Origin
See also: Player characterThe word Avatar originates in Hinduism where it stands for the "descent" of a deity in a terrestrial form (deities in India are popularly thought to be formless and capable of manifesting themselves in any form).
The use of the term avatar for the on-screen representation of the user was coined in 1985 by Chip Morningstar and Joseph Romero in designing Lucasfilm's online role-playing game Habitat. The computer game Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar was released in 1985, but does not use the word in this sense, only in its original religious sense; the player's in-game final objective is to become an "Avatar". Later games in the Ultima series use the term in the same sense as Habitat and introduce Habitat-style customization of avatars. Another early use of the term was in the pen and paper role-playing game Shadowrun (1989).
Read more about this topic: Avatar (computing)
Famous quotes containing the word origin:
“Each structure and institution here was so primitive that you could at once refer it to its source; but our buildings commonly suggest neither their origin nor their purpose.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“We have got rid of the fetish of the divine right of kings, and that slavery is of divine origin and authority. But the divine right of property has taken its place. The tendency plainly is towards ... “a government of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich.””
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)