The question of whether the digital game is defined by specific media consumption or by the practice of the player still perplex game research. Existing research focuses on the consumption of games and pays little attention to player’s concrete practice. Particularly, for studies focus on parasocial interaction within a game, scholars often measure audiences' preference for game characters and the parasocial relationship based on individual gratification, while little has known on the social and cultural motivation behind their practice. Moreover, the tendency of limiting parasocial interaction to friendship may preclude researchers from capturing other types of play-character relationship. As in this case, many Chinese players view the game character as their child in the game Travel Frog. To fill the gap, this paper attempts to take the Travel Frog
as an example, to explore the meaning constructed by its players through the parasocial interaction with the ‘frog’ and the social context of such construction.
Travel Frog is a Japanese game that was fairly popular in China in 2018. In the game, the only thing players can do is collecting clovers to buy goods preparing for the frog’s travel which requires extraordinarily minimum operation but a potentially large amount of emotional involvement. It attracted many Chinese urban young people, especially women. The author conducted in-depth interviews with 20 players in China’s first-tier cities and the findings are mainly based on thematic analysis of the data.
This study finds that the reasons why the Chinese players view the frog in the game as their child is profoundly rooted in their ideal lifestyle and dream parent-child relationship. We find 1) some players place the hope, living freely, on the frog through their parasocial interaction with the frog. Compared with the mainstream lifestyle (getting married and having children as soon as possible, buying a house and a car and working hard), the frog lives in a freer way (traveling freely without pressure at any time) and becomes a symbol of a carefree life. Such life is often beyond their reach because they said if they do not follow the mainstream, they would be belittled and humiliated by society. Still, they yearn for a new way of life. Therefore, some players place the aspiration on the frog by viewing the frog as a kid since children are a symbol of hope and the continuation of parents’ own life in the Chinese context. 2) Young people express their expectations for the ideal parent-child relationship through their practice in the game. Chinese parents usually interfere in children’s decisions and ask children to obey them while players can not control the frog and it can do what it wants in Travel Frog, which conforms to the youth’s dream parent-child relationship (supporting silently, keeping the distance from each other and giving freedom). Some young people said they dislike parents' interference with their life and they will treat their children in the future like supporting the frog in the game which means giving freedom to their children.