Befriending Video Game Characters
Abstract
When players spend enough time on a video game, the main playable character can come to feel like a friend. But this seems absurd. Players cannot be friends with a video game character because they are fictional beings. Nonetheless, players often develop feelings of friendship toward video game characters, coming to empathize with them and caring for them. In these cases, the player has formed an “asymmetrical friendship” with the character. These sorts of relationships are not uncommon. Moreover, forming an asymmetrical friendship with a video game character is part of our normal aesthetic engagement with video games.
Fields of Study & Subjects
Digital Games and Media
Ethics
Aesthetics
and Art
Narrative Theory and Analysis
Publication details
- Journal / source
- Routledge eBooks
- Pages
- 217–232
- Publication date
- 10 February 2026
- Language
- EN
- Document type
- Book chapter