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:
“All good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity.”
—William Wordsworth (1770–1850)
“For, though the origin of most of our words is forgotten, each word was at first a stroke of genius, and obtained currency, because for the moment it symbolized the world to the first speaker and to the hearer. The etymologist finds the deadest word to have been once a brilliant picture.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The essence of morality is a questioning about morality; and the decisive move of human life is to use ceaselessly all light to look for the origin of the opposition between good and evil.”
—Georges Bataille (1897–1962)