Unfortunately, there was no obvious relationship. A highly invested player was just as likely to have an anime profile picture as an infrequent casual, just as a veteran member was just as likely to 

This led me to realize that maybe the lack of insightful relationship was itself the result of something far more significant. In an environment like Steam and multiplayer games, the vast majority of interactions are between two strangers, often conveying no information other than a profile picture and a username. Even the statistics I examined are not often seen, since no one tends to be so interested in another player's personal information. As a result of this anonymity, users can feel free to use nearly any image as their profile picture, without having to worry about what their picture conveys about their underlying character traits or dedication as a gamer. Instead, the superficiality of this level of human interaction marginalizes the connection between an avatar and the rest of the profile, the result being a profile picture that presents a basic unit of identifying information, such as an interest or a sense of humor. Contrast this with the relatively highly personal Facebook. Sure, some people still have anime characters or animals as their profile pictures. But the majority of Facebook users use images that present themselves with complex characteristics they want others to see, like mood through facial expressions or friendliness through companions. This is further supported by my actively involved Steam friend mentioned earlier. Since she and her friends use Steam in a more personal way, her profile pictures feel like they belong on Facebook.

Finally, still hoping for a coherent connection, I looked at the personal information each of my friends provided on their profiles. Again, these varied drastically, with one friend providing his full name, city, state, and country, and others providing nothing at all. Regardless, over half of my friends (25) still decided to provide at least one piece of personal information, usually a name or a country. This information may serve a practical purpose, allowing their personal friends to more easily identify them in the community. Or perhaps this represents a desire to, despite the anonymity displayed in the profile pictures, hold on to some concretely identifying information, beyond the vague personality a profile picture can provide.