Research Intel

A lot of us who are in the baby boomers generation are familiar with paper dolls. We are as likely to be familiar with the new fads when it comes to dolls-dress up games, or doll maker games. For those who don’t, these are online games that are primarily targeted at young girls and which allow them to create personalized avatars. Microsoft’s Paint and Adobe Photoshop are the main program used to create these dolls. There is an ongoing debate as to whether dress up games should be encouraged to continue to fester as they have in the recent past. On one side, there are (usually parents) who claim that these dolls stifle imagination of their kids as they mostly rely on pre-determined path, leaving little room for imagination. On the other hand some (usually dollists, or people who create these dolls and their apologists) say that doll maker games actually strengthen the child’s imagination and the sense of fashion as well. For instance, if a person is presented with a newly created doll and told to dress it up, it takes a little bit of imagination to choose the right base, which is the first step, and then choosing the most appropriate clothing, which is perhaps premised on what the doll is going to be doing. For instance, a doll involved in the kitchen for instance might be dressed with kitchen attire, like apron. In a way, dress up games can be said to represent the thoughts processes of the young girl taking part in the game especially where they take on imaginary personalities or style, or even when they create avatars for a particular game.

If we leave that debate for a while and go back to some of the basic things about doll maker games. As earlier alluded to, the dolls are created by mostly female programmers who are known as dollists. They often run on something akin to an open source operations, with communities located in different geographical areas where they exchange views and works of their art. The “sisters” may eventually link up their sites if they are of the view that the synergies created by the two or more of them are advantageous.

The bases that were mentioned in passing earlier in the article refers to the templates which a doll is built upon. In many cases, the bases consist of a human look-alike but with no hair, and sometimes, no faces! Not all dollists are capable of creating their own bases, and most of them “outsource” bases from other more established dollists, who provide their bases for free or attach certain conditions. Sometimes due to either ignorance or malice, dollists have been entangled in intellectual property disputes with other dollists because of using bases without permission from the creator. Sometimes they seem to forget that creating some form of avatars is an art form which can be protected, even if the modification seems minor.

We have seen how dollists can be imaginative, both in a positive and negative way. Now, going back to the debate on whether dress up doll games contribute to a young girl being imaginative, the following conclusions can be made. Yes, doll games can help kids flex their imaginative muscle. During the course of the game, the child learns new tricks and makes small decisions. There is always a case for the parent to monitor the child’s activities even these ones, but banning the dress up doll games would not be the right path to follow.

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