Ego
Ego is a video game term used to refer to the in-game representation of the player, or the player's character. The term is not usually used by players but rather video game designers, specifically those who design adventure games, as the developers of other genres normally use terms such as "player," "character," or "avatar."
Contents
Personal
I remember reading about the design of the King's Quest games in the book The Official Book of King's Quest in the mid-late 1990s where the author described the complexity of making graphical adventure games. Even as a kid, I loved books which discussed the creation of video games because I longed to be a video game designer and was fascinated to learn everything I could about the industry. Several times throughout the book, the term "ego" is used to refer to the player's in-game character, there is even some replicated source code which uses it. Initially, I thought it was an industry standard term for the player's character in any game and began using it for variable names in the games I programmed, but I later learned that it was a term that grew out of adventures games.
History
Because it's an industry term and not one used in the dialogue of most games, it's difficult to know when video game developers started using the term "ego" to refer to the player's character. Reverse engineering games shows that it was used at least as early as 1984 in King's Quest to refer to the player's in-game character, but it's probably several years older because the first text adventures were written in the mid-1970s.
The origin of the term is most likely a shortening of the phrase "alter ego" the ancient Roman term used to refer to one's "other self." This was fitting since most early adventure games were written not as though the player was was controlling a character in the game, but as though the player actually was the character in the game.
Presentation
How ego is presented in a video game depends primarily on the perspective chosen for the game. In games which use third-person perspective, ego is typically always visible to the player, but, in first-person perspective, they are often not seen, though sometimes their limbs are visible.
King's Quest is third-person, so ego is visible.
Shadowgate is first-person, and ego is always hidden.
Firewatch is first-person, but you can see ego's hands.
