RPGs is to let gamers immerse themselves in the world and psyche of their character(s). 5 Thus, what separates RPGs from other character-driven entertainment media is this internalization and psychological merging of a player’s and a charac- ter’s mind 6 —a phenomenon we call character at- tachment. Although we present CA as a new construct, it is rooted in the aforementioned audience–character interaction theories, while incorporating the notions of suspension of disbelief (an individual’s willing- ness to accept the world of the character as “real”), responsibility (an individual’s feelings of custody over the character), and control (the extent to which 1 Department of Telecommunications, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan. 2 Department of Communication, University of California, Santa Barbara, California. Rapid Communication