Dying in video games

From virtual revival to digital apocalypse

Mirko, Stojković

Kultura

167

371

381

0023-5164

10.5937/kultura2067371S

http://scindeks.ceon.rs/article.aspx?query=ISSID%26and%2615201&page=0&so...

2020-2021/07/05/10:16:53

It is estimated that over two million people can be nominated as gamers. All of them play video games, and most of them create characters in these games and identify with them to such an extent that the characters become avatars of the players. And avatars die. Sometimes they are revived, sometimes not, depending on the game rules applicable to these characters and the worlds they inhabit. Sometimes the worlds themselves also perish. At such moments, one command can forever delete tens or hundreds of thousands of digital characters. They perish forever, in an irreversible act of server deletion, irresistibly similar to the end of the world. The end of a digital world, but still a world, especially if we observe it from the point of view of its inhabitants. From the destinies of these avatars, whether they perish in separate incidents or digital genocides, we can learn a thing or two if not about the meaning of digital existence then undoubtedly about the manner in which people relate to their own finite nature.