The Significance of Playing Dress Up Games on Children's Materialism

1. IntroductionThe escalating growth of role playing games (RPG) in the last thirty years has developed into remarkable forms and evolved into various styles, including both digital and non-digital media (Hitchen and Drachen, 2008). One of the prominent growing forms of digital role playing games is the Dress Up game (Ludika, 2007). Dress up games, as well as make over and cooking games, are also popular as "pink games" as these contain more social game elements and are targeted at girls (Jansz & Vosmeer, 2009). The first type of dress up games, called "Barbie Fashion Designer", were introduced in 1997 and had successfully sold over 600 000 copies in its first year (Dickey, 2006). Ever since, it led to the proliferation of many similar small, fast-paced, online 'casual games' (Pratchett in Rideout et al., 2005), which led to the expansion of pink online role-playing games (Van Reijmersdal et al, 2013). Such games have been very successful in attracting girls and female adolescents (Jansz & Vosmeer, 2009), and are included among the ten most played game genres, online and offline, among children aged six to twelve years in the UK (Pratchett, 2005). Although the dress-up game is a rapidly expanding play genre in the digital sphere, it appears to be one that is understudied (Ludika, 2007).Generally, there are two models of dress up play: Doll-Play and Identity Play. In the doll-play model, the player plays the role of a god-like agency; prettifying a character, which is distinct from the player herself. In Identity play that is also popular as the Avatar or Costume play, the player appears as the character in the game who puts on attire for herself. Hence, unlike Doll-Play, the character in the identity play is merely considered a form of personal expression (Ludika, 2007). Generally, these games simulate clothing and apparels for various possibilities. Dress up games allow players to literally "clothe for the occasion", where they can modify the character's appearance for a specific venue or theme (Ludika, 2007). Players can simply use several clothes to mix and match accordingly and try various fashion styles. In this way, these games provide children with opportunities to experiment with different identities (Olson, 2010), thus allowing players to play around with different preferences. Findings have indicated that one of important motives to play a virtual fashion model was because the games can provide the players with opportunities to learn what it is like to be a model (Reijmersdal et al, 2013). Game players can act in ways that are congruent with idealized views of the self and can experience abilities and satisfactions that are difficult to access in everyday life (Rigby & Ryan in Przybylski, 2011, p.2).In these games, players can experiment with numerous virtual-reality simulations of commodities and consumption experiences (Molesworth, 2007, p.2). In these dress up games, players encounter and participate in virtual consumption of various apparels, jewelries and other fashion commodities during gameplay. This may evoke the pleasure of consumption and of having ample material belongings (Mayra, 2008). Although the consumption here exists merely in the imagination, Jenkins (2011) argues that the imagined events have very real effects on material reality as it stimulates the player to behave in particular ways that would allow the imagined things to become tangible in some form or another. Seen in this light, consumption in the virtual worlds may be disguised as marketing tools for promoting greater real-world consumption (Lin, 2008 instigating the player to become materialistic.These arguments appear to justify the proliferating concerns that today's children are becoming more materialistic than ever (Banerjee & Dittmar, 2008). Reports based on surveys of children in the US and the UK reveal that "being rich" is children's top ambition (Brown & Schor in Dittmar, 2008). These concerns are mostly related to the negative consequences of materialism that have been empirically correlated with low levels of happiness and life satisfaction (Belk 1984). …