What is NPC?

- GTA Analysis of Player’s Recognition Towards Non-Player Character -

Abstract

During gameplay, players sometimes treat NPCs like friends, sometimes like tools. In this study, I attempted to qualitatively clarify players' recognitions towards NPCs in order to consider how NPCs would appear in players’ minds, which cause players to have a polarized perception of “person” and “stuff”. As a result of constructivist GTA based on video ethnography of live gameplay and semi-structured interviews, it has become clear that there are four recognition forms towards NPCs: as a person, as a Kyara, as a game character, and as a system. In this paper, I consider each of these four forms of recognition, unwind the connection of these, and depict the overall structure of the recognition.