Patent ID: 8326853

Claim:
A computer-implemented method of assisting users in the management of avatars in a virtual environment, the method comprising: storing a plurality of avatar profiles, each profile defining attributes for a respective avatar; collecting information about a virtual experience of a user controlling an avatar in the virtual environment, wherein the avatar has a first profile among the plurality of profiles applied thereto; creating associations between the first profile and the collected information to define profile management criteria, wherein the profile management criteria reflect one or more statistically most commonly used avatar attributes by avatars of other users at a given location in the virtual environment and further reflect a statistically most commonly used profile among the plurality of profiles at the given location, and wherein the profile management criteria are defined to promote a context-appropriate manifestation of the avatar, as expressed by a selected profile among the plurality of avatar profiles, according to statistical conclusions derived from the collected information; while monitoring the avatar interacting with the virtual environment, determining when one or more of the profile management criteria are satisfied based on a current state of the avatar relative to the virtual environment; and upon determining that one or more of the profile management criteria are satisfied, dynamically selecting a second profile among the plurality of profiles to be applied to the avatar to replace the first profile.