Gaming and Gamers in Times of Pandemic 9798765110232, 9798765110249, 9798765110256, 9798765110263, 9798765110270

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Title
Copyright
Contents
Figures
Table
Introduction: Gamers and Gaming in the Strangest of Times
Part One During the Pandemic …
1 Roblox in Lockdown: Understanding Young People’s Digital Social Play in the Pandemic (Hugh Davies and Larissa Hjor
2 “I’ve Played More Minecraft with the Kids”: Gaming and Family Dynamics in the Early Stage of the COVID-19 Pandemic (Mikko
3 Uses and Appropriations of the Cozy Game Animal Crossing: New Horizons during the Lockdown1 (Gabrielle Trépanie
4 Gaming (the Pandemic) with Vision Impairment: An Autoethnographic Account (Lobna Hassan)
Part two The Lasting Impact of the Pandemic
5 When the Virtual Office Became Reality: Digital Game Development during and after the Lockdown (Jakub Majewski)
6 The Influence of COVID-19 on Newspaper Discourses on Video Games in Cross-cultural Perspective: Between Safe Social Spaces an
7 A Review of Studies on Location-Based Live-Service Games during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Players’ Behavior and Reluctance to Re
8 Pandemic Gaming and Wholesome Philosophy: How New Players Reimaged Gaming Practices (Noel Brett and Sasha Soraine)
Part three Lessons Learned
9 “It Was All without Emotions, and This Wasn’t the Same Anymore”: “Replacing” Traditional Sports with E-Sports during the COVI
10 Playing as the World Falls Apart: The Use of Video Games during the COVID-19 Crisis—the Case of Italy (Arianna Boldi,
11 Reflection Inception: Creating a Reflective COVID-19 Game by Reflecting on the Pandemic (Adam Jerrett)
Contributors
Index

Citation preview

Gaming and Gamers in Times of Pandemic

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Gaming and Gamers in Times of Pandemic Edited by Piotr Siuda, Jakub Majewski, and Krzysztof Chmielewski

BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC Bloomsbury Publishing Inc 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK 29 Earlsfort Terrace, Dublin 2, Ireland BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in the United States of America 2024 Copyright © Piotr Siuda, Jakub Majewski, and Krzysztof Chmielewski, and contributors 2024 Cover design by Eleanor Rose Cover image © cundra / Getty Images All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Bloomsbury Publishing Inc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Siuda, Piotr, editor. | Majewski, Jakub, editor. | Chmielewski, Krzysztof, editor. Title: Gaming and gamers in times of pandemic / edited by Piotr Siuda, Jakub Majewski, and Krzysztof Chmielewski. Description: New York : Bloomsbury Academic, 2024. | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: “Gaming and Gamers in Times of Pandemic surveys multiple scholarly perspectives to examine the impact of the pandemic and resulting government policies, especially lockdowns, on one particular cultural sphere: games”– Provided by publisher. Identifiers: LCCN 2023029311 (print) | LCCN 2023029312 (ebook) | ISBN 9798765110232 (hardback) | ISBN 9798765110249 (paperback) | ISBN 9798765110256 (epub) | ISBN 9798765110263 (pdf) | ISBN 9798765110270 Subjects: LCSH: Video games–Social aspects. | Video games–Government policy. | COVID-19 Pandemic, 2020—Social aspects. Classification: LCC GV1469.34.S52 G375 2024 (print) | LCC GV1469.34.S52 (ebook) | DDC 794.8–dc23/eng/20230817 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023029311 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023029312 ISBN: HB: 979-8-7651-1023-2 ePDF: 979-8-7651-1026-3 eBook: 979-8-7651-1025-6 Typeset by Newgen KnowledgeWorks Pvt. Ltd., Chennai, India To find out more about our authors and books visit www.blo​omsb​ury.com and sign up for our newsletters.

CONTENTS

List of Figures  vii List of Tables  viii

Introduction: Gamers and Gaming in the Strangest of Times  1 Piotr Siuda, Jakub Majewski, and Krzysztof Chmielewski

Part One  During the Pandemic … 1 Roblox in Lockdown: Understanding Young People’s Digital Social Play in the Pandemic  15 Hugh Davies and Larissa Hjorth

2 “I’ve Played More Minecraft with the Kids”: Gaming and Family Dynamics in the Early Stage of the COVID-19 Pandemic  39 Mikko Meriläinen and Maria Ruotsalainen

3 Uses and Appropriations of the Cozy Game Animal Crossing: New Horizons during the Lockdown  59 Gabrielle Trépanier-Jobin, Débora Krischke Leitão, and Jérémie Pelletier-Gagnon

4 Gaming (the Pandemic) with Vision Impairment: An Autoethnographic Account  87 Lobna Hassan

Part Two  The Lasting Impact of the Pandemic 5 When the Virtual Office Became Reality: Digital Game Development during and after the Lockdown  111 Jakub Majewski

vi

CONTENTS

6 The Influence of COVID-19 on Newspaper Discourses on Video Games in Cross-cultural Perspective: Between Safe Social Spaces and Video Game Addiction  129 Stefan Brückner

7 A Review of Studies on Location-Based Live-Service Games during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Players’ Behavior and Reluctance to Return to the Pre-pandemic State  155 Samuli Laato, Bastian Kordyaka, and Juho Hamari

8 Pandemic Gaming and Wholesome Philosophy: How New Players Reimaged Gaming Practices  179 Noel Brett and Sasha Soraine

Part Three  Lessons Learned 9 “It Was All without Emotions, and This Wasn’t the Same Anymore”: “Replacing” Traditional Sports with E-Sports during the COVID-19 Pandemic  203 Piotr Siuda, Michał Jasny, and Dobrosław Mańkowski

10 Playing as the World Falls Apart: The Use of Video Games during the COVID-19 Crisis—the Case of Italy  223 Arianna Boldi, Maurizio Tirassa, and Amon Rapp

11 Reflection Inception: Creating a Reflective COVID-19 Game by Reflecting on the Pandemic  245 Adam Jerrett

Notes on Contributors  269 Index  273

FIGURES

1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 2.1 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 7.1 7.2 7.3 8.1 8.2 9.1 11.1 11.2 11.3 11.4

Menu of playable Roblox spaces  19 Age and gender breakdown of Roblox players  20 Nathan plays in social spaces in Roblox  26 Nathan’s avatar touring us through his draft RPG game set in a high school  27 Dropdown menu process of reporting players  29 Map of main themes and subthemes  43 Co-occurrence network in the sub-corpus of pandemic-related tweets  64 Relevant co-occurrences in the sub-corpus of pandemic-related tweets  67 Co-occurrence network in the sub-corpus of dating-related tweets  69 Relevant co-occurrences in the sub-corpus of appearance-related tweets  76 Relevant co-occurrences in the sub-corpus of mobilization-related tweets  78 A timeline of key events related to in-game changes in Pokémon GO due to the COVID-19 pandemic  156 Two events where players expressed their dissatisfaction with reverting pandemic changes  159 Summary of the literature search process  161 Data processing and analysis process  184 Relation between and changes to gaming labels from pre-pandemic (left) to pandemic (right)  191 Racing scene from Zwift  209 WWTWU’s combined holistic design process  252 The game website  255 The WWTWU discord  256 The game room, Ana’s office  258

TABLES

6.1 Number of Articles Analyzed per Newspaper and Period  133 6.2 Search Algorithms for German, Japanese, and English Articles  134 6.3 Comparison of Total and Relative Code Frequencies for the Ten Most Salient Thematic Categories for 2019 and 2020  137 6.4 Total and Relative Frequencies of Seven Salient Thematic Categories for All Document Groups  140 6.5 Total and Relative Frequency of “Positive” and “Negative” Codes per Document Group  142 7.1 Keywords Used in the Initial Search for Academic Literature  160 7.2 Summary of the Research Approach, Methods, and Main Findings from the Eleven Academic Studies Focusing on LBGs in the Pandemic Context  163 7.3 High-Level Categories of Areas of LBG Play That Were Impacted by the Pandemic and Subsequent In-Game Changes  167 7.4 The Future Research Agenda on This Topic Based on the Literature Review  173 8.1 Subreddits Used in the Study  182

Introduction: Gamers and Gaming in the Strangest of Times Piotr Siuda, Jakub Majewski, and Krzysztof Chmielewski

The COVID-19 pandemic was a historical moment with significant and lasting social, cultural, and economic repercussions. This significance grows further when we take into consideration the unprecedented response from governments around the world. As is to be expected, most of the postpandemic discussions have revolved around the most profound ways in which it affected societies worldwide: the direct and indirect loss of lives, persistent health issues, economic disruptions, and the post hoc debate about the wisdom of mandated lockdowns (Chambers 2023). We are under no illusion: games, gamers, and the game industry are a long way down on the list of the pandemic’s most significant effects. Yet, despite this caveat, we strongly believe that documenting the impact of both the pandemic and pandemic-related government policies on games and gamers is valuable and important. The years 2020–22 were a watershed moment for games, their enormously expanded body of players, and the game industry. It will take time, perhaps several years, before it becomes possible to fully assess the long-term effects of the pandemic, both in its global impact and more narrowly, for the gaming community. Even so, as already noted, the impact is not only widespread but also runs deep.

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For video games, such developments are because the role played by modern video games is especially notable for several reasons. Digital media in general harbor affordances that exist in no other media format: the encyclopedic capacity of digital storage, the participatory nature of interactivity, the capacity for procedural response to the user, and the spatial, navigable format of the user’s interactions (Murray 1997). Digital games tend to maximize digital media affordances; their interactivity delivers agency into the hands of the users (Muriel and Crawford 2020), while their personalized paths of exploration allow them to build individualized experiences on top of universal gameplay rules. In turn, the developed player communities and their capacity to influence or even force changes in existing and newly created products make games most responsive to changes in social needs, including the ones brought about by the pandemic. Perhaps the most characteristic example of this was the evolution of Pokémon GO (Niantic 2016)—an augmented reality mobile game with gameplay designed to require outdoor exploration—which in March 2020 successfully faced the remarkable challenge of having to adapt outdoor-oriented gameplay into a stay-at-home scenario (see Laato, Kordyaka, and Hamari in this book). No other media has presented such growth and significant changes in consumer behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic as the video games industry (Barr and Copeland-Stewart 2022). In the initial months, many industry reports noted the unexpected positive impact on online digital game sales. Games were not just lockdown-proof; rather, their sales were boosted by lockdowns (Humphreys 2022; Romano 2020). Stay-at-home orders triggered a rush toward games as an alternative form of entertainment, and the ubiquity of mobile phones allowed wider-than-ever participation (Barr and Copeland-Stewart 2022; Haug et al. 2022). Especially throughout the so-called developed world, games became ingrained into dramatically revised home routines and lifestyles, with the World Health Organization going so far as to recommend games, after years of focusing on the potential harms of the medium (Snider 2020). Additionally, in work environments, we saw a significant increase in the acceptance of reward and recognition systems originating from games—especially, but not limited to, gamification (Grensing-Pophal 2022). Beyond home and work, the e-Sports in some ways temporarily replaced the greatly diminished world of traditional sports, forcing immediate brand innovation and far-reaching changes in marketing strategies. However, the growth in e-Sports’ online viewership came with a price; before the pandemic, e-Sports relied extensively on local arena events for revenue, and many of these events had to be canceled (see Siuda, Jasny, and Mańkowski in this book). Sports were not the only form of live entertainment that turned virtual, as the impossibility of live concerts also forced the music industry to explore alternatives. While in this case the vast majority of virtual concerts appear to have been conducted through streaming platforms such as Twitch

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and YouTube (Swarbrick et al. 2021), games also became popular venues. In the distant pre-pandemic past, Second Life (Linden Lab 2003) had experimented with virtual concerts, but the concept never became popular, being considered inferior to real concerts (Dammann 2007). During the pandemic, however, virtual concerts in Fortnite (Epic Games 2017) sometimes garnered as many as 28 million views and were hailed as the “future of gaming” (Kim 2020). In 2023, given the resurgent popularity of live events after the pandemic, it is easy to dismiss the hyperbole surrounding virtual sports and concerts as either baseless or, best case, grounded only in an excessive emotional response to lockdown measures, providing muchneeded relief to the privations of the lockdowns. However, the difficulties faced both by audiences and by the entertainment industries, even if temporary, were very real. Sales growth and marketing aside, the impact on the game industry overall was more complex and often pernicious, and in this collection, we uncover these not-always-obvious changes. Like many other white-collar workers, game developers experienced a rapid and often challenging shift to remote work (see chapters by Jerrett and Majewski in this book). This shift toward virtual communication also affected universities, where students could no longer be hosted in campus laboratories, requiring new forms of student engagement. These new meeting spaces were found—or rediscovered—in games and virtual worlds. For almost two decades, virtual online worlds like Second Life and game platforms like Roblox (Roblox Corporation 2006) and games like Minecraft (Mojang Studios 2011) have been encouraging their players/users—visitors/inhabitants—to extend their experience with these platforms beyond mere play and into academic or work-related usage. Perhaps the most prominent example of this are the so-called virtual learning environments (VLEs), for example, virtual conferences (Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education 2023) or virtual university campuses (see, e.g., Brand et al. 2014 for a pre-pandemic example of Bond University’s (Australia) adoption of the virtual university campus when the physical university site was cut off from students as a result of flooding). However, the history of VLEs, as well as commercial usage of online platforms, was, before the pandemic, largely tangential; for example, neither the usage of Second Life as a VLE (Kirriemuir 2007) or site of business activity, nor the controversies and conflicts around such usage (e.g., Foster and Carnevale 2007), reached mainstream awareness. The subject returned with far greater prominence during the pandemic. Minecraft found itself re-embraced by the education sector as a consequence of lockdowns (Anderson 2020; Khan 2021), and its publishers increased support for the educational modes the game provides (Webster 2020). In turn, Second Life developers Linden Lab quickly moved to present their platform as a pandemic-safe solution for business meetings, with greater immersiveness and customization than more conventional tools like Zoom or Skype (Parsons 2020). As we will see throughout this volume,

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this was just one of many cases of virtual worlds, platforms, or games adapting their offer—often with great success—to the pandemic situation. Conversely, some digital games encountered unexpected challenges: how, indeed, to adapt a location-based augmented reality game like Pokémon GO (Niantic 2016) to a locked-down world (Laato, Laine, and Islam 2020)? Equally complex was the impact on nondigital games. Typically designed for direct face-to-face contact, board games, pen-and-paper role-playing games (RPGs), and even live-action role-playing games (LARPs) and their players were forced to move online or to employ complex safety protocols to minimize transmission risk and conform to legal requirements. With the manufacturing and shipping chain of board game components being drastically distorted, the market for board games has undergone a dramatic change (Williams 2022). Also, the virtual market management concept overtook a fair share of the market, with the leading role of crowdfunding specialists (Hewer 2020). Large-scale events were canceled, postponed, downsized, or virtualized. The same, indeed, was the case not only for game-playing events but also for industry and academic gaming conferences (College 2020). Both digital and nondigital multiplayer games—played at home during enforced isolation—contributed to fulfilling a need that the American Psychology Association found particularly crucial regarding the challenges presented by the pandemic: fostering a sense of normality by introducing safe spaces to maintain social networks (American Psychological Association 2020; in this volume, see, e.g., Brückner; Meriläinen and Ruotsalainen; Trépanier-Jobin, Leitão, and Pelletier-Gagnon). However, the increased usage of games occurred not only among existing players but also among entirely new audiences, resulting in profound cultural change. It was this area that attracted the most interest from our contributors. The pandemic shifted play patterns, sometimes unexpectedly, lifting previously released games from obscurity as a particular title somehow found itself able to fill a pandemic-related need, for example, with the explosion of the party game Among Us (Innersloth 2018), a title described as replicating “the only part of office life that most of us secretly miss: gossip and in-fighting” (Stuart 2020). Beyond individual titles, the pandemic altered the popular perception of the broader concept of play and, among the players themselves, further complicated the understanding of already fraught concepts such as hardcore and casual play (see Brett and Soraine in this book). Many contributors to this volume particularly stressed the alteration of gaming patterns, with increased play time and a far expanded dependence on games as a tool for socialization (e.g., Davies and Hjorth; Boldi, Tirassa, and Rapp in this volume). Notably, the widespread adoption of games also raised questions about those left behind due to access difficulties, whether caused by financial barriers or disabilities. The issue of accessibility is broached in this volume

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(most notably by Hassan), but undoubtedly requires much further thought and research, which will be challenging indeed. While indicating how the games, gamers, and the game industry were affected by the pandemic, we must stress the fact that all of the contributions to this volume came from the so-called Global North, that is, Europe, North America, and Australia, not because this is what we, as editors, solicited but simply as a reflection of the submissions we ultimately received. This absence, we believe, speaks volumes about the difference in engagement in games between the North and the South. While the broader, pre-pandemic issue of how the Global South encounters games has seen some exploration in recent years (e.g., Mukherjee 2023; Penix-Tadsen 2019), the pandemic-related differences remain unexamined. What is clear is that while the severity of the pandemic and the resulting lockdowns varied from state to state, these variations did not overlap with economic or cultural divides: states imposing heavy lockdowns could be found as easily in Europe as in Africa or Asia, and conversely, states refusing to impose lockdowns could also be found all around the world. In all cases, we have encouraged our own contributors to consider the specifics of the pandemic situation in their particular state as a critical component of the context of their research. We have divided the present volume into three parts, telling three different stories. The first part groups together those chapters that relay stories of games and gaming. Subsequently, the second part explores that which endures: the instances where (and how) the initial impact of the pandemic has resulted in possibly permanent changes, or at least changes whose effects are liable to be felt for years to come. Finally, the third part brings together explorations of the lessons drawn from the pandemic. This third part is “softer” than the earlier parts in terms of the pandemic effects as such. It is more about taking note of some possible changes, but also highlighting events and changes that did not occur. This latter category includes both cases that were announced and even anticipated in the media during the early days of the pandemic and those that were not necessarily anticipated but might still reasonably have been expected to arise during the pandemic. These changes include e-Sports vs. traditional sports, designing serious games for mental health, and using games as a tool to come to terms with traumatic life events. The first part, then, begins with an examination of the way young people engaged with games in one of the most extreme cases of lockdowns. In “Roblox in Lockdown: Understanding Young People’s Digital Social Play in the Pandemic,” Hugh Davies and Larissa Hjorth present their research on the social role of the Roblox gaming platform during the COVID-19 lockdown in Melbourne, Australia. Melbourne is a unique case—a recordbreaking lockdown that ultimately lasted two-thirds of a year: 262 days. Understandably, then, games—and Roblox foremost—were a crucial surrogate of peer contact for children. The authors conducted a wide-ranging

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study; through interviews undertaken with twelve Roblox players between the ages of nine and fourteen, the chapter explores how these players extended their social play spaces into the digital worlds during the pandemic. The chapter expands outwards from this case study to examine the broader context of contemporary media practices, especially concerning children and young people. Chapter 2 complements Davies and Hjorth’s study with its focus on families, this time turning to the northern hemisphere. “ ‘I’ve Played More Minecraft with the Kids’: Gaming and Family Dynamics in the Early Stage of the COVID-19 Pandemic” by Mikko Meriläinen and Maria Ruotsalainen concentrates on the role of gaming in family dynamics and how Finnish families coped with the pandemic restrictions of spring 2020. A qualitative study, the chapter demonstrates how gaming during lockdowns was perceived in a dualistic fashion, as a family-uniting activity, but simultaneously as a source of parental worry. This was mostly associated with different individual preferences and other situational factors, such as whether the family had children or not, or whether parents were working remotely. The chapter emphasizes the importance of gaming as a situated activity both specifically in the COVID-19 context and as a part of everyday family life. The next two chapters are both autoethnographic accounts and concentrate on one of the most crucial examples of cozy video games (Waszkiewicz and Bakun 2020), namely Animal Crossing: New Horizons (AC:NH) (Nintendo 2020) and its importance during the COVID-19 pandemic (Zhu 2021). In Chapter 3—“Uses and Appropriations of the Cozy Game Animal Crossing: New Horizons during the Lockdown”—Gabrielle Trépanier-Jobin, Débora Krischke Leitão, and Jérémie Pelletier-Gagnon (along with other authors from the Homo Ludens group) explain the reasons behind AC:NH becoming such an important game during the pandemic. The chapter, based on a collective autoethnography supported by computerassisted text analysis performed on Twitter, presents a uses and gratifications theory perspective on key players’ needs gaining significance during the pandemic and how the analyzed game addressed those needs. In general, the chapter is an important voice counterbalancing recurrent discourses about the allegedly harmful effects of video games on players’ health. Chapter 4 also revolves to some extent around AC:NH in the pandemic and similarly engages in autoethnography, but is even more personal than the preceding chapter. “Gaming (the Pandemic) with Vision Impairment: An Autoethnographic Account” by Lobna Hassan presents the first-hand perspective of a person with visual impairment addressing some key factors such as the strategies of using games, the role streamers play in finding accessible titles, and the emotional and physical labor involved in the gaming. The chapter concentrates on how pandemic experiences of games were complicated by their frequent inaccessibility for people with

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disabilities. By using the autoethnographic method, this chapter reflects on Hassan’s interaction with games during the pandemic and highlights the impact game (in)accessibility can have on gamers in general, not only during such crises as the pandemic. While the earlier chapters forming the first part of our book focused on players and their behavior during the pandemic, Chapter 5 serves as a transition into the second part, looking at both the immediate impact of the pandemic and its lasting effects—this time not on game players but on the video game industry. “When the Virtual Office Became Reality: Digital Game Development during and after Lockdown” by Jakub Majewski presents an overview of how government restrictions across Europe and the United States, making the office inaccessible, spurred game developers to pivot toward dispersed teams collaborating remotely. Though some developers had worked remotely in the past, and the availability of tools that enable remote collaboration made this transition easier, the industry nonetheless found it highly challenging, with many games being delayed in the process. Conversely, once the transition had been worked through, many studios integrated optional remote work into their permanent culture and practice. The chapter summarizes expert and media reports on this matter both from the pandemic and the post-pandemic period. Chapter 6 continues the examination of the pandemic’s enduring impact, though it does so by looking back to the first year of the pandemic. “The Influence of COVID-19 on Newspaper Discourses on Video Games in Cross-cultural Perspective: Between Safe Social Spaces and Video Game Addiction” by Stefan Brückner is an empirical account of regional differences in how video games were portrayed in the media during the first year of the pandemic. Brückner’s study of video game reporting across six German, Japanese, and US newspapers argues that the pandemic has indeed caused a positive shift in the portrayal of games in mass communication in Germany and the United States, albeit with some evidence that this shift was a continuation of a longer, pre-pandemic tendency. Conversely, in Japan, the COVID-19 pandemic provided further opportunities to solidify critical depictions of video games. Chapter 7, Samuli Laato, Bastian Kordyaka, and Juho Hamari’s “A Review of Studies on Location-Based Live Service Games during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Players’ Behavior and Reluctance to Return to the Pre-pandemic State,” turns the spotlight on location-based games (LBGs). Unsurprisingly, LBGs and their players had to significantly adjust their needs and expectations during the pandemic, as the default mode of play for LBGs became inaccessible. This chapter explores this issue through a systematic literature review of studies on LBGs with most of the discovered literature focused on Pokémon GO. As it turns out, the restrictions and in-game changes introduced by producers during the pandemic restructured and renegotiated the role of the game in the players’ daily lives. Crucially,

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this chapter shows how these changes—perhaps unexpectedly—continue beyond the pandemic, with a seemingly permanent shift in attitudes from LBG players. This shift is reflected in the considerable problems faced by developers when they tried to roll back some of the pandemic-era changes. Noel Brett and Sasha Soraine in Chapter 8, titled “Pandemic Gaming and Wholesome Philosophy: How New Players Reimaged Gaming Practices,” present a constructivist grounded theory–based reflection on the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic on what the gamer community considers as “hardcore” and “casual” gaming practices. The authors analyze two highly popular games, both launched during the pandemic: the previously mentioned AC:NH and League of Legends: Wild Rift (Riot Games 2021). These gaming communities are studied through their presence on Reddit before and during the height of the pandemic. The chapter, while revealing the role of the COVID-19 pandemic in permanently disrupting gaming communities, addresses the question of what this disruption means for the future of gaming culture as a whole. The third and final part of the book turns to the lessons learned from the pandemic—including lessons drawn from what did not change. The first example of the latter is explored in Chapter 9. “ ‘It Was All without Emotions, and This Wasn’t the Same Anymore’: ‘Replacing’ Traditional Sports with e-Sports during the COVID-19 Pandemic” by Piotr Siuda, Michał Jasny, and Dobrosław Mańkowski dissects the once-popular beliefs on how the pandemic has forever changed the relations between traditional sports and e-Sports. The claim stemmed from the powerful role played by e-Sports at a time when traditional sports were not possible. E-Sports would thus help improve the sustainability of traditional sports in a post-pandemic world, as a result of the remarkable e-Sports growth during the pandemic, and the myriad e-Sports mixed reality solutions, temporarily “replacing” traditional sports. The chapter interrogates these beliefs through fifteen retrospective in-depth interviews with journalists dealing with both e-Sports and traditional sports. The interviewees were highly skeptical of the optimistic view presented above, and there is every indication that their skepticism was justified. There are some lessons learned from this study: the journalist voices tell us not only about the actual relations between e-Sports and traditional sports during and after the pandemic but also how to understand e-Sports in the first place. Chapter 10 turns back toward players, their pandemic stories, and the lessons for mental health. “Playing as the World Falls Apart: The Use of Video Games during the COVID-19 Crisis—the Case of Italy” by Arianna Boldi, Maurizio Tirassa, and Amon Rapp examines the role games may have played in the pandemic for Italian game players. The authors base their argument on a qualitative online survey during the national lockdown of 2020. The findings are mostly positive, with video games considered as reducing gamers’ feelings of loneliness and helping to make sense of the

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new situation. Moreover, players utilized various distinctive features of particular games for a sort of self-treatment. The chapter thus contains lessons for the future with regard to using commercial games for mental health improvement and how to design serious games for health. In the final, eleventh chapter, titled “Reflection Inception: Creating a Reflective COVID-19 Game by Reflecting on the Pandemic,” Adam Jerrett conveys a lesson for game developers and designers exploring the pandemic through their own work. He describes the creative process (design and development) of the video game What We Take with Us (Jerrett 2022). This is a semi-autobiographical COVID-19-themed pervasive game based on Jerrett’s pandemic experience. The chapter discusses how values-conscious game design frameworks could fuel the creative process and uses a thematic analysis to identify key design insights. The themes discussed include the barriers to design in times of crisis, the usefulness of game design frameworks, the evolution of people and projects, the consequences of making personal games, and the role of playtesting. The COVID-19 pandemic and, perhaps even more so, the governmentmandated lockdowns have impacted our society in myriad ways. As we write these words—the introduction traditionally being the last chapter to be written—we are all too aware that even within our relatively narrow perspective of games and game studies, there are a great many issues left unexamined. Even an incomplete list of topics to explore would run long. For example, almost unexplored here were the nondigital games—LARPs, tabletop RPGs, and board games. All of these, so often played in public spaces like clubs, fan events, organizations, or through informal groups of friends, were forced to suspend their traditional formats and switch to online spaces. Another topic, though one that may perhaps be better positioned in a wider context of tertiary education studies, would be the difficulties of teaching game design in an online setting, given that typically a practical, hands-on approach is necessary. The topics in need of examination continue to multiply. Certainly, the discrepancies in the pandemic and lockdown experience between the Global North and Global South, already signaled earlier, is a large and prominent topic, which could be approached from many different perspectives. For example, the present volume has described the transition to online forms of game production in Europe and North America, but how did this transition look in countries with more limited digital infrastructure? Conversely, it should not be taken for granted that developing countries necessarily have fewer gamers: after all, the mobile phone has become ubiquitous throughout the world (e.g., FurtherAfrica 2022). Then, there are the game players themselves. How did their patterns of gameplay change? For years, multiple quantitative audience studies have indicated, unsurprisingly, that different people play different kinds of games, and they do so for different reasons, with younger audiences tending to play

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to experience excitement, middle-aged players to relax, and older players to keep their minds active (e.g., Brand, Todhunter, and Jervis 2017). Some of the research presented here has certainly suggested that the pandemic context had pushed more players toward relaxing cozy games (Waszkiewicz and Bakun 2020), but these patterns undoubtedly need further exploration. How have and how will gamers continue to personalize their usage of games (digital or analog) to suit their own needs? The pandemic is over. The lockdowns are over. Yet, perversely, both the pandemic and lockdowns are still with us—in us. We have been irrevocably changed, and so has our world. Let us continue to examine these changes and learn from them in our quest for future resiliency.

References American Psychological Association (2020), “Five Ways to View Coverage of the Coronavirus.” www.apa.org/top​ics/covid-19/view-cover​age (accessed May 20, 2023). Anderson, P. (2020), “Campus Is Closed, So College Students Are Rebuilding Their Schools in Minecraft,” The Verge, March 31. www.theve​rge. com/2020/3/31/21200​972/coll​ege-stude​nts-gra​duat​ion-minecr​aft-coro​navi​russch​ool-closu​res (accessed May 20, 2023). Barr, M., and A. Copeland-Stewart (2022), “Playing Video Games during the COVID-19 Pandemic and Effects on Players’ Well-Being,” Games and Culture, 17 (1): 122–39. Brand, J. E., P. De Byl, S. Knight, and J. Hooper (2014), “Mining Constructivism in the University: The Case of Creative Mode,” in N. Garrelts (ed.), Understanding Minecraft: Essays on Play, Community and Possibilities, Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 57–75. Brand, J. E., S. Todhunter, and J. Jervis (2017), Digital Australia Report 2018, Eveleigh: Interactive Games & Entertainment Association. Chambers, J. (2023), COVID-19 and the Coronavirus Sourcebook, 1st edn., New York: Omnigraphics. College, A. (2020), “Covid-19 vs The Games Industry,” Alexander College—Study in Cyprus. https://alexan​der.ac.cy/covid-19-vs-the-games-indus​try/ (accessed May 20, 2023). Dammann, G. (2007), “Concerts in Second Life Aren’t Quite the Real Deal,” The Guardian, September 17. www.theg​uard​ian.com/music/musicb​log/2007/sep/17/ sec​ondl​ife (accessed May 20, 2023). Epic Games (2017), Fortnite (Microsoft Windows; Mac; Nintendo Switch; PlayStation 4; PlayStation 5; Xbox One, series X/S; iOS; Android), Epic Games. Foster, A., and D. Carnevale (2007), “The Death of a Virtual Campus Illustrates How Real-World Problems Can Disrupt Online Islands,” Chronicle of Higher Education. www.chroni​cle.com/arti​cle/the-death-of-a-virt​ual-cam​pus/ (accessed May 20, 2023).

INTRODUCTION

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FurtherAfrica (2022), “African Countries with the Highest Number of Mobile Phones,” July 19. https://furthe​rafr​ica.com/2022/07/19/afri​can-countr​ ies-with-the-high​est-num​ber-of-mob​ile-pho​nes/ (accessed May 22, 2023). Grensing-Pophal, L. (2022), “Gamification Advances Post-pandemic,” SHRM, June 9. www.shrm.org/resour​cesa​ndto​ols/hr-top​ics/tec​hnol​ogy/pages/gamif​i cat​ionadvan​ces-post-pande​mic.aspx (accessed May 20, 2023). Haug, E., S. Mæland, S. Lehmann, R. Bjørknes, L. T. Fadnes, G. M. Sandal, and J. C. Skogen (2022), “Increased Gaming during COVID-19 Predicts Physical Inactivity among Youth in Norway: A Two-Wave Longitudinal Cohort Study,” Frontiers in Public Health, 10. Hewer, D. (2020), “Some Thoughts on the Economic Impact of the Coronavirus on Tabletop Games, Crowdfunding, Entrepreneurs, and More,” Stonemaier Games, March 10. https://ston​emai​erga​mes.com/some-thoug​hts-on-the-econo​ mic-imp​act-of-the-coro​navi​rus-on-table​top-games-crowd​fund​ing-entrep​rene​ urs-and-more/ (accessed February 10, 2023). Humphreys, A. (2022), Playing with Reality: Gaming in a Pandemic, London: Renard Press. Innersloth (2018), Among Us (Android; iOS; Microsoft Windows; Nintendo Switch; PlayStation 4; PlayStation 5; Xbox One, series X/S), Innersloth. Jerrett, A. (2022), What We Take with Us (Microsoft Windows; Mac; Linux). https://wha​twet​akew​ith.us (accessed February 13, 2023). Khan, S. (2021), “How Teachers Used Minecraft for Education during COVID19,” EdTechReview, February 5. www.edtec​hrev​iew.in/tre​nds-insig​hts/tre​nds/ how-teach​ers-used-minecr​aft-for-educat​ion-dur​ing-covid-19 (accessed May 24, 2023). Kim, T. (2020), “Fortnite Pandemic Rap Fest Shows Future of Gaming,” Bloomberg, May 7. www.bloomb​erg.com/opin​ion/artic​les/2020-05-07/cor​onav​ iru-fortn​ite-rap-conc​ert-sign​als-astro​nomi​cal-gro​wth (accessed May 20, 2023). Kirriemuir, J. (2007), “The Second Life of UK Academics,” Ariadne, 53. Laato, S., T. H. Laine, and A. K. M. N. Islam (2020), “Location-Based Games and the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Analysis of Responses from Game Developers and Players,” Multimodal Technologies and Interaction, 4 (2): 29. Linden Lab (2003), Second Life (Microsoft Windows; Mac; Linux), Linden Lab. Mojiang Studios (2011), Minecraft (Windows; macOS; Linux; Android; iOS; iPadOS; Xbox 360; Raspberry Pi; Windows Phone; PlayStation 3; Fire OS; PlayStation 4; Xbox One; PlayStation Vita; Wii U; Apple TV; tvOS; Nintendo Switch; New Nintendo 3DS), Mojang Studios, Xbox Game Studios, Telltale Games, Sony Interactive Entertainment. Mukherjee, S. (2023), Videogames in the Indian Subcontinent: Development, Culture(s) and Representations, New Delhi: Bloomsbury Academic. Muriel, D., and G. Crawford (2020), “Video Games and Agency in Contemporary Society,” Games and Culture, 15 (2): 138–57. Murray, J. (1997), Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace, New York: Free Press. Niantic (2016), Pokémon GO (Android; iOS), Niantic. Nintendo (2020), Animal Crossing: New Horizons (Nintendo Switch), Nintendo.

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Parsons, M. (2020), “Second Life Targets Corporate Sector as Travel Lockdown Bites,” Skift, March 23. https://skift.com/2020/03/23/sec​ond-life-targ​ets-corpor​ ate-sec​tor-as-tra​vel-lockd​own-bites (accessed May 20, 2023). Penix-Tadsen, P. (ed.) (2019), Video Games and the Global South, Pittsburgh, PA: ETC Press. Riot Games (2021), League of Legends: Wild Rift (Android; iOS; iPadOS), Riot Games. Roblox Corporation (2006), Roblox (Windows; iOS; Android; Xbox One), Roblox Corporation. Romano, N. (2020), “Game (Still) On: How Coronavirus Is Impacting the Gaming Industry,” EW, March 19. https://ew.com/gam​ing/coro​navi​rus-vid​eoga​mes-indus​ try-imp​act/ (accessed February 10, 2023). Snider, M. (2020), “Video Games Can Be a Healthy Social Pastime during Coronavirus Pandemic,” USA Today, March 28. www.usato​day.com/story/tech/ gam​ing/2020/03/28/video-games-whos- prescription-solace-during-coronaviruspandemic/2932976001/ (accessed May 22, 2022). Stuart, K. (2020), “Among Us: The Ultimate Party Game of the Paranoid COVID Era,” The Guardian, September 29. www.theg​uard​ian.com/games/2020/sep/29/ among-us-the-ultim​ate-party-game-of-the-covid-era (accessed May 24, 2023). Swarbrick, D., B. Seibt, N. Grinspun, and J. Vuoskoski (2021), “Corona Concerts: The Effect of Virtual Concert Characteristics on Social Connection and Kama Muta,” Frontiers in Psychology, 12, article 648448. Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education (2023), “Mission and Team.” www. vwbpe.org/miss​ion (accessed May 20, 2023). Waszkiewicz, A., and M. Bakun (2020), “Towards the Aesthetics of Cozy Video Games,” Journal of Gaming & Virtual Worlds, 12 (3): 225–40. Webster, A. (2020), “Minecraft Education Is Perfectly Suited for This Surreal Backto-School Moment,” The Verge, August 21. www.theve​rge.com/21377​192/ minecr​aft-educat​ion-edit​ion-back-to-sch​ool-pande​mic (accessed May 24, 2023). Williams, L. J. (2022), “How the Pandemic Has Brutally Reshaped the Board Games Industry,” GamesHub, December 12. www.games​hub.com/news/featu​ res/coro​navi​rus-board-games-cost-shipp​ing-manufa​ctur​ing-pro​duct​ion-36512 (accessed February 10, 2023). Zhu, L. (2021), “The Psychology behind Video Games during COVID-19 Pandemic: A Case Study of Animal Crossing: New Horizons,” Human Behavior and Emerging Technologies, 3 (1): 157–9.

PART ONE

During the Pandemic …

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1 Roblox in Lockdown: Understanding Young People’s Digital Social Play in the Pandemic Hugh Davies and Larissa Hjorth

Introduction In the early months of 2020 in the state of Victoria (Australia), the coronavirus pandemic significantly restricted opportunities for children’s play in physical spaces. Schools, swimming pools, gymnasiums, parks, and playgrounds all closed, and social contact was reduced to immediate household and family members (ABC 2020). With similar lockdowns enacted in many countries globally, online spaces offered the only viable alternatives for children to engage in collective, social, and playful experiences—global attitudes to video games suddenly shifted. For example, the WHO (World Health Organization) reversed their recently enacted stance on video games as addictive (Kelland 2018) and instead promoted videogaming as helping communicate public health messaging and building social inclusion in a time of social distancing and lockdowns (Snider 2020). Video games too began reflecting the early pandemic embrace of online spaces. For example, while in 2018 Roblox (Roblox Corporation 2006) had 13.7 million active daily users, the platform numbers tripled in 2020 to over 40 million users, seeing Roblox emerge as “one of the biggest entertainment

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success stories of the pandemic” (The Economist 2020). Despite the rising popularity and success of the Roblox platform, there has been little academic attention to its distinctive qualities or its use among the youth demographic that it targets. This chapter works to address this gap by interviewing young Australian Roblox players to understand their Roblox practices during the pandemic. Roblox is a multiplayer online platform and game creation system. Enabling its users to playfully create and share their own games, navigable spaces, and digital environments, as well as to explore and enjoy spaces created by others, Roblox gives rise to countless in-game play geographies. Playable across a wide variety of game platforms and consoles, the game also impacts and shapes the physical environments it is played in. Bedrooms, lounge rooms, and the backseats of cars become part of the spatial experiences of playing within the Roblox platform. By inviting and facilitating these diverse and malleable locations and modes of play, each year Roblox attracts millions of young players to share playful spaces, experiences, and interactions (Levy 2020). Play in Roblox can be simple or complex, synchronous or asynchronous, console or mobile, monetized or free (Wiederhold 2021). According to Roblox’s chief business officer Craig Donato, Roblox’s focus upon “unstructured play” accounts for the success of the platform (Donato in Dredge 2019). For Roblox cocreator and CEO David Baszucki, Roblox’s sprawling social world is its greatest feature and gestures toward “the media metaverse to come” (Helm 2020). For Baszucki, platforms like Roblox signal “a new category of human co-experience and freedom,” one that blends video games and social media (Helm 2020). Notwithstanding the platform’s ambitious projections, Roblox has much in common with previous open-world sandbox-style games. Within such experiences that include Minecraft (Mojiang Studios 2011), Little Big Planet (Sony Interactive/Sony PlayStation 2008), and Disney Infinity (Avalanche Software 2013), young players can become highly engaged with malleable virtual environments with game-making/modification as a core aspect of play (Giannakos, Garneli, and Chorianopoulos 2015). Despite its dynamic affordances and global popularity, there is currently little academic scholarship dedicated to Roblox. The game platform is overshadowed by Minecraft in terms of discussion of youth game player demographic and in relation to play within the home. While recent scholarship has investigated the ways children creatively engage with video games domestically such as in the work of Wiederhold (2021) and Caughey (2021) and, more locally, in the work of Hjorth, Richardson, Davies, and Balmford (2021) and Balmford and Davies (2020), these studies have largely occurred in relation to Minecraft and other games. The findings presented here arise from the research project “Exploring Roblox Play,” a social and cultural investigation of the Roblox platform

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undertaken during the pandemic lockdowns of 2021. Through interviews and ethnographic methods undertaken with young players, “Exploring Roblox Play” surveyed how Roblox is reflecting, and being shaped by, complex social and technological practices managed during the pandemic. As a dynamic series of creative and playful tools, we aimed to discover what young players are making, doing, and thinking in Roblox, especially in light of the sustained lockdowns and social distancing. What we discovered was the many ways that Roblox was reshaping a broad range of social and playful spaces. This chapter presents fieldwork undertaken with young people to critically reflect upon the role of Roblox for creativity and sociality during the pandemic. We begin by providing a social and cultural context for the role of video games during the pandemic in which games were often the only vehicle for social connection and for “hanging out” (Ito et al. 2010). We then provide a detailed introduction to the Roblox platform, presenting its distinctive attributes, its growing popularity, and its target demographics. Having established the subject and demographic of our study, we then undertake a literature review of ethnographic research into virtual spaces, providing a background of the approaches and methodologies we deployed in this research, before outlining our participant demographics and the methods used to recruit them. With the background for this research laid out, we move into our fieldwork findings drawing attention to participant descriptions of Roblox, the social and mundane spaces the platform affords, and the creative practices of play among our participants. Revealed here are key findings around how the Roblox platform provides an everyday social and creative space for participants to relax, create, chat, and play, thereby sustaining mundane social activities and giving rise to new modes of interaction during extended periods of lockdown. In the closing section, we give attention to digital safety on the platform and the opportunities for digital literacy it enables. Utilizing empirical findings and critical reflection, this chapter meditates on the role of Roblox and games more generally for sociality and quotidian play moving out of the pandemic.

Setting the Context: Games in the Pandemic In the first eighteen months of the COVID-19 pandemic, 4.2 billion people, or more than half of the world’s population, experienced partial or total lockdown (IEA 2020). During this period, face-to-face engagement was all but replaced with online interaction fundamentally altering understandings of sociality while building and reinforcing relationships with technology.

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Video platforms such as Zoom, Teams, and GoogleMeet became normalized modes of working, learning, and staying in touch during a time of enforced physical distancing, while youth around the world took to video games as a way to maintain social connection. According to Statista (2020), in the six days between March 16 and March 22, 2020, when lockdowns were announced, global video game sales increased by 63 percent. In the United States, video game internet traffic increased by 75 percent as restrictions were imposed (The Economist 2020). Meanwhile in Australia, 90 percent of households reported connecting via video games during the pandemic (Brand and Jervis 2021). Even the aforementioned WHO highlighted the communicative power and global reach of games by supporting the #PlayApartTogether initiative (Snider 2020). With countless new exigencies and sudden changes to everyday life ushered in by the pandemic, ambient levels of anxiety and uncertainty rose in all age groups, including children. The positive potential of video games played into this context, with previous scholarship demonstrating the beneficial role of video game play in reducing stress and anxiety (Russoniello et al. 2009; Pine et al. 2020; King et al. 2020; Pallavicini et al. 2021). To counter the often-profound impacts of sustained lockdowns, many people sought and found refuge in the virtual worlds of video games. Kristanto et al. (2021) outline the correlation between gaming activity and the tendency not to leave the house, concluding that video games do more than entertain, ease boredom and isolation during lockdowns, but help maintain social distancing. Johannes, Vuorre, and Przybylski (2021) have connected video game play during the pandemic with feelings of wellbeing. Zhu (2021) finds that video games provide a sense of escape while fulfilling a player’s desire for social contact during home quarantine. Based on 781 survey responses in mid-2020, Barr and Copeland-Stewart (2022) found that among their survey group, time spent playing games increased by 71 percent, while 58 percent of respondents reported positive impacts to their well-being. However, most of the research cited here and presented elsewhere gives attention to Animal Crossing: New Horizons (Nintendo 2020) and Minecraft. This research centers on the Roblox platform and the distinctive variety of spaces and experiences it enables and the players who engage within it.

Contextualizing Roblox Uniquely, Roblox isn’t a single game or play space. It is a game platform that allows players to create and connect to thousands of different games, experiences, and 3D digital worlds (Girling 2021). Figure 1.1, showing the menu interface of Roblox, presents an ever-updated list of playable game

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FIGURE 1.1  Menu of playable Roblox spaces. Roblox screen capture. © Roblox Corporation, 2006.

spaces algorithmically recommended by category, genre, and previous player preferences. Many players also share games within social networks, or find games and spaces recommended online by creators and YouTubers. With millions of virtual spaces on offer, created at all levels of expertise, there is no archetypal space nor game in Roblox, but instead a vast and evolving menagerie of social and playable experiences for young players to engage with. While platforms such as Roblox and Minecraft were already being used to engage students and young people, they reached a new level or relevance during pandemic conditions (Richtel 2021; Wright 2021). In 2020 alone, Roblox’s user base increased sevenfold (BBC 2021) and has been described by some as being a “lifeline” for children during the worldwide lockdowns (Hill 2021). During the pandemic, Roblox radically expanded possibilities for social interaction, presenting players with millions of interactive spaces and experiences, most of which are games. But participants also created and attended other social activities such as concerts (Peters 2021), birthday parties (Kharif 2020; Levy 2020), and simulated theme parks (Wakefield 2021)—enjoying in virtual worlds activities that lockdowns had prohibited in physical space. Central to these experiences was the sense of agency and social connection they allowed. As noted by Wiederhold, video games— and especially sandbox-style games that enable players to wander complex worlds freely—provide an ideal space for “young people to cross the boundaries between fantasy and reality safely and creatively and, perhaps most importantly, together” (2021: 213).

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In a direct response to spatial restrictions arising from the COVID-19 pandemic, in July 2020, Roblox launched “Party Place,” a safe, easy, and free server space to host virtual occasions. As highlighted by Richardson et al., games like Roblox “not only facilitate sociality, but also function as familiar and importantly “normal” spaces for children and young people to talk about, or escape from, current social, political or health crises” (2021: 294). In this way, games can offer informal and mundane hang-out venues as well as crucial sites of community acceptance, social exchange, and individual and collective well-being. Roblox targets their platform toward nine- to twelve-years-olds (Roblox 2021a). However, data released at the end of 2020 shows this demographic only makes up around 29 percent of the entirety of the players. Another 46 percent being players over twelve and 25 percent being players younger than nine years (Apolinario 2021). A December 2017 study by Comscore has found that kids between the ages of five and nine spend more time playing Roblox than doing anything else online on PCs (Helm 2020). Although half of all Roblox players are under the age of thirteen, another 30 percent of Roblox players are older than seventeen. Moreover, Roblox claims that its thirteen- to seventeen-year-old and seventeen- to twenty-four-year-old demographics are the fastest growing (Peters 2021). All told, Roblox is appealing to much broader demographics than it caters to (see Figure 1.2). This is likely because Roblox affords significant levels of choice and agency to its players. Not only can players experience an endless stream of emerging gameworlds, but they can also create their own unique games, spaces, and experiences and earn money by doing so (Girling 2021; D’Anastasio 2021). Roblox offers free development tools similar to professional toolboxes such as Unreal Engine or Unity (SaasHub 2021). While Roblox uses the crossplatform programing language Lua, the company has customized its own version of the language known as “Roblox Lua” (GameDesigning 2022) and offers extensive documentation to upskill players to make their own

FIGURE 1.2  Age and gender breakdown of Roblox players. Figure drawn from Backlinko service data (Dean 2021).

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content for the platform. Through making and playing in Roblox, young people can learn coding skills and even earn in-game money, but as we will illustrate, this can lead players to become entangled in unfair systems of in-game labor or “playbor” (Kücklich 2005). The different ways in which participants were navigating these various aspects of Roblox, socially and spatially, were at the heart of our study.

Methods and Recruitment This project draws on a rich tradition of ethnographic approaches seeking to investigate the complex nature of games and their entanglement between online and offline worlds (Taylor 2006, 2009; Boellstorff 2008; Boellstorff et al. 2012). Utilizing a variety of ethnographic methods such as interviews, play sessions, and participant observation, this study has sought to understand Roblox as part of everyday practice. Influential precedents to our own ethnographic practice include sociologist T. L. Taylor’s Play between Worlds: Exploring Online Game Culture (2006), which pioneered new thinking around the ethnographic study of multiplayer spaces bringing key insights into the complex and diverse social networks that interweave virtual and actual spaces. Likewise, anthropologist Tom Boellstorff led a team of researchers on a two-year anthropological expedition into the virtual world of “Second Life,” observing the communities, cultures, and social rituals and interactions that are documented in his book Coming of Age in Second Life. In Ethnography and Virtual Worlds (2008), Boellstorff et al. (2012) outline the important role ethnographic methods play in understanding motivations and meanings. Detailing key methodological approaches and principles, these authors respectively underscore the complexity and diversity of interactions that can arise in virtual environments, giving astute attention to the impacts of research upon informants while providing mitigation strategies and tactics within a robust ethics framework. Informative here is Taylor’s article “The Assemblage of Play” (2009), which has become a key text in games studies in terms of methodological insights to the study of games and play as part of a relationality between technological artifacts, game experiences, and the social world of games. Informing our digital ethnographic approach, Pink et al., in Digital Ethnography: Principles and Practices (2015), outline five key principles: multiplicity, nondigital centric, openness, reflexivity, unorthodoxy. Key to this approach is the nondigital centric method that seeks to understand the digital as imbricated in material and social worlds. We deploy these five principles as a framework to demonstrate how digital ethnography works and why it is important to this study. Collections such as The Routledge Companion to Digital Ethnography (Hjorth et al. 2017) have

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also illuminated the rich spectrum of digital ethnographic approaches, while more specific studies have shed light on the tangible and corporeal aspects of digital ethnography, encompassing multisensorial (Pink 2009), tactile (Pink et al. 2016), and haptic perspectives (Richardson and Hjorth 2017). In addition, the work of MacArthur Foundation’s Digital Media & Learning Initiative, exemplified by Mimi Ito et al.’s Hanging Out, Messing Around and Geeking Out (2010), provides illuminating directions to understand what young people are doing with technology. These methods, approaches, guidelines, and considerations have shaped and informed our own research process and ethical frameworks. Once our own official ethics processes and procedures were approved, we invited participants between the ages of nine and eighteen to take part in our research. Participants were contacted from September to November of 2021. Participants were all from Melbourne in Australia, which, in October of 2021, was emerging from its sixth lockdown. At this time, the city had been in lockdown for a total of 262 days or nine months of the previous eighteen months—constituting the longest period of lockdown worldwide (Kelly 2021). Daily life was radically altered, increasingly reframed around public health mantra: stay home, stay safe (Palmer and Teague 2021). Even from the early days of lockdown, many questioned the impact of COVID19 restrictions on the physical and mental health of children (O’Donnell et al. 2022). The right to play, after all, is recognized as crucial for the overall development of children (UN General Assembly 1989), and neglect of children’s play, according to Lourenço et al. (2021), had already reached a critical stage before the pandemic. How children deployed Roblox to remain social and the types of interaction and activities this encompassed was a key driving factor in our research. Our study participants were identified and invited through their parents via social media such as Twitter and Facebook and through researchers’ professional and social networks. Participants and their parents were each provided with detailed and age-appropriate information about the study prior to agreeing to the interviews. This information outlined the purpose of the study, that participants’ involvement was completely voluntary, provided sample questions and likely directions of discussion, and explained the data collection methodologies we would use. Verbal and signed consent was given by both the parent/guardian and the participating children. Children were clearly informed that they could choose not to respond to questions or to withdraw from the research activities at any time. In total we undertook research with twelve participants from across Melbourne. All our participants have been provided with pseudonyms in this text. During the study, we deployed digital ethnographic methods (Pink et al. 2017) to explore the various motivations and practices emerging for children playing Roblox during the pandemic. The methods included recorded online interviews (thirty minutes to one hour each) and monitored play sessions

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(thirty minutes to one hour each), which were led by the participants. This ensured that the topics explored were driven by the participants and led by their expertise. As stated previously, our ambition was to capture how the game platform is reflecting and being shaped by complex social and technological practices integral to contemporary life, particularly during the lockdowns of the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, recognizing Roblox as a dynamic series of creative and playful tools, we sought to discover what young players are making in Roblox and what they make of the platform. Recognizing the tendency for toxic cultures to emerge within game spaces (Paul 2018; Massanari 2017; Busch, Boudreau, and Consalvo 2016), we also sought to give attention to the problems and contradictions that game platforms like Roblox may give rise to. While the negative framing of video games too frequently cultivates moral panic—especially in relation to children (Markey and Ferguson 2017)—play itself is too often uncritically framed (Osgood, Sakr, and de Rijke 2017; Grieshaber and McArdle 2010). Cognizant of the centrality of game culture and practices of play to everyday life, this project aimed to illuminate the messy and nuanced contemporality of the field, revealing developing trends and emergent play practices within the massively popular game platform Roblox.

Participant Descriptions of Roblox While we have contextualized Roblox above, the participant descriptions of the game provide a more textured and experiential understanding of the platform, revealing how Roblox “feels” as a navigable space. For Rebecca (9), Roblox was a fun place to spend time online. She tells us: “You can customise your avatar, and you can play with your friends, and there are many different games to play. It’s just really fun and it’s for like, all ages.” Evan (13) contrasted Roblox with other online game spaces, telling us that unlike competitive games where the goal is to achieve a high ranking, Roblox is a game you play purely for pleasure. Jonas (14) made similar observations, reporting that “Roblox is kind of like a game where you can just hang out, because you’re obviously playing but it’s not a game-game, it’s like more just a place where you can have fun.” Jonas’s observation speaks to the safe, familiar, and ordinariness of Roblox as a location of amusement, relaxation, and social exchange. Jonas tells us that he would talk with his friend as they played, mostly about game strategies and tactics in difficult games but also just joking around. “Usually, the funniest part of the games like where you just started playing and where you’re like new to pretty much all the games we play, it automatically gets very fun, because no one knows exactly what they’re doing.” For Jonas, Roblox provided a low-stakes games space that enabled shared adventures in a context of light-hearted enjoyment. Moreover, the

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variety of spaces Roblox presented was a relief against the broader backdrop of COVID-19 and the spatial restrictions it brought. Common among participant responses was the sense of freedom of movement that Roblox provided. Players could jump quickly and easily between games and spaces using agile controller skills and deft menu navigation. The shared sense of spatial freedom was clear. Crucially, children usually function in regulated and restricted spaces such as classrooms, playgrounds, sports fields, and homes. Limitations on the access and agency of spaces were further pronounced during lockdown. Nansen (2020) has explored the virtualization of playgrounds in relation to broader digitizations of public space, noting the increasingly porous boundaries between digital and nondigital and how they have been framed and understood. Nansen focuses on how the digitization of children’s public space has taken place against a backdrop of disciplinary governance and design measures in attempts to foster safer environments in the physical domain. He highlights how a “geography of danger” (Valentine and McKendrick 1997) has seen children’s spaces organized into a hierarchy of perceived risk that in recent years has radically restricted children’s access to public parks, shopping centers, playgrounds, school grounds, and other social spaces of play. Although digital spaces such as Roblox present themselves as safe spaces for children and young people, these new play geographies also require an investigation in terms of how they are being used and by whom.

Social Play Spaces With physical movement severely restricted in Melbourne during the pandemic, often involving curfews from 8 p.m. until 6 a.m. and sometimes including 5 km travel limits, maintaining familial and social contact became difficult. Eleven of the players we spoke to had used Roblox during lockdown as a way of staying in touch with family, friends from school, and friends outside of school. Owen (12) tells us that during the lockdown, he played Roblox a lot. He would call his friends in Messenger or Messenger Kids and talk while spending time together in Roblox. As Owen notes, “I played with people heaps and heaps and heaps, like every day during lockdown—yes, like every day during lockdown. That much times.” Owen gestures widely with his hands. For Owen, Roblox played a central role in staying in touch with friends and family, but he also felt Roblox was much more than a social space; it was also a fun and creative place to play. Mandy (13) also began playing Roblox a lot when lockdown began. Although she had engaged with Roblox previously, through the pandemic she noticed that increasingly more games were appearing and being updated—and that she wasn’t the only one turning to Roblox to socialize

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and have fun. For Mandy, Roblox and Discord not only offered inviting social spaces to maintain contact with friends with whom she wasn’t able to keep in touch within the physical world, but she was also able to meet new friends online. Zoe (12) also found Roblox a great way to interact with friends online during lockdown. She would play with friends while speaking to them over the phone, but she deleted it after lockdown ended, because she didn’t want to get reliant on the virtual space. However, Zoe felt frustrated that some of her friends had become a bit too caught up in Roblox. She reports: “I go on walks with them and like call them, although it’s kind of annoying sometimes because all they want to do is play that game … and some of them don’t realise how addicted they are.” Zoe feels that this extended video game play is a result of lockdowns: “Because like there’s nothing else really we can do apart from like look on our screens all the time. They’re probably spending a lot more time on Roblox than they did when we were going to school.” Following the lockdown, Zoe was making a concerted effort to moderate her time online and to deliberately reengage with physical space. Anitha used to play a lot of Roblox, especially last year, but not as much anymore. “I definitely played more games during lockdown,” she informs us. She mainly plays Minecraft now. She finds that she can do more stuff with building and she can make what she wants, whereas with Roblox, “you just sort of have to play mini games.” Anitha made a game of her own in Roblox once, “but I haven’t actually uploaded it, I was just trying out stuff.” For Anitha, the social affordances of Roblox made it especially appealing during the extended lockdown period, but with restrictions lifted, she largely returned to her usual gaming diet. For both Anitha and Zoe, Roblox played a crucial social role during the period of lockdown, but following the lifting of restrictions, both returned to activities they had enjoyed prior to the pandemic. The impact of the pandemic was experienced differently by the participants we spoke to, but none appeared especially distressed by the lockdowns. Some even preferred lockdown conditions and how it had impacted their social play. Jackson still hung out with his friends on Roblox with the added benefit of getting “warm food and stuff.” Mandy also enjoyed the benefits of homelife during lockdown. “It’s nice to stay at home … I’m an introvert so I don’t like talking to that many people and being at school is quite full-on.” While Mandy maintained many friendships on Roblox—as she explained: “There’s people from all around the world that you can find people with different interests and stuff”—the platform afforded her a sense of control over when and how she was social and with whom. During our videoconference interviews and play sessions, we were able to witness the configurations of bodies and devices of the young people we interviewed as they participated in the game. Participants would invariably multitask and multiscreen watching YouTube on a PC while playing

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FIGURE 1.3  Nathan plays in social spaces in Roblox. Roblox screen capture. © Roblox Corporation, 2006.

Roblox on an iPad cradled in the lap and talking in both audio and text chat. The interaction and imbrication of screens was complex and involved. Meanwhile, at another level, Roblox itself consisted of multiple spaces and screens: menus, chat functions, pop-ups, and an infinitely growing array of virtual play locations to visit. Each of these options creates the impression of unfolding and expanding spaces. Nathan (11) showed us through his experience of Roblox. He was especially excited about the ever-expanding diversity of games on offer through the Roblox menu—the front page of the game platform. “There are heaps of games all the time,” marveled Nathan. “You could never play them all even if you wanted to.” Like most of the players we spoke to, Nathan has a small collection of games that he really likes and frequently plays, but with friends, he will often visit random new spaces in Roblox to explore, play, and get new ideas. “I love how there’s so much creative stuff in it. Lots of different people are creating in here” (see Figure 1.3). Nathan is also a game-maker with several of his own game spaces under construction. He showed us through a role-playing game (RPG) that he has created and set in a simulated school environment (see Figure 1.4). As he toured us through the space explaining his building processes, plans, and ambitions, a friend’s avatar dropped into the virtual space, and Nathan text-chatted with them simultaneously to the interview discussion with us. “I’ve made almost everything in here,” Nathan reports, “except the 3D text. There’s really good plug-ins to create text, so I use just those.” Leaping rapidly from one game space to the next, Nathan guided us though yet another of his creations, this one featuring several challenges. “I get my

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FIGURE 1.4  Nathan’s avatar touring us through his draft RPG game set in a high school. Roblox screen capture. © Roblox Corporation, 2006.

friends to play test them,” he reports, “to see if they are too hard or fun or whatever.” While it seemed as though Nathan had spent a great deal of time in Roblox, he corrected us: “Actually, I spent a lot of time java scripting.” Nathan’s time building the games was exceeding his time in them. That Roblox became a launching point for Nathan’s journey into code is not unusual. Others have highlighted how Roblox teaches kids coding skills in a safe, supportive, social, and enjoyable environment (Du et al. 2021; Techradar 2019). Of the participants we spoke to, most highlighted the game’s social and playful features over its creation tools. Mandy, for example, had dabbled in creating games but with mixed results. “I tried making like a little like blobby thing, but it didn’t really end up well.” Many players also mentioned that most of the games on offer in Roblox are fanmade copies of existing games. As Mandy tells us, “I think it’s just people trying to replicate the game to make—because you can make Robux off it. So it’s kind of just like people trying to make a bit of money and stuff.” Indeed, skilled Roblox makers can earn money by selling a range of in-world items (most of which are avatar modifications). Although players can earn money via the Roblox platform, the Roblox company takes a large portion of the revenue players spend on games, leaving developers as little as 27 percent (Roblox 2021b). The low earnings for high involvement for game-makers evidence a new kind of child playbor (Kücklich 2005; Parkin 2022). As noted by D’Anastasio (2021), “Roblox’s gargantuan valuation and outstanding success is in part due to the number of children hoping to strike a vein of gold making games.” Extending this argument, Evans, Frith, and Saker (2022: 48) identify Roblox as implicated “in industrial level

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commodification of children as free labor.” The virtual world of Roblox and, by extension, the children who play it can become intimately connected to broader material networks of labor and capital. While our participants recognized the economics of Roblox, and that they could make Robux from producing popular games, avatar skins, and extras, all spoke of Roblox in social over economic terms. As Jonas remarks, “You have your friends and then you can join their games and call them up on Discord and all that … you can just join and play whatever they’re playing, just have a good time … it’s very casual.” There was a general and pronounced lack of seriousness expressed toward Roblox, especially in contrast to competitive ranking video games that require dedication and even a sense of team responsibility to become skilled and level up. As Evan informed us: “I know video games aren’t generally important to life, unless you’re making money off tournaments—but ranked is … you just have to take it seriously.” Roblox had none of these associations for our participants. In contrast to the highly competitive nature of many game environments, Roblox was unanimously agreed as a fun space in which to hang out and play.

Digital Safety and Digital Literacy The broad range of benefits associated with children’s participation in online games is well documented. Previous scholarship has established that digital games can have numerous benefits for young people, including health and well-being (Johnson et al. 2013; Kowert et al. 2021), formal and informal learning (Voulgari and Yannakakis 2019; Aranda and SánchezNavarro 2011), literacy (Marlatt, Pando, and Harvey 2021; Gee 2009), and civic engagement (Lenhart et al. 2008; Dalisay et al. 2015). However, as Livingstone and Third (2017) have identified, in order for children to have healthy relationships to technology, they need to be able to access and exist in these spaces with—at the very least—the same level of rights, privacies, and protections that are afforded in the nondigital contexts. In order to achieve this, efforts must be taken to ensure the internet and video games are not dangerous virtual locations, but productive and safe spaces for young people to explore and form connections. According to Girling in Forbes (2021), “Roblox is essentially a social network.” As such, Roblox faces many of the challenges associated with social media platforms—from harassment to misinformation. However, as a platform designed specifically for children, these concerns take on a heightened level of importance. In order to mitigate these concerns and safely cater to its young playership, Roblox offers a range of safety and privacy settings. Children are empowered to enact their own safety measures by reporting inappropriate conduct and/or blocking players within the

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FIGURE 1.5  Dropdown menu process of reporting players. Roblox screen capture. © Roblox Corporation, 2006.

game (see Figure 1.5). Reporting a player in Roblox alerts the platform moderators to the conduct, allowing them to review the aggrieving user’s activity. Blocking a player does not oust them from the game automatically, but prevents them from making direct contact. Roblox also invites the involvement of parents in understanding their child’s participation in the platform. To achieve this, Roblox has launched a section of its website called “For Parents” (Roblox 2021c). Assuming no Roblox literacy on the part of the parent, the site clearly explains the safety tools available on the platform, detailing the algorithms that block the appearance of swear words, names, and addresses in chat text (Dredge 2019). Parents are informed of recommended restrictions and boundaries according to age group and are empowered to limit who their child can contact, restrict access to private servers, and turn on parental controls. Crucially, parents are also encouraged to talk with their children about their Roblox play and to discuss the dangers with them, thereby establishing an intergenerational discourse and understanding of what occurs in the game space. Through such conversations with her parents and her experiences within Roblox, Rebecca was acutely aware of the potential dangers of online play. She cautioned us: “People have to be careful on Roblox because there can be like bullies on Roblox, and there are people that like ask you about your age and stuff.” We discussed with Rebecca if this was something she had

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experienced. “Not that often,” she reported, “but you’ve just got to be very careful about that.” Rebecca also stressed the importance of pseudonymity, informing us: “There is a rule that you’re not allowed to use your name in Roblox.” Rebecca clearly outlined the dangers of passing on identifiable information to anyone online lest “randos” turn up at your house. Ultimately, these hazards were a minor part of Rebecca’s experience of Roblox play, but through the combination of in-game safety measures, parental controls, and conversations with her parents, at nine years of age, Rebecca had developed a sophisticated foundational understanding of the dangers of online spaces that would be of life-long use. In his examination of video game use among young people, Dezuanni (2018) has highlighted the capacity of video games to cultivate digital literacy in young players as well as in their parents. For Dezuanni (2015), socially networked games transcend the literacy lessons of traditional classroom settings and are able to provide what he describes as “digital building blocks”—the material practices, conceptual understandings, and knowledge production that enable digital media literacy to develop as children negotiate online spaces. In conversations with participants such as Rebecca, we witnessed critical reflections on the Roblox game space, the way the game had served as a backdrop for important safety conversations with parents, and the capacity of children to safely moderate their own access and interactions within the digital spaces. Beyond parental involvement, Roblox has also implemented a robust moderation software known as Community Sift that works to moderate and censor inappropriate content and messaging on the platform (TwoHat n.d.). The same product is used by a wide range of social media and game companies such as Nintendo, Activision, EA, and Epic Games. In addition to these tactics, Roblox purports to employ 1,600 people to filter and remove inappropriate content from its platform (Vengattil and Menn 2020). While these human moderators bring careful nuance to activity reviews and filtration, with almost 55 million daily users, the moderation task takes on a monumental scale. Most of the players we interviewed were happy about the moderation and protections afforded by the game and in the chat. Most also seemed capable of contextualizing these behaviors as unfortunate outcomes of large and diverse social environments. Of his own Roblox interactions, Owen reports: “There can be people who are toxic or rude, so it’s pretty annoying. And you just have to ignore them.” We discussed with Owen whether his experience of the rude and toxic people in Roblox was comparable, worse, or different than in real-world situations, such as in the playground or at school. As Owen noted: I mean it’s like basically cyber bullying, but it’s not really hurtful because they’re trying their best to make you mad and if you just ignore it, if

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you don’t get annoyed at them and ignore them, they’ll get even more mad. I don’t get mad at them because I know that they’re just—like it’s annoying so I don’t get mad at it, because I know it’s a game, so I don’t get mad. Not all the young players we spoke to were satisfied with the moderation system. For Jackson, Roblox moderation was “really, really bad, really, really bad.” He tells us: “The moderation team always gets things wrong,” too often resulting in bans on player actions that were innocent, while more nefarious activities went unpunished. Mandy was also irritated that some of her in-chat comment attempts were “tagged,” meaning “they put like hashtags on top of words they don’t like you to write.” To overcome this, Mandy and her friends had discovered inventive ways to circumnavigate tagging such as “using letters and symbols and stuff to get around it,” but she still felt that their communication was stifled by the Roblox chat function. Notwithstanding these issues, both Jackson and Mandy continued to use the Roblox platform as a social space. The balancing act of providing a safe space for children while affording them a broad range of expressive and creative possibilities has been tested during the pandemic lockdowns, a period during which Roblox became a key space of youth interaction and social exchange. Although parents were not interviewed as part of our research, they did facilitate our interviews with children, and in that process, some expressed that through their children’s play they too had become familiar with the Roblox platform and with digital spaces more generally. This owes largely to the multilayered approach implemented by Roblox that facilitates digital literacy for both parents and children, thereby encouraging intergenerational conversations around online safety. Through this parentally engaged approach, children can learn about situations in the abstract, but also encounter them armed with the knowledge, skills, and parental support to react accordingly, giving them the competence and confidence to act within a range of online environments. Broader understandings of video games have radically evolved during the pandemic. For young people, games have solidified as major forms of socialization, shaping how they view the world and others in it. But the pandemic-driven increase in children’s game play occurs within a larger uptake of video game play across all demographics. According to figures from the “State of Online Gaming 2021” reporting on the habits and views of adults toward games globally, time spent playing video games had increased in the previous year by 13 percent to an average of eight-and-ahalf hours per week with many respondents believing their videogaming would increase post-pandemic (Combs 2021). Moreover, the report finds that the recognition of the social dimensions of video game play has elevated to new levels of understanding. Video game companies and platforms

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recognize these shifts and are beginning to enhance their services, platforms, and communities to enable, according to Roblox’s CEO, “deeper forms of communication, immersion and expression” in preparation for the postpandemic world (Baszucki in Makuch 2022).

Conclusion COVID-19 has dramatically shifted the conversation around gaming. As young people were forced to undertake school and play within the confines of the home, the role of digital platforms, such as Roblox, took on more significance. The digital turn forced by the pandemic may be understood as the inflection point at which virtual worlds took hold, not simply in the popular imagination but as increasingly accepted social spaces in which young people could engage. Despite the ubiquity of young people’s usage of Roblox for informal learning, creativity, and social play during this time, academic attention to the platform has been relatively overlooked. This chapter addresses this gap by drawing on an ethnographic fieldwork with young people living in Melbourne, undertaken in 2021 during the city’s extended periods of lockdown. Documenting the motivations, meanings, perceptions, and practices of young people playing Roblox during the pandemic, we have explored how children used and continue to use Roblox to create everyday patterns of social interaction and the production and reproduction of imagery, interactions, and cultural patterns in the broader social and cultural context of everyday life. Sharing insights around how the Roblox platform provides an everyday social and creative space for participants to relax, create, chat, and play during the pandemic lockdowns, we show how Roblox has facilitated new modes of social exchange, creativity, and connectedness that may extend well beyond the pandemic. Critically, the pandemic amplified both the opportunities and issues associated with virtual spaces. With the lockdowns now lifted, the ongoing success of Roblox and other metaverse platforms suggests that these issues require further attention. As the broader virtualization of playgrounds as explored by Nansen (2020) continues, there must also be a continuation of measures to foster safer and more egalitarian environments of play. Discussions of the safety, equity, and accessibility of virtual worlds like Roblox must not only consider the digital literacy and general welfare of children participants and their parents but also examine how children become implicated in networks of labor and capital through the platform-based play that Roblox enables. Although the labor of children is performed voluntarily and playfully in these malleable virtual environments, it nonetheless creates content and value and, in turn, opens up avenues for exploitation. Through the efforts to promote digital safety and the cultivation of intergenerational

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digital literacy, platforms such as Roblox might work to ensure users have effective ownership of their personal content and labor. Moving beyond the pandemic, we can take stock of what games mean as an everyday literacy and form of sociality for young people. With 3D navigable spaces and digital games expected to take on increasing prominence, the interactions and literacies established in these environments in the present can inform and give rise to new modes of socializing, playing, learning, and being in the virtual spaces to come.

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Levy, A. (2020), “While Parents Zoom, Their Kids Are Flocking to an App Called Roblox to Hang Out and Play 3D Games,” CNBC, April 18. www.cnbc. com/2020/04/08/rob​lox-is-see​ing-a-surge-dur​ing-coro​navi​rus-shel​ter-in-place. html (accessed September 23, 2022). Livingstone, S., and A. Third (2017), “Children and Young People’s Rights in the Digital Age: An Emerging Agenda,” New Media & Society, 19 (5): 657–70. Lourenço, A., F. Martins, B. Pereira, and R. Mendes (2021), “Children Are Back to School, but Is Play Still in Lockdown? Play Experiences, Social Interactions, and Children’s Quality of Life in Primary Education in the COVID-19 Pandemic in 2020,” International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18 (23): 12454. Makuch, E. (2022), “Roblox Had Nearly 55 Million Daily Active Players in January, about 45.5 Million for Last Uear,” GameSpot, February 16. www. games​pot.com/artic​les/rob​lox-had-nea​rly-55-mill​ion-daily-act​ive-play​ersin-january-about-45-5-million-for-last-year/1100-6500745/ (accessed September 23, 2022). Markey, P. M., and C. J. Ferguson (2017), Moral Combat: Why the War on Violent Video Games Is Wrong, Dallas, TX: BenBella. Marlatt, R., M. Pando, and M. M. Harvey (2021), “This Is Next Level: Combining Video Games with Literature to Promote Literacy,” in C. M. Moran (ed.), Affordances and Constraints of Mobile Phone Use in English Language Arts Classrooms, Hershey, PA: IGI Global, 1–28. Massanari, A. (2017), “#Gamergate and the Fappening: How Reddit’s Algorithm, Governance, and Culture Support Toxic Technocultures,” New Media & Society, 19 (3): 329–46. Mojiang Studios (2011), Minecraft (Windows; macOS; Linux; Android; iOS; iPadOS; Xbox 360; Raspberry Pi; Windows Phone; PlayStation 3; Fire OS; PlayStation 4; Xbox One; PlayStation Vita; Wii U; Apple TV; tvOS; Nintendo Switch; New Nintendo 3DS), Mojang Studios, Xbox Game Studios, Telltale Games, Sony Interactive Entertainment. Nansen, B. (2020), “Young Children’s Haptic Media Habitus,” in L. Green, D. Holloway, K. Stevenson, T. Leaver, and L. Haddon (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Digital Media and Children, New York: Routledge, 111–19. Nintendo EPD (2020), Animal Crossing: New Horizons (Nintendo Switch), Nintendo. O’Donnell, J., D. Cárdenas, N. Orazani, A. Evans, and K. J. Reynolds (2022), “The Longitudinal Effect of COVID-19 Infections and Lockdown on Mental Health and the Protective Effect of Neighbourhood Social Relations,” Social Science & Medicine, 297: 114821. Osgood, J., M. Sakr, and V. De Rijke (2017), “Dark Play in Digital Playscapes,” Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, 18 (2): 109–13. Pallavicini, F., A. Pepe, and F. Mantovani (2021), “Commercial Off-the-Shelf Video Games for Reducing Stress and Anxiety: Systematic Review,” JMIR Mental Health, 8 (8): e28150. Palmer, C. S., and W. J. Teague (2021), “Childhood Injury and Injury Prevention during COVID-19 Lockdown—Stay Home, Stay Safe?” Injury, 52 (5): 1105–7.

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Parkin, S. (2022), “The Trouble with Roblox, the Video Game Empire Built on Child Labour,” The Observer, January 9. www.theg​uard​ian.com/games/2022/ jan/09/the-trou​ble-with-rob​lox-the-video- game-empire-built-on-child-labour (accessed September 23, 2022). Paul, C. A. (2018), The Toxic Meritocracy of Video Games: Why Gaming Culture Is the Worst, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Peters, J. (2021), “Roblox, Explained: Everything You Wanted to Know about One of the Biggest Apps on the Planet,” The Verge, July 7. www.theve​rge. com/2021/7/7/22457​264/Rob​lox-explai​ner-game-app-faq (accessed September 23, 2022). Pine, R., T. Fleming, S. McCallum, and K. Sutcliffe (2020), “The Effects of Casual Videogames on Anxiety, Depression, Stress, and Low Mood: A Systematic Review,” Games for Health Journal, 9 (4): 255–64. Pink, S. (2009), Doing Sensory Ethnography, London: Sage. Pink, S., H. Horst, T. Lewis, L. Hjorth, J. Postill, and J. Tacchi (2015), Digital Ethnography: Principles and Practice, London: Sage. Pink, S., J. Sinanan, L. Hjorth, and H. Horst (2016), “Tactile Digital Ethnography: Researching Mobile Media through the Hand,” Mobile Media & Communication, 4 (2): 237–51. Richardson, I., and L. Hjorth (2017), “Mobile Media, Domestic Play and Haptic Ethnography,” New Media & Society, 19 (10): 1653–67. Richardson, I., L. Hjorth, and H. Davies (2021), Understanding Games and Game Cultures, Los Angeles, CA: Sage. Richtel, M. (2021), “Children’s Screen Time Has Soared in the Pandemic, Alarming Parents and Researchers,” New York Times, January 16, www.nyti​mes. com/2021/01/16/hea​lth/covid-kids-tech-use.html (accessed November 2, 2022). Roblox (2021a), “Age Recommendations.” https://en.help.rob​lox.com/hc/en- us/ articles/8862768451604-Age-Recommendations (accessed May 20, 2023). Roblox (2021b), “Developer Economics.” https://develo​per.Rob​lox.com/en-us/artic​ les/develo​per-econom​ics (accessed December 23, 2022). Roblox (2021c), “For Parents.” https://corpor​ate.rob​lox.com/pare​nts/ (accessed November 2, 2022). Roblox Corporation (2006), Roblox (Windows; iOS; Android; Xbox One), Roblox Corporation. Russoniello, C. V., K. O’Brien, and J. M. Parks (2009), “The Effectiveness of Casual Video Games in Improving Mood and Decreasing Stress,” Journal of CyberTherapy & Rehabilitation, 2 (1): 53–66. Saashub (2021), “Unreal Engine vs Roblox.” www.saas​hub.com/comp​are-unr​ealeng​ine-vs-rob​lox (accessed May 20, 2023). Snider, M. (2020), “Video Games Can Be a Healthy Social Pastime during Coronavirus Pandemic,” USA Today, March 28. www.usato​day.com/story/tech/ gam​ing/2020/03/28/video-games-whos- prescription-solace-during-coronaviruspandemic/2932976001/ (accessed November 2, 2022). Sony Interactive/Sony Playstation (2008), Little Big Planet (PlayStation/Windows), San Mateo, CA: Sony Interactive. Statista (2020), “Increase in Video Game Sales during the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic Worldwide as of March 20.” https://www.stati​sta.com/sta​tist​ics/1109​ 977/video-game-sales-covid/ (accessed November 2, 2022).

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Taylor, T. L. (2006), Play between Worlds: Exploring Online Game Culture, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Taylor, T. L. (2009), “The Assemblage of Play,” Games and Culture, 4 (4): 331–9. Techradar (2019), “Here’s How One Company Is Teaching Children to Code and Program.” www.techra​dar.com/au/news/teach​ing-child​ren-to-code-and-prog​ ram-with-Rob​lox (accessed October 21, 2022). TwoHat (n.d.). www.two​hat.com (accessed November 2, 2022). UN General Assembly (1989), “Convention on the Rights of the Child. United Nations Treaty Collection,” Treaty Series, 1577: 3. https://www.refwo​rld.org/ docid/3ae6b3​8f0.html (accessed August 15, 2022). Valentine, G., and J. McKendrick (1997), “Children’s Outdoor Play: Exploring Parental Concerns about Children’s Safety and the Changing Nature of Childhood,” Geoforum, 28 (2): 219–35. Vengattil, M., and J. Menn (2020), “Kids Gaming Platform Roblox Faces Hurdles Ahead of Public Listing: Rough Words,” Reuters, November 19. www.reut​ ers.com/arti​cle/gam​ing-Rob​lox-cont​ent-focus-idINKB​N27Z​1IH (accessed November 18, 2022). Voulgari, I., and G. N. Yannakakis (2019), “Digital Games in Non-formal and Informal Learning Practices for Science Learning: A Case Study,” Proceedings of the International Conference on Games and Learning Alliance, Cham: Springer, 540–9. Wakefield, J. (2021), “Roblox: How the Children’s Game Became a $30bn Bet on the Metaverse,” BBC, March 10. www.bbc.com/news/tec​hnol​ogy-56345​586 (accessed November 2, 2022). Wiederhold, B. K. (2021), “Kids Will Find a Way: The Benefits of Social Video Games,” Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 24 (4): 213–14. Wright, S. (2021), “Roblox Notches 202 Million Estimated Monthly Users, an All-Time High,” Gamespot, May 4. www.games​pot.com/artic​les/Rob​lox-notc​ hes-202-mill​ion-estima​ted-mont​hly-users-an-all-time-high/1100-6490​999/ (accessed November 2, 2022). Zhu, L. (2021), “The Psychology behind Video Games during COVID-19 Pandemic: A Case Study of Animal Crossing: New Horizons,” Human Behavior and Emerging Technologies, 3 (1): 157–9.

2 “I’ve Played More Minecraft with the Kids”: Gaming and Family Dynamics in the Early Stage of the COVID-19 Pandemic Mikko Merila ¨inen and Maria Ruotsalainen

Introduction Every family has its own dynamics, consisting of different patterns of interactions between family members, roles and relationships in the family, and the various factors that shape these interactions (e.g., Huston 2000). Our study is a qualitative exploration of how the COVID-19 restrictions of spring 2020 in Finland impacted these dynamics in the context of gaming. In this study we use the word family to encompass families both with and without children, with a focus on family units rather than extended families. In spring 2020, in the early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Finnish government enacted what would to date be Finland’s strictest restriction measures to combat the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. While not strictly a lockdown as such (cf. Salin et al. 2020), in practice they dramatically impacted everyday life. Schools and many workplaces and leisure venues were closed, and there were, for example, strict guidelines for physical distancing. School closures, the move to remote work, and hobbies being

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put on hold meant that families were spending much more time together. Especially in families with children, this meant much additional work and typically less time for parents to focus on themselves (Meriläinen 2022; Salin et al. 2020). Previous research has also suggested that this workload was not always divided equally among the adults in the family, but instead often women would carry the heavier load (Carli 2020; Chakraborty and Altekar 2021; Otonkorpi-Lehtoranta et al. 2021). As predicted at the start of the pandemic (King et al. 2020; Marston and Kowert 2020), alongside many other areas of life, the COVID-19 pandemic also impacted gaming (Barr and Copeland-Stewart 2022; Bengtsson, Bom, and Fynbo 2021; Meriläinen 2022; Zhu et al. 2021). Both digital and nondigital games helped individuals cope with the stressful situation, while away time, and connect with each other (Barr and Copeland-Stewart 2022; Bengtsson, Bom, and Fynbo 2021; Meriläinen 2022), yet also sparked worries about excessive gaming and too much time spent using screen-based media (Meriläinen 2022; Salin et al. 2020; Zhu et al. 2021). Because gaming is conducted as part of everyday family life (e.g., Enevold 2012; Meriläinen 2022), the renegotiation of everyday life and changing family dynamics also required the renegotiation of gaming. In this qualitative study, we examine how COVID-19 and its associated restrictive measures influenced family dynamics, specifically related to gaming. Our study follows a previous one (see Meriläinen 2022) that examined the different ways the pandemic restriction measures intersected with everyday life and gaming and utilizes the same data. Through a thematic analysis of open-ended questionnaire data from Finnish adults (N = 201) collected in the spring of 2020, we demonstrate the diverse impacts of the exceptional situation on family dynamics around gaming. Gaming was both a family-uniting activity and a source of parental worry. Our results show how the impact of gaming on family dynamics was highly contingent on different variables, such as whether the family had children or not and whether parents had the opportunity to work remotely. Our work showcases how patterns of gaming change not just according to individual preferences but also because of situational factors. The dramatic changes to everyday life brought by the COVID-19 restriction measures had a considerable impact on family dynamics, gaming practices, and their intersections. Through an analysis of this specific and historically unique period, we demonstrate the importance of considering gaming as a situated activity not only in relation to COVID-19 but more broadly as a part of everyday family life.

Background The everyday life of families is a complex process that consists of numerous interactions shaped by different roles and relationships, changing situations,

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and a wide range of variables from the personal to the global (Du BoisReymond, Büchner, and Krüger 1993; Huston 2000). Each family has its own way of being, and the relationships between individuals constantly evolve through both intentional and explicit negotiations, such as the division of chores and duties (e.g., Esmail 2010) and more gradual, natural change such as children’s maturation (e.g., Arnett 1999). As a complex practice with diverse motives and outcomes, gaming is closely tied to family dynamics in a multitude of ways, some of them neutral, others beneficial, yet others harmful or risky. From children’s digital gaming mediated by adults (e.g., Jiow, Lim, and Lin 2017; Martins, Matthews, and Ratan 2017) to digital game play as a shared activity between romantic partners (Bergstrom et al. 2017; Consalvo et al. 2018; Evans, Craig, and Taylor 2018) to cross-generational board gaming (e.g., Rogerson and Gibbs 2018), gaming is a common part of family life. Some of the connections between gaming and family dynamics are fairly obvious, such as conflict and negotiations between parents and children over digital gaming (Meriläinen 2021; Russell and Johnson 2017) or gaming as a shared, important hobby in the family (Evans, Craig, and Taylor 2018; Rogerson and Gibbs 2018). Other connections are less explicit, for example, the positioning of gaming devices in the home and differing gender norms related to both gaming and parenting (Enevold 2012), both of which impact how gaming is negotiated as part of everyday life. The coplaying of digital games can have a beneficial impact on family closeness by encouraging conversation and selfdisclosure between family members (Osmanovic and Pecchioni 2019; Wang, Taylor, and Sun 2018) and through the sharing of playful experiences (Koskinen and Meriläinen 2021). However, gaming can also be the cause of even very intense family conflict or serve as a “lightning rod” for other issues such as parental expectations or other family tensions (Bax 2016; Gregersen 2018). The start of the COVID-19 pandemic in the spring of 2020 dramatically disrupted everyday life in many families in Finland, as illustrated in the chapter’s introduction. Depending on family context, this disruption could have both harmful and beneficial effects (Meriläinen 2022; Salin et al. 2020) and inevitably impacted family dynamics through different vectors. A common example was an increase in the time family members spent together at home, as remote work, remote schooling, and the cancellation of hobbies and other activities sometimes radically reduced the amount of time spent outside the home. In many families, this also led to a renegotiation of family dynamics both around gaming and more broadly.

Method and Data This study draws from a set of qualitative online questionnaire data from a self-selected convenience sample of Finnish adult respondents (N = 201)

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collected in spring 2020 through social media, primarily Facebook and Twitter. Through a reflexive thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke 2022) of the questionnaire data, our study addresses the following research question: Q. How did the COVID-19 pandemic and the spring 2020 restriction measures in Finland impact family dynamics in the context of gaming? The questionnaire used in this study consisted of four main questions and four background questions (age, gender, education, number, and age of regularly cohabiting children). The open-ended main questions asked the respondents: 1. How had the COVID-19 measures affected their own digital gaming? 2. How had the COVID-19 measures affected gaming in their family? 3. What was their outlook on gaming, and whether the exceptional situation had had an impact on it? 4. How had the COVID-19 measures affected their and their family’s nondigital gaming? To protect the respondents’ privacy, responding to the questionnaire was anonymous and respondents’ IP addresses were not collected. The questions were intentionally left broad to both avoid leading questions and, as the topic potentially touched on sensitive and personal issues, allow the respondents to decide how much they wanted to disclose and which themes they wished to discuss. Of the respondents, 47 percent (N = 94) were women, 45 percent (N = 90) were men, and 6 percent (N = 12) were nonbinary. Three percent (N = 5) of the respondents did not disclose gender information. The respondents ranged in age from nineteen to sixty-four, with an average age of 35.6. The majority of respondents (59 percent, N = 119) did not live with children, whereas the rest of the respondents either had children living with them constantly (37 percent, N = 74) or regularly, such as on alternate weeks (4 percent, N = 8). Of the respondents who had children, the majority were women (56 percent, N = 47). The respondents were quite highly educated, with 71 percent (N = 142) holding at least a bachelor-level degree. In our analysis, we first familiarized ourselves with the data. As the data of the study had been previously coded as part of a previous study exploring gaming during the spring 2020 COVID-19 restrictions in general (see Meriläinen 2022), we decided to use that coding (ninety-three individual codes) as a foundation that was revised and expanded as we reanalyzed the data. This process resulted in ninety-nine individual codes of which

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FIGURE 2.1  Map of main themes and subthemes.

thirty-nine addressed issues related to gaming and family dynamics (e.g., Family has played digital games together; Worry over gaming; Child’s gaming has increased) that were used to construct four broader main themes (see Figure 2.1) that illustrate the relations between gaming and family dynamics: Gaming brings the family together; Gaming rules as parenting tools; The new everyday; and Business as usual. While the themes are distinct, as descriptions of lived human experience, they also feature some overlap.

Analysis Below we present our analysis theme by theme. They are complemented by illustrative quotes that have been translated from Finnish by the authors. Unless otherwise mentioned, mentions of “gaming” refer to digital gaming. Overall, all the themes described are connected to the disruption caused by the pandemic and the societal response to it.

Gaming Brings the Family Together The onset of COVID-19 pandemic changed the way many families conducted their everyday life. For many, this also meant that playing videogames became a more prominent part of everyday life and gained new functions. This also led some of the parents and children to negotiate and reflect on the meaning and role of video games in their lives. In some families, the additional time and lack of other hobbies for both parents and children resulted in more

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games played together. Alongside reviving existing gaming habits, these families would also try new games and forms of gaming. In families with children, the pandemic conditions encouraged new discussions on games and gaming and a more active approach to gaming by parents. Although few respondents explicitly mentioned bonding over games, many of them expressed their joy at having more opportunities to play games together with family members. Taken with previous research (e.g., Musick, Freeman, and McNeese 2021), this suggests that gaming may indeed have helped reinforce family bonds by allowing family members to share an enjoyable activity: “My wife is playing more and we also play more together, which is nice” (man, 29, no children); “Everyone has been gaming more, normally we don’t really play together as a family. That kind of gaming has now increased the most” (woman, 37, children aged twelve and fifteen); “I’ve played more Minecraft [Mojang Studios 2011] with the kids. Otherwise my own gaming is on similar levels as before” (man, 43, children’s ages not disclosed). The increase in gaming also resulted in more frequent discussions of games, a relevant observation considering that young people have identified parents’ lack of understanding of games and gaming as an issue (Meriläinen 2021). Discussion of games and gaming was not limited to families with children, but also occurred between partners. Furthermore, not only were games discussed together by family members, but different ways of playing and engaging with games were also present in the data. For instance, one respondent elaborated how they and their partner often took turns playing while the other person watched, demonstrating one of the ways games were engaged with beyond playing them: “I have watched the child and spouse play next to me with a work laptop in their lap a little more. I myself don’t have more time to play than before” (man, 41, children aged two and six); “My outlook [on gaming] has changed. At least in this situation gaming looks like a pretty sensible way of spending time and communicating. Children plan different strategies surprisingly much with their friends and gaming as a group appears amicable” (woman, 37, three children aged nine). There are two adults in our family. We both play a lot anyway, and different games are part of our shared hobbies normally. Even so, in exceptional circumstances, the amount and importance of gaming in mutual time, conversations, and in spending time with friends who are far away has been emphasized. We both work remotely in our small apartment. Playing after the work day is an important means of disconnecting from work. We often take turns playing so that the other person watches. We talk about the game at the same time. In exceptional circumstances, this pastime has become almost daily, when previously it was weekly. (Undisclosed, 32, no children)

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Interestingly, one respondent implicated that it was the experience of playing games individually that contributed to family well-being by serving as a way of getting more personal space and time. Having personal time has been previously identified (Salin et al. 2020) as an important coping strategy for Finnish parents during the spring 2020 measures. On the one hand, previous research has also suggested that gaming during pandemic might have been a way to cope with poor family harmony (Rozgonjuk et al. 2022). On the other hand, in some families the pandemic conditions pushed gaming from a shared activity to a more individual one. Some families also discussed their plans to play more games together if and when the situation continued. Gaming did not have to be physically colocated to bring families together. Social distancing guidelines moved social interactions online, increasing the importance of gaming as a shared social activity (Barr and Copeland-Stewart 2022; Bengtsson, Bom, and Fynbo 2021; Meriläinen 2022). As demonstrated below, in one family, gaming was a way for a mother to stay in touch with her adult children who had moved away from home. In another case, a teenager’s parents were living in different households, and online gaming made it possible to spend time together despite the restrictions: “We’ve also played a board game more often. But the main focus is clearly on digital gaming. In that, everyone gets their own peace, their own space, and their own time” (woman, 40, children aged five and eighteen); “The parents are playing less with the bigger [older] child than before, because currently gaming time is timed so that it’s possible to work during it. Previously there was more gaming together (with the father) or I would watch the game myself” (woman, 36, children aged two and six); “I keep in touch with my adult children through playing more than before, because we can’t meet face to face. We all play for example the same game, so we get together on a Discord call for a few hours a couple of times a week to play together, which partially makes up for the lack of physical presence” (woman, 37, children aged eighteen and nineteen); “We’ve played more board games than before. The teen has taught me new card games. The child’s father who lives in the child’s other home has also played Hearthstone with them, a fun way of spending time together even though because of quarantine they cannot meet” (woman, 42, child aged fifteen).

Gaming Rules as Parenting Tools Parents consciously used digital gaming to organize everyday life and support their children’s well-being, changing families’ typical dynamics around gaming. This was especially typical for parents who were working remotely and needed to be able to concentrate on their work. This reflects research showing that increases in children’s so-called screen time were typical during the early stage of the pandemic (e.g., Ozturk Eyimaya and

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Irmak 2021; Salin et al. 2020): “Both children play more, no one even considers keeping the teen from gaming and we try to lure the four-year-old to games more often, so we could work in peace. We also play together, since so many other fun things cannot be done at all” (undisclosed, 38, children aged four and fifteen). While overall most of our respondents viewed gaming positively, relaxing gaming rules was not always the result of a particularly relaxed attitude toward gaming, but rather a necessity dictated by the exceptional situation. Parents had conflicting feelings about the use of gaming as part of their parenting. Echoing common discourses for parenting related to gaming (see Steinkuehler 2016), for some, gaming was an enriching family activity as discussed in the previous theme, whereas a few brought up guilt over using a “digital babysitter” (see also Salin et al. 2020). Mentions of this guilt were rare and minor, likely owing to the predominantly positive views of gaming in the sample, as demonstrated by the following quote: “I have a positive outlook on digital gaming, and this hasn’t changed during the corona epidemic. I have been an active digital game player for nearly all my life, which has also passed down to my children who both game, one as a hobby and the other in a more goal-oriented manner in a semi-professional team” (woman, 37, children aged eighteen and nineteen). Many parents relaxed gaming rules and even encouraged gaming, whether for self-serving reasons, or in the interests of their children, or both. Allowing children more gaming time left more time not only for work but for parents’ own relaxing and recovery as well. Particularly important for the respondents was that gaming allowed the children to maintain their social lives and keep in contact with peers. Games and gameworlds were almost the only locations where children could socialize and spend time with friends (see Bengtsson, Bom, and Fynbo 2021) since kindergartens, schools, and places for hobbies were almost invariably closed. Some parents would also include playing educational games as part of their family routines, either from their own initiative or from the initiative of the school: “I have always been an avid game player and encouraged children to play games that aid their development + to play together. My attitude hasn’t changed much, although to my annoyance I’ve had to use consoles and iPads as babysitters during remote work. Usually my aim is that games are played together” (man, 38, children aged four and six); “We’ve allowed the children to game more than normally, but we have emphasized gaming with friends online. Because you don’t currently see your friends otherwise, it’s good to connect socially online. We haven’t encouraged gaming alone” (man, 41, children aged seven and eleven). My son plays more (8th grade). I’d like to limit gaming, but I don’t really have the means to do that. His only contact with friends in his free time has been in online games. Now that you don’t see your school friends

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during distance learning, it feels wrong to limit these important moments with friends. I’m even considering allowing him to play the k-16 [PEGI rating] CS game [likely Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (Valve and Hidden Path Entertainment 2012)], that he’s too young to play, with some conditions so he can play it with his 8 month older cousin who is an important friend to my son … . My son is happy during and after shared gaming sessions. (Woman, 46, children aged fourteen and twelve) It is interesting to note that the majority of respondents who mentioned utilizing games as a way to keep children occupied were women (eleven women indicated that this is something they did, in comparison to three men). This can partially be explained by the fact that the majority of the respondents with children were women and that women were also more than twice as likely as men and others to indicate that remote work was influencing their life. However, it is also possible that this is indicative of women being more taxed by childcare, as research has also suggested that during the pandemic, childcare and domestic workload was not divided equally among the adults in the family, but quite often women would carry the heavier load (Carli 2020; Chakraborty and Altekar 2021; Power 2020). However, our women respondents did not mention experiencing an uneven workload. Although many parents (twenty-three of our respondents) opted for more relaxed rules during the restriction measures, in other families (three of our respondents) rules were tightened as, for example, remote working parents’ increased time spent at home rendered children’s afternoon gaming more visible. In one family, the family space was physically reconfigured by removing a gaming console from the children’s room. In other cases, parents discussed limiting the children’s gaming time, but did not specify in which way this was done. Gaming did not, however, appear as a notable source of tension between family members, even if individual respondents expressed worry over their own or their children’s gaming: “It has been necessary to limit the youth’s gaming time on the Playstation by removing the console from their room altogether. They only have permission to game once per week as long as the week’s schoolwork is done and daily exercise has been conducted” (woman, 46, children aged twelve and sixteen). The child who is normally in daycare certainly games more than normally but those in primary school are gaming less. Normally the daycare-aged [child] spends a long day in daycare and gaming takes place in the evening, but now there is a bit of gaming during the day as well. The schoolaged [children] usually come home early from school, so in the parents’ absence there may be lots of gaming time. Now because of remote work there is more monitoring, so gaming time is more tightly limited. Now in the evenings we have time to do things together, as all hobbies are on hold

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and the children staying home don’t game as much. (Woman, 44, children aged five, seven, and eleven)

The New Everyday In many families, the pandemic and the measures to limit its spread caused a considerable disruption to everyday practices and habits (Meriläinen 2022; Otonkorpi-Lehtoranta et al. 2021; Salin et al. 2020). The impacts of COVID-19 were felt differently depending on multiple factors. Our data reveals that different families had considerably different situations once the pandemic hit, and this influenced family dynamics around gaming as well. The number of children and their age, as well as the working situations of the parent or parents all played a part in the way rules and practices developed around gaming during the onset of COVID-19 pandemic. The most obvious difference between families concerned family composition. In stark contrast to families with children, families without children did not have to contend with issues like remote schooling or increased care responsibilities. While families with older children could rely on their children to manage themselves, for many families with young children, the pandemic measures effected a considerable increase in stress and domestic work (see Power 2020; Salin et al. 2020): “After a day of remote work and pondering the corona situation I don’t have the energy to be a ‘gaming police’ in the evenings, so for a few weeks now we’ve gone with the path of least resistance, meaning that the children have been allowed to game almost as much as they want” (woman, 53, children aged twelve and fifteen); “There just doesn’t seem to be time for gaming, having a 4-month-old baby. Maybe if my husband was also at home, but as a nurse he will be working until he falls ill … . I would like to play more, but there is not enough time” (woman, 32, child aged four months); “I’ve gamed more and worked less, because I want to take it easy and enjoy my time indoors … . I’m also gaming maybe slightly more with my partner. And we play games remotely with relatives now that we can’t visit them. Gaming is more spontaneous. We have no children” (nonbinary, 36, no children). Our data aptly demonstrates how the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting restrictions, such as the closing of schools and kindergartens as well the increase in work from home, changed the way domestic spaces were experienced and occupied. When homes increasingly became places of work and schooling, new ways of dividing space were needed. This holds equally true for the experience and organization of time, as the pandemic and its consequences affected the organization of time in homes. In relation to both of these—reconfiguring space and reconfiguring time—games played a role, sometimes even a central one.

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Games allowed forms of extension of the domestic space by functioning as places of socialization, escapism, and distraction and allowed multiple simultaneous temporalities (those of work, school, and free time) to exist simultaneously in the same physical space (see also Aarsand and Aronsson 2009). For instance, parents would encourage children to play learning games while they were working, turning the domestic space into a school space and workspace simultaneously. In a similar manner, domestic space would simultaneously accommodate leisure play and work. Online games would also turn homes into places of socialization with friends, through shared gaming or gameworlds. Playing has increased and at the same time the times when we play have expanded. I also got a new game, which otherwise I wouldn’t have gotten before Christmas. Everyone plays more and we’ve relaxed the limits. We also play e.g. fortnight [Fortnite (Epic Games 2017)] together (in turns) and the children play learning games during the school day. The special needs child learned to read at the beginning of the quarantine when he played Ekapeli [(University of Jyväskylä 2003)] and ErityisSanat [(Special iApps n.d.] [Finnish language-learning games] when the mother was busy with work. I myself am the project manager of a digital project, I treat gaming as a pleasure and a shared hobby. The special circumstances have actually increased gratitude for having the opportunity to play and have fun and learn with games. We have dug out board games and card games (UNO [Robbins 1971] as the number one!) more often and played with a group. (Woman, 38, children aged eight and eleven)

Business as Usual It is important to mention that while in many families the COVID-19 measures effected profound changes in many domains of everyday life, in some families they did not cause changes in family practices or attitudes toward gaming, or at least had not done so in the early stage of the pandemic. An earlier exploration of this study’s data (Meriläinen 2022) revealed gaming to be a fairly robust everyday activity resilient to changing conditions. This is demonstrated by several respondents who mentioned that they had not altered rules regarding gaming or their own habits—sometimes consciously. There were different reasons for this lack of change. Some respondents, regardless of the intensity of their pre-pandemic gaming, wanted to maintain routines in an exceptional situation (see Meriläinen 2022); others saw no need for change, while in some families gaming had such a minor role that it did not prompt changes—a reminder of the mundanity of gaming: “We’ve had clearly set gaming times before this as well, now we just talk about them a little more so that we don’t slip to everyone sitting gaming in different

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rooms for hours on end” (woman, 38, child aged nine); “[Our child’s g] aming has been ok in our family for several years as long as there are no problems with school and they exercise regularly, so we’ve had no need to create new rules. In the exceptional situation the social interaction in gaming has become more important than before” (woman, 39, child aged fourteen). My outlook on digital gaming is very positive, because I work in esports [competitive gaming]. However with small children (preschool and primary school) I notice games making them restless, and I limit my own children’s gaming to one time per week. The corona situation hasn’t changed my outlook, but I’m happy that esports is now more visible in mainstream media, as sports have been banned because of corona. (Man, 30, children aged six and nine)

Discussion Our analysis demonstrates how gaming was inseparably interwoven with the everyday life of our respondents both before and during the pandemic. The disruption caused to everyday practices by the pandemic and the restriction measures also impacted gaming and the social dynamics surrounding it—at least temporarily. The impact was not the same for all our responders, but instead depended on multiple factors. Our data shows that family composition mattered; whether families had children or not was an important factor, as was the age of children. Moreover, employment status and especially opportunities for remote work also played an important part. Our results underline how important it is to examine the broader social and societal context gaming takes place in as our respondents’ different life situations provided very different opportunities and limitations for gaming. Examining how our respondents negotiated their attitudes toward gaming and their own and children’s relationship with gaming revealed that these negotiations were almost always informed by pre-existing attitudes. These different attitudes also led to different actions and rules around gaming once the pandemic started—or at least different ways of explaining and justifying said rules. In our data, gaming and the impacts of the pandemic measures on it were mostly discussed in a positive tone; game play was presented more as an opportunity than as a risk. Despite the stress and anxiety related to the pandemic, the early stage of the pandemic also increased time spent together, providing opportunities for more quality time with loved ones (see also Chu et al. 2021). A large portion of previous research focusing on gaming and family dynamics during the pandemic has drawn attention to problematic sides of the phenomenon (e.g., Oka et al. 2021; Rozgonjuk et al. 2022). In this light, it is worth highlighting the overall positive views our respondents

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expressed about gaming: by and large, gaming was not seen as a problem. In addition to time spent together, games also provided positive opportunities for spending time apart, allowing for remote work and social and mental personal space. Our results support the findings of Pearce et al. (2022) who have pointed out the potential of gaming in family coping. Respondents’ views were rarely black and white; despite mentioning their positive views toward gaming, many respondents also discussed the need for balancing gaming with other life areas, and some mentioned concerns over their own or their children’s gaming. This echoes Finnish parents’ ambivalent views toward so-called screen time during the same period observed by Salin et al. (2020) as well as overall attitudes in Finland toward gaming (Kinnunen et al. 2022). As both academic (e.g., Mathur and VanderWeele 2019) and public discussion (e.g., Rogers 2013) of gaming and digital media use more broadly is sometimes very polarized, the finding is an important reminder that extreme positive or negative views are only one aspect of digital gaming as part of everyday family life. It is also interesting that while the respondents occasionally discussed their concern in relation to gaming and while a small minority saw games in a negative light, this was only in relation to digital games and not extended to board games. Having a much longer history than digital games, board games are not subject to similar fears over technology use as digital games are (see Orben 2020) and are probably much more familiar to many parents than digital games. Because of this, they may be seen as more of a shared activity between family members (see Rogerson and Gibbs 2018) compared to digital gaming. Based on our data, gender differences in the impact of COVID-19 restrictions on gaming and family dynamics are unclear. While previous studies have demonstrated how the pandemic measures increased especially women’s burden in work and domestic life (e.g., Carli 2020; Chakraborty and Altekar 2021; Power 2020), our sample does not allow us to confirm this with any certainty. Similar to Otonkorpi-Lehtoranta et al. (2021) who studied gendered parenting during spring 2020 in Finland, our sample included fewer experiences from fathers than from mothers, possibly skewing the results. This said, women were more likely to use games as a parenting tool than men were, suggesting that the everyday care of the children possibly fell more on their shoulders. As our women respondents did not discuss experiencing uneven burden in their families, we have been cautious with our interpretation of the results. Although not present in our data, we know from previous research (e.g., Meriläinen 2021; Prax and Rajkowska 2018) that parents’ and children’s differing views of gaming can be a source of family conflict. Our results suggest that the increased discussions of gaming and family coplaying during spring 2020 alleviated this issue to an extent, potentially reducing conflict in the future. Even though gaming rules were sometimes relaxed by

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necessity, the rethinking of family practices likely required many parents to reassess gaming as part of family life. However, because of the respondents’ previously discussed positive attitudes toward gaming and the lack of follow-up studies, we do not know whether, for example, changes in gaming rules were a temporary practical measure or resulted in long-term change in parents’ attitudes. Longitudinal data or in-depth retrospective interviews could illuminate longer trajectories of gaming-related attitudes and family practices to confirm or contest our observations. Our study focused on a very narrow period and a very specific situation, but many of our findings apply to gaming and family dynamics more generally and help understand the complexities of negotiating gaming and everyday family life. While the exceptional situation also caused novel issues, it often made visible normally invisible issues that already existed before COVID-19 (e.g., Otonkorpi-Lehtoranta et al. 2021) and forced individuals to actively address them. For example, parents’ different views on gaming (e.g., Meriläinen 2021) or the challenges of mediating children’s game play (e.g., Jiow, Lim, and Lin 2017) are not new phenomena, but the exceptional situation suddenly made these issues more central in many families. Gaming cannot be isolated from the rest of a family’s life, as it needs, for example, space, time, and attention from family members. It follows that gaming not only brings with it more moving parts into the family’s everyday life but is also subject to shifts in family dynamics as seen in our study, for instance, in the renegotiation of rules or increases in gaming and spending time together. Playing games is not only subject to players’ wants but takes place as part of the family’s network of interactions and domestic negotiations. For example, a parent might want to play a game of their own, but instead has to do chores, or play a children’s game together with children, or cannot play because the computer is being used by their partner for work, or the room is too noisy because of children’s play. Games might take place in fantastical worlds, but gaming does not.

Strengths and Limitations Our study’s main strengths and limitations stem from the rich data used. Many of the respondents candidly described their experiences in great detail, providing diverse perspectives into an exceptional historical situation and bringing up novel phenomena. The respondents openly explored their and  their families’ relationship with gaming, bringing forth both challenges  and opportunities it afforded during a uniquely challenging phase of the pandemic. The study demonstrates the utility of qualitative online questionnaires as a tool for quickly collecting nuanced data (see Braun et al. 2022). As the data was opportunistically collected during the

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early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic and we were ourselves also affected by the situation, it is unique in the sense that it is no longer possible to gather a comparable dataset. Future data addressing experiences of the same historical period need to rely on memories inevitably colored by the passing of time. It also unfortunately means that the study cannot be replicated. Although our sample was not intended to be representative, sampling needs to be taken into account when considering our observations. Respondents for the study were self-selected and the questionnaire was only shared through two social media channels. The responses thus came from those who either use Facebook or Twitter or came into contact with the questionnaire through someone sharing it with them directly. Because of the format, respondents were limited to those comfortable with and able to express themselves in written Finnish, ruling out, for example, many potential migrant respondents, whose experiences of the pandemic and the restriction measures may have been different to those of the majority population (see Finell et al. 2021; Saarinen et al. 2022). We did not ask about respondents’ socioeconomic status or income rates. While we cannot be certain, the high levels of education and references in many responses to, for example, remote work and children’s hobbies suggest that many of the respondents were likely middle class, more or less. This in turn leads us to believe that many of our respondents were in a fairly safe position during spring 2020: most were employed, and according to the responses, many had jobs that allowed for remote work, making them privileged in a national context. This said, the Finnish welfare system managed to protect groups of different socioeconomic status from financial shock fairly well (Kärkkäinen et al. 2022). In an international context, it should be noted that as a wealthy Nordic welfare state with a highly developed infrastructure, Finland was overall well equipped to mitigate the impact of the pandemic even on vulnerable populations (see Eurofound 2020; Kärkkäinen et al. 2022). Many of our respondents saw video games and gaming positively overall. Over half (N = 104, 52 percent) of our respondents indicated they belonged to “gaming families” or self-identified as gamers, thus representing families where the attitude toward gaming was positive already at the onset. This likely contributed to more positive interpretations of the situation and a focus on the benefits of gaming, such as the opportunities for socializing. Many of the respondents viewed gaming as a meaningful activity and discussed, sometimes at length, their positive attitudes toward gaming and their gaming knowledge. It is not surprising that these respondents were often, albeit not always, quite relaxed about their children’s gaming. Although gaming is seen as beneficial by the majority (52.9 percent) of Finnish people (Kinnunen et al. 2022), because of the self-selected sample it is possible that respondents with more positive gaming views than average are overrepresented in the data.

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The predominantly positive attitude toward gaming among our respondents can furthermore be affected by the relatively young age of our respondents (average age 36.5), which often means that the parents have themselves grown up playing video games. This can also be read as indicative of a positive shift in attitudes toward gaming as the generations who have grown up gaming become parents themselves.

Conclusions We suggest three key takeaways for future practice and research. First, we wish to underline the importance of parents’ reflection on their attitudes related to gaming, whether predominantly positive or negative, and how these attitudes influence their actions and choices in everyday family situations around gaming. This may help reduce conflict over gaming and increase positive interactions around it. Second, we draw attention to the need of parents and professionals working with families to see gaming as inevitably interwoven with everyday life: gaming in family contexts cannot be detached or seen as separate from the rest of a family’s social dynamics. In this context, there is no division between game play and “real life.” Third, there is a need for more in-depth research of families’ social dynamics around gaming. This research should go beyond mediation practices and examine the many ways gaming is connected to family members’ relationships and interactions and how personal, social, physical, and online spaces are arranged and interact in home contexts.

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Jiow, H. J., S. S. Lim, and J. Lin (2017), “Level Up! Refreshing Parental Mediation Theory for Our Digital Media Landscape,” Communication Theory, 27 (3): 309–28. King, D. L., P. H. Delfabbro, J. Billieux, and M. N. Potenza (2020), “Problematic Online Gaming and the COVID-19 Pandemic,” Journal of Behavioral Addictions, 9 (2): 184–6. Kinnunen, J., M. Tuomela, and F. Mäyrä (2022), Pelaajabarometri 2022: Kohti uutta normaalia.Trim Research Reports 29, Tampere: Tampereen University. Kärkkäinen, S., M. Mesiäislehto, O. Sirniö, S. Karvonen, and T. M. Kauppinen (2022), “The Role of Social Transfers in Mitigating Families with Children from the Economic Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic,” International Journal of Social Welfare, November 20. https://doi.org/10.1111/ijsw.12568. Koskinen, E., and M. Meriläinen (2021), “Social Playfulness: Memorable Family Co-play Experiences with Pokémon GO,” in A. Spanellis and J. T. Harviainen (eds.), Transforming Society and Organizations through Gamification, Cham: Springer, 247–70. Marston, H. R., and R. Kowert (2020), “What Role Can Videogames Play in the COVID-19 Pandemic?” Emerald Open Research, 2 (October): 34. Martins, N., N. L. Matthews, and R. A. Ratan (2017), “Playing by the Rules: Parental Mediation of Video Game Play,” Journal of Family Issues, 38 (9): 1215–38. Mathur, M. B., and T. J. VanderWeele (2019), “Finding Common Ground in Metaanalysis ‘Wars’ on Violent Video Games,” Perspectives on Psychological Science, 14 (4): 705–8. Meriläinen, M. (2021), “Crooked Views and Relaxed Rules: How Teenage Boys Experience Parents’ Handling of Digital Gaming,” Media and Communication, 9 (1): 62–72. Meriläinen, M. (2022), “ ‘Pandemic Rhythms: Adults’ Gaming in Finland during the Spring 2020 COVID-19 Restrictions,” Convergence, 28 (6): 1679–98. Mojang Studios (2011), Minecraft (Windows; macOS; Linux; Android; iOS; iPadOS; Xbox 360; Raspberry Pi; Windows Phone; PlayStation 3; Fire OS; PlayStation 4; Xbox One; PlayStation Vita; Wii U; Apple TV; tvOS; Nintendo Switch; New Nintendo 3DS), Mojang Studios, Xbox Game Studios, and Sony Interactive Entertainment. Musick, G., G. Freeman, and N. J. McNeese (2021), “Gaming as Family Time: Digital Game Co-play in Modern Parent–Child Relationships,” Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, New York: ACM, 1–25. Oka, T., T. Hamamura, Y. Miyake, N. Kobayashi, M. Honjo, M. Kawato, T. Kubo, and T. Chiba (2021), “Prevalence and Risk Factors of Internet Gaming Disorder and Problematic Internet Use before and during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Large Online Survey of Japanese Adults,” Journal of Psychiatric Research, 142: 218–25. Orben, A. (2020) “The Sisyphean Cycle of Technology Panics,” Perspectives on Psychological Science, 15 (5): 1143–57. Osmanovic, S., and L. L. Pecchioni (2019), “Playing with Words: The Experience of Self-disclosure in Intergenerational Gaming,” Human Aspects of IT for the Aged

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Population. Social Media, Games and Assistive Environments, Cham: Springer, 189–203. Otonkorpi-Lehtoranta, K., M. Salin, M. Hakovirta, and A. Kaittila (2021), “Gendering Boundary Work: Experiences of Work–Family Practices among Finnish Working Parents during COVID-19 Lockdown,” Gender, Work and Organization, 29 (6): 1952–68. Ozturk Eyimaya, A., and A. Y. Irmak (2021), “Relationship between Parenting Practices and Children’s Screen Time during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Turkey,” Journal of Pediatric Nursing, 56 (January–February): 24–9. Pearce, K. E., J. C. Yip, J. H. Lee, J. J. Martinez, T. W. Windleharth, A. Bhattacharya, and Q. Li (2022), “Families Playing Animal Crossing Together: Coping with Video Games during the COVID-19 Pandemic,” Games and Culture, 17 (5): 773–94. Power, K. (2020), “The COVID-19 Pandemic Has Increased the Care Burden of Women and Families,” Sustainability, 16 (1): 67–73. Prax, P., and P. Rajkowska (2018), “Problem Gaming from the Perspective of Treatment,” in J. Enevold, A. M. Thorhauge, and A. Gregersen (eds.), What’s the Problem in Problem Gaming? Nordic Research Perspectives, Göteborg: Nordicom, 91–106, Robbins, M. (1971), Uno, Los Angeles, CA: Mattel. Rogers, R. (2013), “Old Games, Same Concerns: Examining First Generation Video Games through Popular Press Coverage from 1972–1985,” Technoculture 3 (January). Rogerson, M. J., and M. Gibbs (2018), “Finding Time for Tabletop: Board Game Play and Parenting,” Games and Culture, 13 (3): 280–300. Rozgonjuk, D., H. M. Pontes, B. Schivinski, and C. Montag (2022), “Disordered Gaming, Loneliness, and Family Harmony in Gamers before and during the COVID-19 Pandemic,” Addictive Behaviors Reports, 15: 100426. Russell, L. L. H., and E. I. Johnson (2017), “Parenting Emerging Adults Who Game Excessively: Parents’ Lived Experiences,” Issues in Mental Health Nursing, 38 (1): 66–74. Saarinen, S., H. Moustgaard, H. Remes, R. Sallinen, and P. Martikainen (2022), “Income Differences in COVID-19 Incidence and Severity in Finland among People with Foreign and Native Background: A Population-Based Cohort Study of Individuals Nested within Households,” PLOS Medicine, 19 (8): e1004038. Salin, M., A. Kaittila, M. Hakovirta, and M. Anttila (2020), “Family Coping Strategies during Finland’s COVID-19 Lockdown,” Sustainability, 12 (21): 9133. Special iApps (n.d.), ErityisSanat (Android; iOS), Special iApps CIC. Steinkuehler, C. (2016), “Parenting and Video Games,” Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 59 (4): 357–61. University of Jyväskylä and Niilo Mäki Institute (2003), Ekapeli (Windows; macOS; Android; iOS), Niilo Mäki Foundation (series of games, first version released 2003). Valve and Hidden Path Entertainment (2012), Counter-strike: Global Offensive (OS X; PlayStation 3; Windows; Xbox 360; Linux), Valve.

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Wang, B., L. Taylor, and Q. Sun (2018), “Families That Play Together Stay Together: Investigating Family Bonding through Video Games,” New Media and Society, 20 (11): 4074–94. Zhu, S., Y. Zhuang, P. Lee, J. C.-M. Li, and P. W. C. Wong (2021), “Leisure and Problem Gaming Behaviors among Children and Adolescents during School Closures Caused by COVID-19 in Hong Kong: Quantitative Cross-sectional Survey Study,” JMIR Serious Games, 9 (2): e26808.

3 Uses and Appropriations of the Cozy Game Animal Crossing: New Horizons during the Lockdown1 Gabrielle Trépanier-Jobin, Débora Krischke Leitão, and Jérémie Pelletier-Gagnon

Introduction The cozy game2 Animal Crossing: New Horizons (AC:NH) (Nintendo 2020) allows players to develop an island, decorate their home, chat with NPCs (nonplayable characters), and visit other players’ islands. It was a huge success during the COVID-19 pandemic. Six weeks after its release

This chapter presents the results of a research led by Gabrielle Trépanier-Jobin (theorical framework), Débora Krischke Leitão (collective autoethnography), and Jérémie PelletierGagnon (computer-assisted textual analysis). It has also been cowritten by, in alphabetical order: Stéphanie Auger-Caron, Chloé Champoux-Rhéaume, Isabelle Desjardins, Patrick Deslauriers, Pierre Gabriel Dumoulin, Laurence Grondin-Robillard, Débora Krischke Leitão, Laura-Iseult Lafrance St-Martin, Louis-David Lalancette-Renaud, Xavier Martel-Lachance, Jérémie Pelletier-Gagnon, Samuel Poirier-Poulin, Mathilde Savoie, Élodie Simard and Gabrielle Trépanier-Jobin. The latter edited the chapter. 2 Cozy games generally have cute graphics, calming soundtracks, and simple game mechanics such as resource management and farming. 1

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on March 20, 2020, 13 million copies of the game had already been sold,3 which is ten times the number of copies sold for the first installment between 2001 and 2006.4 Several journalists attribute this phenomenal success to the need for individuals to socialize and escape during the lockdown (Lamy 2020; Lucas and Gleeson 2020; Sylvestre 2020; Vossen 2020; Woitier 2020). However, it remains to be understood why AC:NH was so popular during the pandemic beyond the good timing of its release only a few weeks after the onset of the lockdown. In this chapter, we present the findings of a collective autoethnography and computer-assisted textual analysis seeking to understand why the life simulation game AC:NH was played so much during the pandemic and for what purposes. Drawing on the possible needs fulfilled by the media listed in the uses and gratifications theory (Katz et al. 1973), we identify six needs exacerbated by the lockdown that players attempted to fulfill with AC:NH: social interaction, rest, escapism, outlet, productivity, and identity expression. We are interested not only in the game’s affordances and in the gaming practices that help or hinder the fulfillment of such needs but also in the appropriations made by players to tailor the game to their needs in the pandemic context. Given the results of our analysis, we ultimately argue that the various uses of AC:NH during the pandemic context bring to light the positive aspects of cozy games.

Theoretical Framework Our research is mainly based on the theory of uses and gratifications that seeks to understand the various reasons why individuals use particular media. Katz, Gurevitch, and Haas (1973) identify five categories of needs that traditional media (television, cinema, newspapers) can meet: social integration (interacting with family, friends, etc.); tension release (escape, rest, entertainment, etc.); personal integration (gaining credibility, stability, social status, etc.); learning (acquiring knowledge, becoming informed, etc.); and emotion triggering (experiencing pleasure, etc.). This theory is related to the functionalist and empirical approach, insofar as it identifies the functions that a specific media can fulfill for a given public with the help of field studies. Contrary to other media reception theories, it focuses on how receivers use media, rather than on their effects on receivers. It presupposes that receivers freely choose the media they consume according to their needs and that the way they use them vary according

See www.cnbc.com/2020/05/07/ani​mal-cross​ing-is-now-fast​est-sell​ing-game-on-the-ninte​ndoswi​tch.html. 4 See https://en.wikipe​dia.org/wiki/Anim​al_C​ross​ing. 3

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to their psychological dispositions and social situations (Blumer and Kats 1974; Kats et al. 1973). Very few game scholars mobilized the uses and gratifications theory. Sherry and Lucas (2006), as well as Wu, Shu-Ching, and Tsai (2010), relied on this theoretical framework to understand the needs that video games can fulfill, while Lucas and Sherry (2004) mobilized this theory to compare men’s and women’s motivations for playing video games. While this theory and these researches focus on the motivations to turn to particular media, we are interested in the motivation to play a particular video game in the unusual context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Starting from the idea that different games meet different needs, it seems relevant to study AC:NH’s “affordances.” This concept was coined by the psychologist Gibson ([1979] 2014: 119) to refer to what a given environment offers to a given animal. It is often used in game studies to describe the uses a video game environment offers or promotes. While in ergonomics, affordances concern the capacity of an object to suggest its use, the psychological approach—favored in our research—is interested in the possibilities of actions of which players are aware. Therefore, we studied the affordances of AC:NH not through an analysis of its functionalities but rather through the testimonies made by the team’s autoethnographers and by the players who commented on the game on Twitter. We were also interested in the players’ “appropriation” of AC:NH that made the game more responsive to their needs during the pandemic. Etymologically, “to appropriate” means “to make fit for a purpose,” and “appropriation,” “the state of being fit for something” (Bonenfant 2015: 80, our translation). To appropriate a video game is therefore to mobilize its possible uses to adapt it to one’s particular needs. This involves interpreting the rules according to one’s own perspective. Thanks to this interpretative freedom, game practices are never entirely determined by the rules, and new uses can emerge from them (Bonenfant 2015).

Methodological and Epistemological Approaches Among the fifteen researchers in our team, eleven had played AC:NH during the first two waves of the pandemic. Thus, we opted for a collective autoethnography as one of our methodological approaches. Autoethnography is a qualitative research method that allows one to understand a sociocultural context based on the researchers’ auto­ biographical accounts of their experiences (Ellis 2004). Anderson (2006) distinguishes two forms of autoethnography. The evocative approach involves the introspection of autoethnographers to account for the emotions

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they have experienced, while the analytical approach—chosen for our research—focuses on more objective autobiographical accounts in which interpretation and analysis play a significant role. While autoethnographies are typically conducted by a single researcher, there are also “collective” autoethnographies in which several voices resonate together (Chang et al. 2013: 17). In our research, we opted for a “concurrent collaboration” collective autoethnography that allows researchers to write individually on the same subject before pooling their testimonies (2013: 44). This method allows the space and time for individual reflection before grouping the stories together to highlight similarities and emphasize the particularities of each account. Writing plays a central role in the autoethnographic process, as it allows for the recollection and reinterpretation of the experienced situations (Ellis 2004). In October 2020, the eleven researchers of the team who were playing AC:NH since at least one month recounted five significant moments of their gaming experience in a diary of approximately five single-spaced pages. They also contextualized these significant moments with their daily life during the unprecedented lockdown. Indeed, the autoethnographers all experienced the COVID-19 pandemic in Quebec, Canada, where the lockdown regulations were quite strict. After March 23, 2020, daycare centers were closed until May 11, 2020; elementary and high schools were holding courses online until September 2020; and teleworking was mandatory for those who could do so until May 2021. Social gatherings were prohibited during the heights of COVID-19, that is, spring 2020 and fall 2020. Nonessential travel between regions was forbidden during fall 2020. Diaries were then encoded by a subgroup of five researchers from the team who firstly identified excerpts that fit into the aforementioned categories of the uses and gratifications theory. In accordance with the inductive approach, generally favored in ethnographic work, the encoders also tried to create new categories based on recurring ideas in several diaries. However, the categories of the uses and gratification theory proved to be broad enough to cover every need expressed in the autoethnographers’ diaries except one: the need for productivity. The encoders assigned pseudonyms to the autoethnographers, since some of them addressed private matters. However, they provide enough information about the autoethnographers to better contextualize their testimonies. Epistemologically, our approach is based on the notion of “situated play” (Jennings 2018), inspired by the notion of “situated knowledge” (Haraway 1988), since we believe in the influence of players’ subjectivity, life context, and sociocultural affiliations on their gaming experiences and on how they interpret a game. In the case of our polyphonic autoethnography, the studied game experience is multi-situated. It brings together the views of people of different genders, age groups, family situation, and economic

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status. Our polyphonic autoethnography, however, remains partial since the team’s autoethnographers are all affiliated to the research group Homo Ludens based at the Université du Québec à Montréal (Canada) as students, researchers, or professors in game studies. Therefore, they are likely to have encountered similar obstacles during the pandemic. Another limitation of our method is the combined roles of researcher and participant, which may have influenced the testimonies and analysis of the autoethnographers. This subjectivity is, however, consistent with Haraway’s epistemology (1988), which criticizes the imperative of objectivity—presupposing neutrally—and argues for a biased, situated, and embodied mode of knowledge production. This subjectivity is also concordant with the analytical autoethnographic approach, which relies on the interpretations of lived experiences, rather than on mere descriptions (Geertz 1973: 27). To compensate for the relative homogeneity of the autoethnographers’ voices, we nevertheless complemented the collective autoethnography with a computer-assisted textual analysis of the millions of testimonials about AC:NH posted on Twitter. We picked this platform since it is a central place of exchange between players, and because AC:NH was its most mentioned game in 2020 (Gray 2021). Even though it is not possible to provide specific information about what kind of players can be found on Twitter, a study shows that this platform is less male-dominated than Reddit or Twitch. It also shows that Twitter users tend to be more politically engaged and use the platform for news and information-sharing (Newman et al. 2021). Three researchers from the team used the Twitter API to collect the 4,244,752 English tweets associated with the hashtags “animalcrossing,” “acnh,” “animalcrossingnewhorizons,” “animalcrossingcommunity,” “acnhcommunity” posted by 671,949 users between March 17 and June 21, 2020, a period that corresponds to the first wave of the pandemic. The software KH Coder5 was used to identify, in the corpus of collected tweets, the frequency of relevant lexical fields for this study, notably those of the pandemic, dating, appearance, theft, and mobilization. By isolating tweets containing at least one word from each lexical field, we obtained five sub-corpuses. KH Coder was then used to visualize the co-occurrence network of the most frequent words in each of these sub-corpuses (see Figure 3.1). We then compared these results with the qualitative analysis of the autoethnographers’ diaries. This methodology also has limitations. Firstly, the studied tweets only report what Twitter users—who do not represent all AC:NH players— are willing to reveal publicly and are able to express in 280 characters. Secondly, it is impossible to determine whether certain phenomena

5

For more details on how the software operates, see https://khco​der.net/en.

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FIGURE 3.1  Co-occurrence network in the sub-corpus of pandemic-related tweets.

were frequently discussed in tweets because they had received a lot of media coverage or because players had experienced them. Since the tweets collected were published during the first wave of the pandemic, our corpus, however, helps circumvent this problem. This method mostly served to give more credibility to the autoethnographers’ experiences by showing that they overlap with those of a considerable mass of players. It also helped identify different uses and needs than those addressed by the autoethnographers.

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Data Analysis The data collected shows that the needs for social interaction, rest, escapism, and outlet, identified in the uses and gratifications theory, were exacerbated during the lockdown and that many players tried to fulfill them by playing AC:NH. Two other needs linked to the interactive properties of video games and to the particularities of the pandemic context were also identified: the need to regain a certain productivity and the need to express one’s identity.

Need for Social Interaction One of the needs evoked in the uses and gratifications theories, as well as in the testimonies of our autoethnographers, is that of social interaction. Many people have suffered from loneliness and isolation as a result of the lockdown measures implemented in several countries to reduce face-to-face social relations (Ernst et al. 2022). The testimonies of some autoethnographers also highlighted their need for “sociability” during the pandemic. Defined by Simmel (1949), this concept refers to a social relationship in which the individual does not seek anything outside the relationship itself. Unlike instrumental social associations that aim to acquire status, increase power, or ensure survival, sociability is similar to play because it is intrinsically motivated, autotelic, and free. For this reason, Simmel argues that it is “the play form of association” (1949: 255). The vast majority of the team’s autoethnographers purchased AC:NH because their friends were playing it and they wanted to take advantage of the social opportunities it offered during the lockdown. While most of them had played other cozy games in the past, they had never played any other titles of the franchise and were not impatiently waiting for the release of this opus. For Geneviève, a student in her late twenties living alone, meeting friends on her island during the lockdown was a lifesaver: “It was a way to be together without being able to be physically together.” For Charles and Kayla, playing AC:NH was an opportunity to reconnect with a friend they had not seen for a while. This is surprising considering that AC:NH has few features that allow sociability. To overcome the fact that AC:NH does not allow verbal communication and that chatting on the Nookphone’s6 tiny keyboard is inconvenient, more than half of the team’s autoethnographers often used other communication platforms while playing, such as Discord, WhatsApp, and Messenger. To express their feelings or to establish a nonverbal Smartphone given to the playable characters to take screenshots, communicate with other players, look at the map of their island, consult recipes to make items, create designs, consult the encyclopedia of captured creatures, and so on. 6

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communication with other players, André, Geneviève, and Charles also used the avatar’s “mimics”7 and appropriated objects to generate interactions that may seem violent for an outsider, but that rather manifested affection in the context of this game in which no damage can be inflicted to other players: I was always looking for new ways to express myself to my friends. For example, one day, I was chasing a friend with an axe and hitting her repeatedly. At first glance, this action seems violent and toxic. However, in the game’s context, it becomes a form of non-verbal language that reinforces cohesion and creates a humorous tone. Similarly, hitting someone with a net or shovel can be interpreted as a sign of affection and friendship. (André) The players’ community has thus given birth to a nonverbal language with its own codes that could be difficult to understand for the uninitiated. The testimony of an autoethnographer shows that a sense of physical closeness with other players is possible when playing AC:NH. While Jackie had left the family nest to move in with their girlfriend and had voluntarily isolated themselves from their loved ones because of their vulnerability to COVID-19, this student in their mid-twenties deeply missed their relatives, especially their sister. AC:NH provided them the opportunity to spend a “magical” evening with her. In their diary, Jackie describes how they felt as their avatars sat side by side, looking at the sky for the next shooting star: “All the physical distance of the ‘real world’ that separated us no longer existed. Our two characters on the island had become our reality. It was as if we were really sitting next to each other and talking like we did when we were children in front of real shooting stars” (Jackie). Charles and Geneviève highlight the importance of the Nookphone’s camera to immortalize moments of sociability in the game: “[Our] first meetings in AC:NH were punctuated with several photos that we took to capture these moments spent together in the game … . These photos are the memories of moments lived in the game that replaced those that could not be experienced in person” (Geneviève). Also, one participant testifies that sociability does not happen only through in-game interactions, but also through interactions on forums about the game. Shortly after the game’s release, Hélène, a student in her late twenties who lived with her boyfriend during the lockdown, often found herself on the “Animal Crossing: New Horizons Qc” Facebook group, where Quebec players were discussing their experiences, sharing stories, and asking questions about the game.

7

Programed animations that can express anger, surprise, jubilation, and so on.

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FIGURE 3.2  Relevant co-occurrences in the sub-corpus of pandemic-related tweets.

Our computer-assisted textual analysis reinforces the idea that the game was often used to keep in touch with friends during the lockdown. By extracting, from the corpus of collected tweets, those that comprise at least one word in the lexical field of pandemic,8 we obtained a sub-corpus of 47,643 tweets. If we look at the co-occurrence network of the most frequent terms in this sub-corpus, we find the following cluster of words: “friend,” “hang,” “visit,” and “island” (see Figure 3.2). In addition, AC:NH seems to allow some players to participate in socialization rituals and rites of passage

“Isolation,” “lockdown,” “stayathome,” “quarantine,” “coronavirus,” “corona,” “virus,” and “COVID.” 8

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that were prohibited during the lockdown, such as attending a birthday party. Indeed, the aforementioned cluster of words also includes “celebrate,” “birthday,” and “party.” This use of the game is facilitated by the range of objects available to players, as well as the ability to import photos and write on posters to customize the setting. Halloween items, for example, allowed Béatrice, a student in her mid-twenties living with a roommate who also played AC:NH, to celebrate this holiday with her friends while staying at home. Daniela, a professor in her early forties who had just immigrated to Quebec and who lived alone, was able to celebrate her home country’s national holiday in AC:NH. Indeed, some items provided by the game helped her recreate its atmosphere, but, ultimately, it was a list of traditional songs shared with her friends on WhatsApp that really allowed her to do so. In addition to the difficulty of seeing friends during the lockdown, romantic relationships were also affected. Kayla, a student in her early thirties, was unable to see her boyfriend for several weeks because she was not allowed to travel to his geographic zone. One day she decided to orchestrate a wedding ceremony for their respective avatars by using various items to recreate the proper ambiance. She even appropriated the “face mask” item to make it seem like her boyfriend smashed the wedding cake on her avatar’s face. She then took a few pictures and shared them with her boyfriend and her sister afterward. This sort of “photo-novel” made them laugh and allowed Kayla to “vent some frustration through self-derision.” Playing AC:NH in “party play” mode—which allows up to four people to play on the same screen—provided Charles and their girlfriend an opportunity to create a bubble away from their roommate: “In a unusual way, our couple’s routine was established through AC, in that it had become, over time, our own virtual space within the apartment.” Although the team’s autoethnographers did not discuss dating in the game environment, the computer-assisted textual analysis reveals that it was a common practice within the gaming community during the first wave of the pandemic. By isolating from the corpus of collected tweets those containing at least one word in the lexical field of dating,9 we indeed obtained a subcorpus of 16,626 tweets. If we look at the co-occurrence network of the most frequent words in this sub-corpus, we find the cluster of words “date,” “night,” “museum,” and “quarantine” (see Figure 3.3). Many players refer to the museum as their favorite space for a romantic date, perhaps because it provides the privacy needed for a date or allows the island’s owner to show their collection of fossils, insects, fishes, and paintings.

“Edating,” “edate,” “date,” “dating,” “playdate,” “datenight,” “animalcrossingdate,” “acnhdate,” “datemate,” and “quanrantinedate.” 9

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FIGURE 3.3  Co-occurrence network in the sub-corpus of dating-related tweets.

In the tweets from this sub-corpus, many players describe the game as a bonding activity with their life partners, but also as a suitable place for a first romantic encounter. According to some players, the game mechanics encourage romantic activities, such as catching bugs, fishing, and watching shooting stars in the moonlight. Others mention the possibility to appropriate items provided within the game to organize activities that are not explicitly proposed by the game, such as a picnic on the beach.

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Moreover, a cluster of words in this sub-corpus (see Figure 3.3) indicates the high frequency of the expression “first date, kinda nervous.” A qualitative reading of the tweets associated with this cluster, however, reveals that several players were, in fact, sarcastic about dating villagers (NPCs). Thus, the presence of the expression in a tweet does not guarantee the realization of a romance between players. That said, many NPCs have also filled the need for social interaction for some autoethnographers. Their constant presence and responsiveness fostered a sense of attachment toward them. Daniela, for example, became so obsessed by a seductive ostrich named Sprocket that she wanted to “time travel”10 to see it more often. This made her realize how lonely she was: “I was so lonely, in another country during a pandemic, that I started to have feelings for a gym-addicted robot ostrich!” Charles, for their part, had developed a sense of attachment toward a lazy, quirky, and funny ostrich named Cranston. Being greeted by it every morning partly compensated for their lack of social contact. Charles also experienced a “unique moment, full of digital warmth, cheerfulness, and gaiety” when the NPCs threw a surprise party to celebrate their birthday. Similarly, chatting with villagers was one of Hélène’s greatest pleasures in the game. She even made it a habit to throw a party every time a villager was leaving her island. She wished that the game would have allowed her to frame the photos she took and give them as a gift to show her affection. Not all autoethnographers share this attachment to villagers. Elias was annoyed by the endless and repetitive dialogues with NPCs, who seemed to him more like automatons than charming little pets. It must be said that interactions with NPCs in AC:NH are “futile” considering the lack of choice in dialogue (Cesar 2020). Furthermore, it should not be assumed that online interactions, whether with players or NPCs, perfectly fulfilled the players’ needs for sociability and replaced face-to-face interactions during the pandemic. Even if Charles appreciated the birthday party hosted by NPCs, it could not replace the face-to-face celebration they would have liked to have with their loved ones. Charles also deplored that their avatar had more physical contact with the villagers than they did with their friends. Not all social relationships in AC:NH are a matter of sociability; some of them are utilitarian when a player only wants, for example, to exchange resources in order to progress faster. Unlike sociability, utilitarian relationships can hardly break the sense of isolation that many felt in the context of the pandemic. Geneviève’s testimony, however, indicates that an initially utilitarian relationship can transform into sociability. Indeed, she sometimes exchanged resources with a friend and ended up “spending the

The practice of changing the console date to progress faster in the game, change the season, or replay a special event, for example. 10

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evening on [her] island, not seeing the time passing and just having fun.” Her social relationships in AC:NH also became more and more “utilitarian” over time: rather than meeting friends just to spend time together, she later did it mostly to gain items and collect resources. Thus, the types of social relationships established in the game should not be understood as stable and mutually exclusive categories.

Need for Rest Another need identified by the uses and gratifications theory and felt by some of the team’s autoethnographers during the pandemic context is the need for rest. The COVID-19 pandemic has put some of them in exhausting situations. Iris’s domestic duties considerably increased during the first wave of the pandemic. This professor in her mid-thirties had to work from home while caring for her baby because daycare centers remained closed for two months. Moreover, she could not get help from her babysitter, her parents, or her spouse who was requisitioned seven days a week to monitor the manufacturing of mechanical ventilators. When daycare centers finally reopened, she bought AC:NH in the hope of taking time for herself. Given the possibility of progressing at one’s own pace and setting one’s own goals, AC:NH seemed like the perfect game to relax. However, some of the game’s objectives and mechanics quickly became obstacles to her relaxation. When she learned, after only a few minutes of play, that she already had large debt to pay off, Iris felt an extra weight on her shoulders: “In addition to diapers, bottles, laundry and meals, I would now have to chop wood, pick up weeds, and fish to pay off my debt. A whole new set of daily chores had been added to my too-long list of obligations” (Iris). For autoethnographers who did not have children, pandemic exhaustion took other forms. Like many employees suddenly forced to work from home, Daniela had to spend most of her days in front of a small laptop screen, sitting in an uncomfortable chair. Playing AC:NH while lying on her couch or bed gave her the occasion to get away from her nonergonomic workstation. However, one element of the game interfered with Daniela’s need for physical rest. Since she is a night owl, she experienced the imperative to get up on Sunday morning to buy turnips (that can be sold at a better price later during the week) as a “discipline” similar to that imposed by “Protestant asceticism.”11 She soon abandoned this strategy of enrichment and developed other tricks to achieve her goals with little money, such as appropriating palisades to make her earthen bridges look like real ones. Daniela is not the only one who found buying and reselling turnips stressful. Daniela here refers to Weber’s ([1905] 2003) theory, according to which discipline imposed by Protestantism aims at producing docile bodies and transforming them into a workforce. 11

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Geneviève also stopped engaging in the practice for similar reasons. The cluster of words “buy,” “turnip,” “hour,” and “spend” in the sub-corpus of the pandemic-related tweets also suggests that a significant number of players were concerned about the timing of this activity (see Figure 3.1). For other autoethnographers, it was not the game objectives and mechanics that interfered with their need for rest, but the excessive behaviors of players who sought to maximize their performance. According to André, a student and lecturer in his thirties who was living with his mother during the first pandemic wave, the idea of relaxation conveyed by the game’s design and the discourses that promote it were short-circuited by the particularly intense gaming practices of some “power gamers.” This race for performance put such pressure on Geneviève that she felt like giving up the game. Francis, a researcher in his mid-thirties, felt an “unpleasant vertigo” when he saw that some players managed to collect all the furniture in a set or to design each area of their island according to a different theme. As for Hélène, she was outraged by the “thieves and scammers” who artificially inflated the price of certain items on Facebook, Reddit, Nookazon, and Nook.market. According to the computer-assisted textual analysis, she was not the only one negatively affected by these illegal practices.12 Among the collected tweets, 6,125 contain at least one word in the lexical field of stealing.13

Need for Escapism The need for escapism, which can be satisfied by media according to the uses and gratifications theory, was strongly felt during the COVID-19 pandemic. Because of home confinement, Iris constantly felt like changing the decor of her surroundings. One of her main goals in AC:NH was to build a large house that would stand out from her physical home. The limited range of items available to her and the few customization options at the beginning of the game, however, prevented her from creating a decor that perfectly reflects her taste. She had to play for several dozen hours and receive a generous amount of bells14 from a friend before being minimally satisfied. She was particularly pleased with her digital home office that “was more luxurious and warmer than the small, cold, and dark room [she had] been working in every day since the pandemic began” (Iris). For some autoethnographers, the need for escapism was related to the inaccessibility of certain services and activities. Francis’ girlfriend, for example, purchased an in-game pool to satisfy her desire to install a real one

See  https://anim​alcr​ossi​ngwo​rld.com/2020/06/ninte​ndo-ackno​wled​ges-real-money-ani​malcross​ing-new-horiz​ons-sales-agai​nst-terms-of-serv​ice. 13 “Theft,” “steal,” “stealer,” “stealin,” “stealing,” “damage,” “damaged.” 14 The currency in AC:NH. 12

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in her backyard when public pools were still closed. The satisfaction was, however, brief since AC:NH characters cannot actually use it. Furthermore, the game’s mechanics do not encourage such idle activities: “There is no break or holiday for the inhabitants of AC:NH who are in a frantic race to accumulate resources and buy furniture; not even for a dip!” (Francis). Iris, who also had few opportunities to swim during the pandemic, managed to experience moments of escapism thanks to the possibility of swimming in the ocean. For a few seconds, she even felt the water on her skin, and this made her realize how much she missed swimming. When the winter started and the snow covered her lawn in AC:NH, Iris experienced a similar disappointment as Francis’ girlfriend. Knowing that she would not be able to go to the Nordic spa—as she used to do each winter— Iris replaced her digital pool with a square wooden bathtub. Since her avatar could not lounge in it, the installation of this makeshift jacuzzi was, however, a “small consolation.” For some autoethnographers who were confined in urban environments, the need for escapism manifested itself in a desire to be in contact with nature. At the beginning of the pandemic, Daniela brought a dozen plants in her apartment and made a terrarium. Her desire to live in a natural environment also translated into the game: she filled her digital house with insects, fossils, and plants while leaving her island as wild as possible. Hélène also tried to preserve the natural aspect of her island by planting a lot of vegetation and building only a few roads. According to her, the game environment’s various textures and vibrant color palette, as well as the sounds of rushing water and rustling leaves, helped her feel transported into another world. Before playing the game, Francis hoped to walk in nature, pick up fruits, catch bugs and fish, as he would have done in the late summer had national parks been accessible without reservations. However, some of the game’s objectives and mechanics did not help him fulfill this need. Francis quickly realized that his “desert” island would soon be crowded with people, and that the game experience was based on building and buying furniture, decorative items, and clothes that would clutter his small island. Even if the game is presented as a “sandbox” in which players have full control over the destiny of their island, explains Francis, its mechanics encourage the colonization of the island and push some players to act against their wishes. While André was suffering from a “cabin fever”15 because of the lockdown, decorating his island, acquiring prized objects, and reconfiguring buildings put him in a state of “incorporation” during which he momentarily forgot about the “repetitive and monotonous” everyday life in confinement and

The impression that the space is shrinking, redundant, and driving you crazy, often caused by staying too long in one place. 15

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“escaped” from his home. Finally, AC:NH allowed Kayla, who was living at her sister’s during the lockdown, to forget that she was “away from home in an uncomfortable and somewhat unrealistic pandemic situation.” This example illustrates how needs and uses differ depending on the players’ particular situation.

Need for an Outlet The need for an outlet from the anxiety-inducing pandemic context was also felt by some autoethnographers, who perceive AC:NH as a good way to cut themselves off from anything about the coronavirus. In the uncertain context of the first lockdown, when schools, workplaces, and businesses were suddenly closed, AC:NH allowed Geneviève, who is “anxious by nature,” to avoid the “inevitable stress that comes with such a situation” by keeping her busy and transporting her in a peaceful paradise. In the same vein, playing AC:NH helped Charles to “take [their] mind off things” and was “soothing” for Béatrice who was destabilized by the general uncertainty that came along with the pandemic. However, the possibility of momentarily avoiding the anxiety-provoking pandemic situation was compromised by the fact that some player characters referred to the pandemic in the game, notably by wearing masks, by asking their visitors to wear a mask, by naming their island “Corona,” “Corona City,” “Covid,” “Wuhan,” or by posting images of sick villagers on forums with comments such as “he caught the coronavirus!” (Hélène). André’s testimony, however, shows that making fun of the pandemic situation can also help release stress. Indeed, André appropriated the “sneeze” mimic to thumb his nose at the virus and at the news focused on the pandemic: “This action was intended as a counterweight to the climate of fear and distrust in Montreal: fear of being infected or contaminated, fear of a visit to the grocery store, fear of passersby on the sidewalk who makes strange sounds, etc. The game made it possible to eradicate sanitary rules, but also to temporarily make fun of them” (André). The fact that easing tensions is one of humor’s functions (Morreall 2020), especially when social constraints are mocked (Bakhtin 1978), can explain why André’s satirical transgression of the restrictive sanitary rules in AC:NH momentarily freed him from their enormous weight.

Need for Productivity The analysis of the autoethnographers’ testimonies allowed us to identify another need exacerbated during the pandemic and in part fulfilled by AC:NH, which is not mentioned in the uses and gratifications theory, namely regaining productivity.

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During the first lockdown, the student autoethnographers found themselves without recreational, academic, and professional activities. AC:NH therefore filled their need to “keep busy” and gave them “a reason to get up in the morning” (Geneviève). When Geneviève unlocked the terraforming option, she set the objective to build a five-star island and began watching YouTube videos for tips. Béatrice, who played over eight hundred hours during this period, had a similar experience. While she was going through an “existential crisis,” playing AC:NH gave her a “structure” with concrete goals to achieve. Paying off the mortgage on her digital home, unlocking the terraforming mechanics, or achieving a five-star score became her daily “mini-projects.” Similarly, AC:NH allowed Charles to set measurable and quantifiable daily goals with specific metrics they could objectively achieve. Productivity had become so important to them that they had come to break the rules of the game by “time traveling.” Although Iris had an overload of work during the pandemic and did not need to regain productivity, she appreciated the possibility to accomplish multiple tasks with a few clicks. Whereas her household chores always had to be repeated, the chores she did in the game had concrete and lasting effects: “The progress was tangible. I felt more productive in the game than in my daily life. My ‘work’ was somehow more rewarding in the game than in my everyday life” (Iris). However, playing AC:NH extensively had taken a toll on the offgame productivity of some autoethnographers. For example, Kayla spent almost a day in AC:NH trying to get all the ingredients to cook a turkey on Thanksgiving, rather than writing her master’s thesis. Geneviève and André also stopped working on their master and PhD thesis to play AC:NH because of the uncertainty of the pandemic.

Need for Identity Expression The analysis of the collected data allowed us to identify a final need exacerbated by the pandemic and partially met by AC:NH: the need to express one’s identity (gender, race, culture, subculture, etc.) in a context where opportunities to display identity markers (hairstyles, clothing, or fashion accessories) were quite rare. While few of the team’s autoethnographers expressed this need in their diaries, the computer-assisted textual analysis demonstrated the importance of the avatar’s appearance for many AC:NH players during the first wave of the pandemic. Among the collected tweets, 210,262 comprise at least one word in the lexical field of appearance16 (see Figure 3.4). “Style,” “character,” “hair,” “hat,” “skin,” “clothing,” “clothes,” “sweater,” and “dress” were used. 16

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FIGURE 3.4  Relevant co-occurrences in the sub-corpus of appearance-related tweets.

Since access to hair salons was restricted during the first wave of the pandemic, the cluster of words “hair,” “change,” and “color” in this subcorpus is particularly interesting (see Figure 3.4). A qualitative reading of the tweets associated to this cluster of words reveals that many players wanted to change their avatar’s hairstyle to match their own neglected haircut in the “real” world. Furthermore, the cluster of words “outfit,” “today,” and “day” in this sub-corpus and a qualitative reading of the associated tweets suggest that the avatar’s clothes are coveted items in the game: “I work harder than my day job for Tom Nook but then you get fun outfits!” A common practice among AC:NH players was to post a photo of their outfit of the day on Twitter with statements such as “This is my cute lil outfit for today! My plan is to work on a park area around my museum!” Based on the results of the computer-assisted textual analysis, we asked the team’s autoethnographers to write an additional paragraph about

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their need for identity expression, if they had experienced it. The goal of asking this question post hoc was not to confirm the existence of this need but to better understand how it can possibly manifest itself and be fulfilled by the game. The analysis of these additional accounts revealed that the autoethnographers who felt a need for identity expression during the lockdown tried to fulfill it by customizing their avatar, their island, or their house. One of Daniela’s frustrations with the pandemic was that she couldn’t display her retro style, so she started dressing her avatar with polka dot dresses, colorful shoes, flamboyant accessories. For Béatrice, fashion and clothes are a form of expression and creativity. Because she was deprived of it during the lockdown, she got into the habit of looking for clothes on sale in AC:NH almost every day. While many video games prevent the expression of a fluid gender identity, as well as of cultural or subcultural identities (Trépanier-Jobin 2013), AC:NH offers more satisfying customization options. Indeed, the range of body characteristics (skin color, eye shape, nose, mouth, cheeks, clothing, and accessories) and the absence of gender assignment in AC:NH allowed many autoethnographers to create an avatar in their own image without confining them to a gender identity. Some of them opted for physical traits that are similar to their own, as well as clothes and accessories they would wear outside the game. Béatrice, for example, wanted to create an avatar that would represent her “own projection into this video game world.” The similarity between Béatrice and her avatar was such that she received several comments about it. For Iris, the fact that her friends could no longer see her face to face reinforced her desire to embody an avatar that looks like her. To do so, she even applied the “dog paw print” design on her avatar’s face to recreate the distinctive mole on her cheek. For other autoethnographers, the desire to make their avatar an extension of themselves was less significant. Kayla customized her avatar to look like her “a little bit, but no more.” Geneviève did not initially try to represent herself through her avatar but ended up doing so “unconsciously.” As for Hélène, she preferred to have an avatar that she likes rather than an avatar that looks like her. That is why she chose hair colors and clothes that she would never dare to wear outside of the game. Béatrice’s relationship with her avatar changed when she started the game over; she then perceived it as a “character in its own right rather than a representation of herself in the game environment” and began to dress it like an explorer. For Francis, putting a flower on the head of his male-looking avatar was a way to mock gender norms rather than the expression of an atypical gender identity. Iris and André also expressed their identity through the design of their island and the decoration of their house. The name and flag of André’s island were, for example, inspired by his favorite music album. Iris’s need to express her taste in interior design was, however, compromised by insufficient customization options. For example, she wanted a brighter

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FIGURE 3.5  Relevant co-occurrences in the sub-corpus of mobilization-related tweets.

digital home than her physical home, but most wall options did not have windows. Iris also lacked the recipes that allow to customize furniture, and the bells that allow to purchase expensive items such as a marble kitchen countertop. As for Béatrice, comparing her island with those of players with intensive gaming practices hindered the satisfaction of this need. Although none of the autoethnographers mention it, the computer-assisted textual analysis shows that AC:NH fulfilled, for some players, the need to express political convictions and discontent with the authorities, in a context where public protests were prohibited or restricted. Indeed, among the collected tweets, 38,464 include at least one word in the lexical field of mobilization17 (see Figure 3.5). It must be said that the health crisis began shortly after the Hong Kong protests against the Chinese regime (BBC 2020) and was still going on during the protests against systemic racism following the murder of George Floyd by a police officer in the United States (Hernandez 2020). “Protest,” “protester,” “activism,” “campaign,” “politics,” “political,” “rights,” “freedom,” “supporter,” “support,” “movement,” “justice,” “rally,” “petition,” “democracy,” “hong kong,” “blm,” “blmacnh,” “justiceforfeorgefloyd,” “george floyd,” “blacklivesmatter,” “black lives matter,” and “black_lives_matter.” 17

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The transposition of these protests into the game was possible thanks to the players’ creative appropriations of the tools that allow them to customize signs, clothing, and flags (BBC 2020; Hernandez 2020). Protesters also used social networks, such as Twitter, to share images of their protests in the game. Since AC:NH was quickly banned in China (BBC 2020) and since political actions are most effective when rooted in a physical location (Gerbaudo 2012), it is, however, far from certain that AC:NH was able to completely satisfy this need.

Discussion The results of our collective autoethnography and computer-assisted textual analysis reinforce several theories in game studies that challenge common ideas about the negative impacts of video games, such as isolation, mental health problems, and violence (Cover 2006). The World Health Organization, for example, added the “gaming disorder” to the International Classification of Diseases in 2018. Even if the organization launched the #PlayApartTogether campaign, at the beginning of the pandemic, to encourage young people to play video games online with their friends instead of visiting them, it did not reconsider its position. Our study, for its part, demonstrates that cozy games such as AC:NH were much more than a necessary evil during the lockdown. The fact that AC:NH helped keep up with friends during the pandemic consolidates Bonenfant’s (2011) idea that online games are socializing environments in which genuine friendships can develop or be sustained. Although online social interactions are mediated by technological devices, they are as “real” as physical interactions, in so far as they generate tangible emotions. This phenomenon can be explained by the human ability to sense the presence of others and to decipher certain emotions from abstract signs (Bonenfant 2011: 214). As the autoethnographers’ testimonies illustrate, online social relations are based on a repertoire of signs and modes of communication that are different from those of face-to-face relationships, such as chat, emoticons, programed avatar gestures, and so on (Bonenfant 2011). The social interactions that took place on AC:NH’s online forums, for its part, illustrate McGonigal’s concept of “ambient sociability,” a form of social interaction that is based not on direct connections but rather on a sense of being connected to others, of being included in a community, and of having access to others if one wishes (2011: 90). As for the attachment of some autoethnographers toward NPCs, it reveals the existence of a particular type of sociability in video games that is yet to be explored. The fact that the autoethnographers’ need for socialization was not entirely fulfilled by AC:NH during the pandemic echoes Bonenfant’s precision that online interactions cannot replace face-to-face interactions, but are complementary

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to them, as they allow for the multiplication of places where sociability can be maintained (2011: 222). The testimonies of the autoethnographers who perceived their gaming sessions in AC:NH as opportunities to rest from their uncomfortable work situations reinforce the long-standing association between play and rest. This association goes back to Aristotle ([332 BC] 2015), who reduced play to a means of relaxing between more serious and noble activities such as work. Two thousand years later, McLuhan (1964) reiterated the idea that play is an adaptive response to the stresses of daily work, giving it a more positive meaning than Aristotle. According to him, play provides a momentary release from the strains of the social machine and from the pressures of routine and conventions (1964: 68). More recently, a study by Collins and Cox (2014) consolidated this intuition by correlating the time spent playing video games with a reduction of work-related stress. The fact that AC:NH allowed many autoethnographers to temporarily escape the physical space in which they were trapped during the lockdown illustrates the immersive potential of video games, that is, their ability to transport players into a simulated world and make them momentarily forget where they are (Murray 1997). It also confirms that video games with navigable 3D environments that the players can explore with an avatar, such as AC:NH, are particularly suitable for the “incorporation” of the player “in the virtual environment” (Calleja 2011: 169). The fact that some autoethnographers felt the water of AC:NH’s ocean on their skin, or the presence of their sister through the proximity of her avatar, shows that “visceral immersion” and “social immersion” are possible in a cozy game like AC:NH (Arsenault and Picard: 2008). The testimonies of the autoethnographers who perceived their gaming sessions in AC:NH as occasions to evacuate their stress in the anxietyprovoking pandemic context, for its part, echo Pascal’s idea that play is a means to distract humans from their harsh conditions of life and from the thought of their eventual death ([1670] 1962: §414). For Pascal, this function of play takes away people from a part of themselves, but helps them live with little means as it was the case during the pandemic. We also saw that, for some autoethnographers, their motivations to play AC:NH were similar to those of “daydreaming,” that is, escaping the dull reality of the “real world” to dive into imaginary scenarios that are more stimulating (Campbell 1994: 510). Their accounts illustrate McGonigal’s theory that video games, unlike “reality,” offer clear, concrete, and achievable goals, as well as constant feedback, allowing for better assessment of one’s progress and for a sense of “blissful productivity,” that is, “the sense of being deeply immersed in work that produces immediate and obvious results” (2011: 53). In her book Reality Is Broken, McGonigal argues that the mass exodus to video games is due to the fact that their environments allow players to accomplish greater things than in their everyday lives

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(such as turning a deserted island into a paradise). In a pandemic context, McGonigal’s provocative claims seem more accurate than ever. The fact that several autoethnographers do not consider their intensive gaming practice in AC:NH as entirely positive, however, supports Campbell’s idea that daydreaming can lead people to perceive the “real” world as boring and to withdraw from ordinary life (1994: 510). The situation in which many autoethnographers found themselves during the pandemic was, however, exceptional. It was, in fact, similar to the dystopic society described by Suits ([1978] 2005), in which instrumental necessities are all taken care of while citizens play all day long. From April 2020, the Canadian government indeed put in place the financial assistance program “Canada Emergency Response Benefit” (CERB) to support workers who lost their jobs or had their income reduced due to the pandemic. As Suits (2005) concludes in his essay: feeling useful is necessary for well-being. Not engaging in instrumental activities may therefore generate a sense of futility. Our collective autoethnography and computer-assisted textual analysis also confirmed that the avatar can play a central role in identity expression “since it provides an ‘image’ through which the player presents himself” (Bonenfant 2013: 185, our translation). Many testimonies challenge the idea that the offline world gives rise to embodied experiences, while video game environments give rise to disembodied experiences. As Taylor explains, avatars can serve as the “material” from which online embodiment occurs (2006: 40). This explains why the proximity of avatars’ bodies can provoke tangible feelings (Taylor 2002), as one autoethnographer experienced. The fact that most players managed to create an avatar in their image whenever they wanted it to be the “extension of themselves” (Therrien 2013), or an avatar that reflects their ambition whenever they opted for what Gee (2003) calls a “projective identity,” encourages us to nuance the idea that players cannot create the online identity of their choice (Bonenfant 2013) because customizing options are generally limited by social and gender norms (Trépanier-Jobin 2013). The wide range of customization options and the absence of a gender choice in AC:NH illustrates that there has been progress on this aspect in the past decade. The fact that customizing the island was, for some autoethnographers, their main means to express their identity, for its part, illustrates a phenomenon that Pearce calls “identity as a place” (2009: 2). This phenomenon occurs when players create a video game world that becomes a marker of their individual or collective identity. Finally, our study demonstrates that the uses and gratifications theory is relevant for game studies, especially for research based on players’ testimonies. It also shows that this theory must not necessarily be applied on the reception of media but can also be used to understand what motivates the consumption of a particular media production in a given context.

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Conclusion In sum, our collective autoethnography and computer-assisted textual analysis indicate that certain needs evoked in the uses and gratifications theory, such as the needs for social interaction, rest, escapism, and outlet, were exacerbated during the first two waves of the COVID-19 pandemic. They also highlighted two other needs that were more specific to the pandemic context: regain productivity and express one’s identity. In general, AC:NH provided opportunities for players to partially satisfy those needs through its affordances. The possibility to visit friends on their island and the constant presence of NPCs facilitated sociability. The option to take pictures and chat on the Nookphone increased the quality of social interactions. The variety of activities and objects available to the players helped recreate socialization rituals and rites of passage. The freedom to progress at one’s own pace, to set one’s own goals, and to play in one’s own bed provided opportunities to relax. The richness of the game’s textures, colors, and sounds provided an immersive environment that helped forget about the health crisis of the out-game world. The ability to achieve concrete goals easily helped one to feel productive. Finally, the customization options for the avatars, objects, houses, and islands facilitated the expression of identities and political beliefs. In some cases, however, the game’s limited affordances hindered the realization of these needs. The Nookphone’s tiny keyboard and the redundant dialogues with villagers hindered the quality of social interactions. The need to play a high number of hours to progress, the requirement to get up on Sunday mornings to buy turnips that can be sold later at a higher price, and the fact that the game mechanics do not encourage idle activities compromised relaxation. The imperative of terraforming and colonizing the island in order to progress prevented escaping urban environments and reconnecting with nature. The high price of certain items and the limited customization options made it difficult to create an avatar, a home, or an island to one’s image. The intensive or illegal gaming practices of some power gamers also made it harder for them to relax, while serious or humorous references to COVID-19 in the game prevented some players from forgetting about the pandemic. Creative appropriation of the game’s features became a way for some players to adapt AC:NH to their specific needs. Thus, nets and shovels were used to express affection; fences were used to build low-cost bridges; a face mask was worn to give the impression of cake smashed in someone’s face; a flower was put in the hair of a male-looking avatar to mock gender conventions; clothes, signs, or flags were customized to recreate social rites, to express an identity, or to protest against dictatorship or racism. While video games are still widely perceived as a threat to players’ health (Cover 2006), our study shows that cozy games can favor players’

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well-being by helping them fulfill certain basic needs. By highlighting this subgenre’s positive aspects, it counterbalances common moral panics about video games. Since AC:NH was released shortly after the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and since the research was conducted before the end of the lockdown, we could not compare our results with the uses and appropriations of the game in pre- and post-pandemic contexts. More research therefore needs to be done in order to demonstrate that playing online games can be a healthy habit even outside of the pandemic context.

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4 Gaming (the Pandemic) with Vision Impairment: An Autoethnographic Account Lobna Hassan

Introduction Games and game-based applications have become one of the main means of entertainment, education, socialization, and many more aspects of contemporary life, especially so during and after the 2020 pandemic (Waters and Lewis 2021). According to conservative estimates, there are approximately 2.5–3 billion gamers in the world, that is, nearly half the world’s population (Nast 2019). These estimates exclude users of game-based applications who are hard to account for but would significantly inflate this number. Of the gamers in the world, at least a third experience a disability that affects or fully hinders their use of games (Aguado-Delgado et al. 2020; Brown and Anderson 2021; Daws 2021). Research, however, has shown that games are important to people with disabilities for the same reasons that they are important to people without disabilities: entertainment, escapism, immersion, education, and socialization, among many reasons (Alfredsson Ågren, Kjellberg, and Hemmingsson 2020; Baltzar, Hassan, and Turunen 2023). Some experiences of isolation or social exclusion that may result from a disability can even be especially alleviated with accessible, social game technologies (Johnson and Kane 2020). Nonetheless, accessible games, meaning games that can be played by anyone regardless of their (dis)abilities, have long been scarce

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(Brown and Anderson 2021; IGDA 2004). Furthermore, due to the highly visual nature of games and the increasing sophistication of games’ visual interfaces, people with visual impairments can especially struggle in finding accessible games (Andrade et al. 2019). Game accessibility, that is, effort, designs, and features that can make games playable by everyone regardless of their (dis)abilities, is essential not only to people with disabilities but also to most everyone in society, as has been documented by the curb cut effect (Heydarian 2020). Investments in accessibility and in understanding the lives and needs of people with disabilities come to benefit everyone in society, including people without disabilities and people with atypical bodies and senses. Elevators, for example, while imperative to wheelchair users, provide comfort to people without disabilities, especially to those who may be tired, old, or weak. Advocacy groups such as AbleGamers, CanIPlayThat?, and IGDA Game Accessibility SIG have long called for accelerated accessibility efforts. Indeed, we have recently seen significant game accessibility developments. For example, a few notable developers have released games with enhanced accessibility settings, such as The Last of Us, Part II (Naughty Dog 2020) and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla (Ubisoft 2020). Microsoft, for example, released the Xbox Adaptive Controller, Xbox accessibility guidelines, and established a dedicated accessibility testing panel (Daws 2021). These efforts, however, remain scarce and by select few actors, rather than a consistent industry-wide systematic effort. Nonetheless, they are essential in the gradual reshaping of the industry, perhaps especially because they come from significant market actors. To further accelerate accessibility work, it is important to understand its value and why it is needed. To this end, we need to ask: how is game (in) accessibility experienced by people with disabilities? How does it affect their daily living, access to opportunities, or interaction with others? The COVID19 pandemic may become a transient event in contemporary history, yet it is an excellent ground for understanding the current and future state and impact of game (in)accessibility because of its significant length and impact on people. It was a time where game use was heightened and the impact of (in)accessibility can be more evidently seen. This chapter is an autoethnographic account of how I gamed the COVID19 pandemic with low vision, a type of visual impairment characterized by significant and disabling vision loss, without one being considered legally blind (Leat, Legge, and Bullimore 1999). Despite the legal blindness upper limit on low vision, differences in legislations and diagnostic criteria between countries mean that many people with low vision can be considered legally blind in some countries but not in others and have varying degrees of vision loss (Leat, Legge, and Bullimore 1999). Low vision, hence, should be defined in terms of what it means to each individual, and my low vision is defined in the following section. Because of this subjectivity in what low

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vision is, I employ the spirit of the social and Nordic models of disability (Haegele and Hodge 2016; Shakespeare 2005) in defining and analyzing my experience, since these models emphasize the subjectivity of disability. In terms of the 2020 pandemic, my focus in this autoethnography is especially on the earlier phases of the pandemic, when we experienced the highest levels of social distancing and consequently the most use of games for coping, entertainment, and socialization. The autoethnography provides an answer to the question: how did a person with low vision experience games during the COVID-19 pandemic? What aspects of games and gaming strategies facilitated access? The intention is that this account would contribute to informing future research and practice of game accessibility.

Methodology Autoethnography can be seen as a method in which the investigator herself and her subjective experiences are put under the microscope and compared to or contextualized within the perceived experiences of others (Adams and Holman Jones 2011; Tedlock 1991). As such, it can produce valuable, insightful, subjective, and otherwise inaccessible accounts of reality (Spry 2001). Autoethnography, hence, requires reflexivity, selfreflection, and vulnerability (Adams and Holman Jones 2011). Reflexivity, in this context, is a way of making sense of the world through my own experience of it, rather than claiming distance from the world or objectivity in my gaze upon it. Precisely because of my access to the inner world of disability, autoethnography can contribute value in terms of accounting for unique experiences that would have otherwise been hidden from academic observation. In recent years, autoethnography has gained popularity within the computer science field in general, and game studies in particular. It can help researchers bridge the gap between themselves and research participants and too quickly, richly, and empathetically test and evaluate technologies under development (Cunningham and Jones 2005; Wright and McCarthy 2008). In the field of game studies, Amon Rapp (2018), for example, used autoethnography to understand the value of socialization in games, which informed his later gamification research. Autoethnography also appears in close readings of games through textual analyses, or playthroughs (Lankoski and Björk 2015), which can help us understand how games are experienced by players. Diane Carr (2014), for example, employed textual analyses to reflect on the representation of disability in Dead Space (EA Redwood Shores 2008). Autoethnography can also be seen as too poetic, emotional, and less objective and positivistic compared to other methods (Spry 2001). While this debate cannot be properly addressed within this chapter, it is important to acknowledge it.

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It is also important to acknowledge that any research method comes with limitations, and positivistic methods are not free of researcher bias or subjectivity. These aspects do not undermine the value of autoethnography, especially in fields where access to research participants is relatively rare and problematic, such as in disability studies. People with disabilities have historically been objects in research, and their disabilities were used to strip them of their agency and consent, complicating access to their unique experiences of the world to date (Dolmage 2017). An autoethnographic account from a game researcher can hence allow us such access while maintaining high participant agency. Since 2017, I have been keeping a personal journal, where I have documented my thoughts and experiences in a reflexive manner. This journal and some of my social media posts provide the material for this autoethnography. In this analysis, I went through the entries in said journal, querying my experiences and summarizing key observations from it. The spirit of the social and Nordic models of disability (Haegele and Hodge 2016; Shakespeare 2005) guided my approach. I approach disability experience as subjective and socially constructed. Meaning that it is mainly inaccessible designs (e.g., lack of elevators in buildings, lack of subtitles in games) that give rise to negative disability experiences, rather than disability being an inherently negative experience in and of itself. The pandemic had different phases, from the highly social-distanced phase at home, to relaxed travel and socialization. I define the start of the pandemic with the date March 16, 2020, when in Finland, where I was living at the time, a state of emergency was declared (Finnish Government 2020); people were strongly advised to stay home, not to spend unnecessary time outdoors; public and private nonessential spaces were closed; and gatherings of more than ten people were prohibited (Finnish Government 2020). I draw an analytical end to the pandemic in the summer (June–July) of 2021, the timeframe during which I received my second vaccination dose and felt more confident to roam about, even if with some restrictions. Most, if not all, nonessential businesses and activities were also resumed in Finland by that time with heightened safety measures.

Key Findings Personal Background (Positionality Statement) Low vision is different from a person and diagnosis to another. It is further impacted by the environment and situation a person is in (Leat, Legge, and Bullimore 1999). I was born with albinism, a hereditary genetic condition that has a chance of occurring when both parents carry the recessive gene

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for it. It affects the production of melanin in the hair and skin, giving them distinct fair colors. This lack of melanin also affects eye development, resulting in most people with albinism having low vision, up to blindness, which, to date, cannot be corrected (NHS 2023). Personally, I have been considered to have low vision, legal blindness, or 80 percent blindness depending on diagnosticians and legalities of where I was diagnosed. Legal blindness, as a term, does not mean blindness in the colloquial sense, but it means that a person has vision less than a certain legal threshold, often 20/200 (Leat, Legge, and Bullimore 1999). I grew up in the 1990s in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, as games were gaining in popularity and legitimacy. Most of the games I played were on Atari consoles, PC, and the first PlayStation. Given the graphics and fidelity standards of that time, many games were developed with relatively large, well-spaced graphics and readable large fonts, or at least I was lucky enough not to run into inaccessible interfaces. Game accessibility—or rather the question of “can I play that?”—was not remotely on my mind during that era. I remember times when I would simply walk into a game shop, pick up a game cartridge or CD that looked interesting, and then wonder “can I afford this?” “will I like this?” or “will my parents buy me this?”—questions that I presume are shared across most gamers, regardless of (dis)ability, rather than “can I play this?” which I predominantly ask nowadays. It is important to note that while I found the majority, if not all, of the games of that era accessible, this is my own experience, limited to my disability characteristics and the games I happened to play. The lack of adapted controllers, relative game standards, and the fact that games remain a highly visual medium may have already rendered games since then inaccessible to many people. I started to experience accessibility barriers with games around 2008 when I got my first smartphone. Mobile games are notoriously inaccessible, even to date (Araújo et al. 2017), given the small size of phone screens and touch gestures that are not easy to perform by everyone. Around the same time, PC and console game graphics started to “advance” and get smaller, and more complex. Eventually, I had a fallout with gaming. With my first iPad in 2011, I had a few golden years where I could simply run iPhone/ mobile games with 2X magnification on my iPad and play the games that my peers were playing. Eventually, developers started making games that capitalized on the larger screens and processing powers of iPads, and games, again, became inaccessible to me. From that point on, I played some games on my phone/table when they were playable to me, but I primarily gamed on Mac, given how it has superb, native magnification features. Most of the games I played were single-player ones, with the exception of casual (social) games, where I had to befriend peers to send and receive passes and progress in-game. Nowadays, while most people I know can play a game they want to play, should they find the interest and financial means to play it, I need

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to additionally and primarily check if a game is accessible before I buy it. I check in-game font size and type, contrast, size of graphics and menu items, availability of voiceover or narration, and such connected criteria. A game that fails these criteria is not a playable game to me, or it is a playable game that would require significant physical and mental effort and discomfort that I would rather not play it. Should a game fail this selection criteria, but I still want/need to play it, then I pivot through, for example, the help of a friend as a coplayer, the use of a very large screen, a magnifying glass, magnification software, and/or by getting very close to the screen I am playing on that my eyeglasses bump into it. This means that I am rarely relaxed in my seat, and it is very challenging for me to distinguish whether I am failing in a game because that is simply a part of the game, or because even with this effort the game remains unplayable to be. In other words, nowadays, I do not really choose the games that I play because I particularly like them more than others. On the contrary, there are games that I genuinely would have liked to play, but instead I simply play the games that are accessible to me. The games I play are chosen for me by developers, or by my social circle or society who, probably unconsciously, have made it simultaneously (in)accessible for me to play many games and to exist with cohesion with them without enduring the physical and mental effort of playing games. My relationship with games hence was/is very complex. I genuinely love games, but significantly struggled in finding titles that I can play without that play feeling like work, or playbor (Goggin 2011), as I expand on in later sections.

Reliance on Single-Player Games for Coping While most research notes the popularity of multiplayer games during the pandemic (Meriläinen 2022), I spent most of my time almost exclusively playing single-player games, with the occasional multiplayer game when there was a social need. I did not keep a log of how many hours I spent gaming, but my time was divided mostly between work and gaming. Even while watching other media or attending meetings, I would be playing a casual game on my phone. In May 2020, I started to be concerned about my gaming: “Day 45: Woke up at 10:00 stayed in bed [playing games] until 12:00. Got up, got dressed to go to the supermarket. Made coffee. Then got stuck to my coach watching TV and playing games and it is now 13:30. I think I am starting to need help” (April 21, 2020). I remember conducting extensive research on the dopamine-reward cycles of games and how they can become addictive when other positive experiences are harder to come by. For the first time in my life, I started to feel “addicted” to games and concerned about my mental health. My concerns

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extended beyond games, and signs of a depressive episode were everywhere. In retrospect, what I can now say is that games were not the source of my mental unwellness, they were an arguably “healthy” coping mechanism, given the circumstances. I blamed game design for getting me hooked on a coping mechanism I could not break out of, but, in retrospect, once other conditions in my life improved, I was able to let go of my attachment to games and develop a healthier relationship with them, a privilege not always experienced by other gamers. This can be seen by this latter text, where I used the “addictive”/engaging properties of a game to ensure I had something mentally engaging while on a holiday, so that I would take proper time-off, rather than work on my holiday, as is part of my academic work tendencies: I have successfully spent 4 days not working and not feeling bored about it! What worked for me? Well, I have discovered that when you click with a video game [Animal Crossing New Horizons (Nintendo 2020)], it can give you a false sense of “doing something” and so you can do something while doing nothing and successfully have your holiday #win #first_ worls_problems. (June 27, 2021) During the pandemic and starting slightly before, I tried out different singleplayer VR games that were recommended to me by my social circle. While many of the recommended titles appeared inaccessible to me, I eventually discovered excellent, accessible, and truly enjoyable VR titles such as Tetris Effects (Resonair et al. 2018) and PlayStation VR Worlds (London Studios 2016) characterized by large, well-spaced visuals. With increased fidelity, VR has started to lean toward visual complexity and inaccessibility to me. Nonetheless, it holds a special place in my heart because of how it provided me with realistic experiences that I could not easily engage with in real life such as the experience of diving, which would require significant accommodations if I were to dive in real life.

Exclusion from (Multiplayer) Games and Society During, and even before, the pandemic, I did not engage with multiplayer games because of how inaccessible most tend to be (Baltzar, Hassan, and Turunen 2023). Most people on my social media were, however, playing with others and playing popular titles they all seem to recognize. No one in my social circle knew the casual or accessible games I was playing, or at least they did not publicly speak about them. This meant that I could not easily socialize over games with anyone. To the contrary, given how I was primarily playing casual games, I often felt I would be negatively

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perceived by the hardcore gamers in my community of game researchers, if I disclosed that I only primarily played these games. In my journal, there is an entry highlighting a moment when I understood why I was different from the rest of the community, not due to what I would judge in myself as an irredeemable personality flaw but merely due to the disability that I would be more accepting of as a reason: I have been observing something interesting as I am going through the literature on game accessibility. I keep finding many of the random, unknown games that I play there and it is like, I suddenly understand why I play those and not the other games everyone else plays. It first started with “Good Pizza, Great Pizza” [Pereira et al. 2020]. Then, today, I came across a study on Bubble Explode [Joddrell and Astell 2019]. It is accessibility! Disability is why I have not connected with people over games! #MindBlown. (September 22, 2021) Outside of casual games, I played some single-player, mainstream games and VR games (see previous section) that I found accessible or could easily make accessible through watching streams of how they are played, walkthroughs, or online guides. Whenever possible, I tried to select popular titles so that I could talk about them online, connect with friends, and socialize. Such effort did offer some room for limited socialization with friends, but sustained socialization was not possible as discussion of single-player games would quickly “get old.” I often feel that it is me who needs to play an inaccessible game to connect with others, rather than others playing an accessible game to connect with me. This can be due to many reasons such as that accessible games can be slow and comparatively disengaging, there are not many of them to appeal to everyone to begin with, or simply that I just did not happen to have friends ready to explore new genres and designs to connect with me. While single-player games became a coping mechanism for me during the pandemic, I needed to cope with how many people in my social circle presented multiplayer games as the singular cure for every ailment one could have in the pandemic. Thus far in my life, I had never needed to play games for socialization, as many people have been. Suddenly, however, I found many of the social interactions in my life facilitated through a game. I attend a conference, and I need to network through a game. I “go” to work, and after-work drinks are over a game. I ask friends what to do to cope with the pandemic, and they suggest a multiplayer game. There, inside of me, grew a voice that wanted to scream “you do not get it, I can’t do that.” While everyone appeared to be enjoying their time together in games, my world had shrunk overnight to an apartment I could not escape, even virtually. I wrote down all the games that were recommended to me, especially multiplayer ones. I started researching a few of them to determine if I could play them,

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but after a few failures, I lost the capacity to invest effort in figuring out what could fit me from the mainstream solutions. I experience(d) high playbor around figuring out what games to play and how to play them. At a time where my mental resources were mainly going toward maintaining my sanity, I could not be bothered to engage with playbor. Eventually, while I am not particularly proud to admit this, I started to experience envy of a lot of people in my social circle who could just simply play and enjoy a game with little physical effort and connect with others over gaming online. This feeling of “I wish I could do that” was/is not new to me; I recognize it from my teen years when I would observe how a peer could just pick up a game controller/book and slouch on the couch with so much distance between them and the TV/book and no care in the world, while I would practically be hugging the TV or using a magnifying glass while sitting in a contorted position to read a book or play a game: “I wish I can have the same relaxing experience people have when they cuddle with a book on a coach or lay on a sofa with a game controller. I just want to play games like that, instead of glued to the screen with a stiff back” (April 15, 2020).

Gaming Strategies Given the outlined inaccessibility of most multiplayer games to me and my need to still engage with them as they had become a main method for socialization, I often employed a set of strategies to determine if and how I would engage with multiplayer gaming. These strategies were not new to me, but the intensity of the pandemic made me more aware and interrogative of my process and its outcomes. To begin with, when I received an invitation to join a social game I thought to be inaccessible, I was faced with three main choices: (1) decline, (2) join as is, or (3) try to arrange accommodations. 1. Declining to play an inaccessible game had been my default option pre-pandemic, but it became increasingly taxing during the pandemic. Declining to play often needed a justification. Upon presenting the (in)accessibility of a game as justification, some reactions made me feel further isolated and misunderstood. Some people often attempted to minimize or brush off the issue. Others would offer solutions that I knew would not work, but my judgment was not taken at face value. To me, it felt that despite carrying out the emotional labor of explaining, I run the risk of being misunderstood anyway. If I insisted on declining an invitation, however, I feared being permanently left out of the group. This made gaming sessions taxing and stressful in many ways. Interestingly,

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when I mentioned inaccessibility as a reason to not join in on a game, rarely did a group respond with genuine work to try to find a solution that fit everyone. There was also a strong and relatively accurate perception that most “real” games were not accessible. Indeed, often competitive, multiplayer, adrenaline-based games are not accessible. The question of how such games could be made accessible occupied and continues to occupy me, as I hope to one day tackle the issue in my research work: Still playing Last of Us 1 [Naughty Dog and Iron Galaxy 2013] and I am noticing that the game gradually teaches you new skills as difficulty increase. Every time a new skill is introduced, I feel like I do NOT look forwards to knowing why the game decided it is time for me to learn it now, buuuuut we shall face whatever comes! The main character has this “heightened listening” skill that basically lowers all visual distractions and highlights enemies. It is a core mechanic in the gameplay, not an accessibility feature, but I started thinking that this, right there, is an accessibility feature that could make it possible to play any FPS [First Person Shooter] game. I am kind of wondering what would happen if for example [FPS game name] introduced something like that to all players: would it level the playing field a bit? or would it just make those who are good at the game better? But, at least maybe social groups of friends, colleagues, etc., would not mind that one of them uses such a feature and then we could all simply play together the game that we “all” like. (June 19, 2021) 2. The decision to play anyway was, to me, highly dependent on who I would be playing with, how comfortable I was with them, how competitive they were, and the state of my mental health that day. Research has documented that when people with disabilities play with others, they can often feel a variety of negative experiences, such as feeling like a burden, holding the group back, the reason for in-game losses, as well as shame and guilt about their own performance (Aguado-Delgado et al. 2020; Andrade et al. 2019; Baltzar, Hassan, and Turunen 2023). While I did not clearly write these feelings down, perhaps because of their intensity, I do experience them. Most people, myself included, would not willingly walk into a situation that would make them feel these feelings. The question during the pandemic for me, however, became “is feeling a level of social connection worth how bad I would also feel from multiplayer gaming?” This question, in and of itself, as I now examine it in 2023, brings me sorrow over the basic psychological needs I was trying to balance back then:

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We had a great gaming night [in-person], worth the risk of COVID(?). I don’t know. I am somehow sad. I feel like [name] wanted me to play more, handed me the controller several times and I feel like I disappointed [the other person] and kept handing the controller back. I got us lost in the game eventually, that we were stuck. I just did not know what I was supposed to do in-game and did not want to explain why I did not want to play. I am tired of explaining. [Name] should know why by now. But maybe I should still explain. I am just … . It was fun though still to spend time together. (June 2021) 3. Arranging for a different play setup was not a solution that was always available, yet it was the one that made me feel the most included and happy when it took place. It was often possible when social groups made it their goal through genuine problem-solving with me. Another solution that came about was to have me watch a stream of the game while being on call with the group. That is not exactly gaming, but it was a solution that allowed for socialization and self-preservation.

Accessible Multiplayer Experiences Not all social gaming during the pandemic was negative. From November 2020, I started playing with a group of colleagues who were especially determined to ensure inclusive participation. Upon the initial invitation to play with them, I explained my concerns to the group, and collectively, rather than demanding emotional labor and further explanations from me, they demanded no explanation and simply assured me that the point was not to compete, nor win, but to just have fun. They expressed interest in knowing more about my disability but left the timing of when to explain more up to me. After the first session of Among Us (InnerSloth and PlayEveryWare 2018), I had somehow gained a reputation for being good at the game. In retrospect, I think that given how the game often requires players to explain/ lie about their whereabouts in the game to other players, my inability to read the names of map locations made “my act” of lying about my whereabouts appear genuine to other players as I often sincerely had no clue where I was in the game or what I was doing. Here, not only did the social accessibility of the play sessions have a significant role in making it accessible, but also perhaps the game design itself had something, albeit indirectly, to contribute. During these gaming sessions, I felt like I was part of the group, an equal, a happy participant. While multiplayer games are generally highly inaccessible (Balzar et al. 2023), it is notable that their accessibility can be divided into technical and

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social accessibility. Technical accessibility refers to the accessibility settings in game, such as high contrast, enemy highlight mechanics, and so on. Those are hardly available in multiplayer games, if at all. Social accessibility, however, refers to how human actors can facilitate or hinder game accessibility (Balzar et al. 2023), as can be seen from the social accessibility in the previous example, and is further highlighted next. I experienced both social and technical accessibility when I played Animal Crossing: New Horizons (AC:NH) (Nintendo 2020), which I use here as a case example to illustrate such accessibility. Because of my worries over how much I was gaming, as well as concerns over cost and technical accessibility, I hesitated in buying a Switch until I “gave in” in October 2020. In the months leading to that purchase, I extensively watched several streamers play AC:NH, and I became convinced that the game was accessible to me: “Anyone here plays animal crossing? ☺” (October 16, 2020, also a Facebook post). Technical accessibility: The game employs bright, cartoonish graphics that are well spaced. The type of graphics (e.g., realistic, cartoonish) does not necessarily make a difference to me, but color contrast and spacing between objects do. In AC:NH, I can clearly make out that there is an object (e.g., a tree), and there is another (e.g., a person standing in front of the tree) even if the objects overlap on top of each other. Although Among Us and AC:NH have a similar graphics style, the game environment in Among Us is mostly in shades of gray, making it hard to distinguish one object from another for me. Of concern to me were the in-game fonts and required readings in AC:NH. From watching streams of the game, I could tell that the game was using readable sans serif font types, with little use of italics. Text was big enough. I could easily read without straining my eyes or needing to use a magnifying glass. Most importantly reading was not essential to advance in the game. While AC:NH has relatively extensive stories and character interactions, one can skip these and just focus on building and decorating their islands and still enjoy the game. The in-game map was small and hard to make out when in mini-size on screen, but one could view the map in a full screen, and ultimately, the map was not essential to playing the game and it was simple enough that I had memorized it within a few hours. Of concern to me were the in-game collectibles in the form of bugs and fish that one needed to catch. In-game bugs tend to be hard to distinguish from their surroundings (e.g., a small, dark bug appearing as a dot, on a brown tree trunk, at night). While I would love to collect all in-game collectibles, I have long made peace with the fact that this is not always possible for me. I enjoy a game if I can get the overall game experience and can enjoy it without collectibles. Furthermore, in the case of AC:NH, it was clear from online discussions that the challenge of finding all the bugs was shared by everyone, even if it was harder for me, and again, the said challenge does not impede progress in game. All of these aspects collectively

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balanced the experience for me and made it that the relatively increased difficulty of collecting bugs was not a huge deterrent. In fact, this challenge made me ever more thrilled when I caught one of the hardest-to-catch bugs: I am so happy right now, this is my biggest win for 2020!! People who don’t know animal crossing can’t get how great this moment feels! 2–3 months of getting bitten by those *€£##€”€”#€”#% tarantulas AND I FINALLY CAUGHT ONE TODAY, FINALLY This feels better than “we are happy to inform you that your paper has been accepted with minor revisions.” (December 1, 2020, also a Facebook post) Social accessibility: AC:NH can be played as a single player; however, access to in-game items is practically limited to only those organically found on a player’s island. If a player wishes to have different types of trees, flowers, or furniture, they must visit other players’ islands and trade. To do so, one needs an invite from players or their friends to open up their island’s gates. Given my previously discussed aversion to multiplayer gaming, I was determined to play AC:NH as a single player. This was my first encounter with the Animal Crossing franchise, and I did not initially understand the extent to which the game had a significant following of dedicated fans, bent on helping each other rather than competing. I eventually joined several Facebook player groups just to check out the content that other players were sharing (e.g., screenshots of their decorated islands), but I then noticed the tone of discussion on these groups. Most discussion appeared “civilized,” unlike what I had heard about toxic gamer communities from peers. Players were giving away in-game items, often for free. This is because at some points in the game, one becomes so rich that in-game currency no longer means much, and so, players were even giving away in-game money. The community felt safe: that is, I felt like I would not be bullied for how good/bad my island was, and that I would find a community of like-minded people to connect with. Admins on those groups were also very active in shutting down any transgressors and that social community gradually transformed my attitude toward multiplayer games: “I got Nintendo online play yesterday mainly just to get the exotic fruits I didn’t have on my animal crossing island and a gamer I don’t know gave me around 100 pieces of fruit for free across peaches apples and cherries which I have been planting since yesterday. It’s heartwarming when people just want to help!” (November 16, 2020). This community also further lessened my feelings of exclusion by the game design, not that I had any significant feelings. People were open about their challenges catching many bugs, making me feel that my challenge was not so unusual. Furthermore, I organically bumped into other gamers with

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hearing disabilities, who pointed out that there was one specific bug that they could never catch because it required spotting the bug by ear. I related to them and was surprised to see this level of openness in discussion of disability. As I have not been an active part of many gamer communities, I cannot confidently compare my experience with AC:NH communities to other communities, but it is worth noting that gamers with disabilities tend to hide their disability identity and experience bullying when they disclose it (Andrade et al. 2019; Baltzar, Hassan, and Turunen 2023). Based on that literature, I attribute these observations and feelings of social inclusion to the game’s design that does not emphasize competition, allowing for cooperation to emerge. AC:NH is also a “cozy” game that potentially appeals to people with “cozy” personalities. Previous research has also noted the significance of the game to many people during the pandemic (Meriläinen 2022). I think this connection I have had with the relatively accessible game is one that keeps me a loyal, spending player, unless the developers decide to significantly change the game visuals. “The speed at which I paid for the Animal Crossing expansion/DLC that is to be available on November 4 [2021] is absolutely remarkable for someone who waits a full year to buy games 10% off on Black Friday” (October 29, 2021).

Discussion Finally started Last of Us 2 (Naughty Dog 2020), the one with all the accessibility settings and media attention, which I have waited to play until I finished part 1. The accessibility setup for players with vision impairment is perfect. There was only one thing that I went back and manually turned off (high contrast) because I like the natural colors more, but I can see myself maybe turning it back on again during intense fight scenes (I have not needed to do that). By the time the game asked me to choose a difficulty setting, I felt safe enough to go for normal/balanced instead of easy/story, just because I trusted the game. I trusted that I can play this without needing to make it extra easy just to be playable. It’s a weird feeling to trust a game. Games are supposed to be the enemy (August 3, 2022). In this autoethnographic account, I documented what my gaming experience was like before and during the 2020 pandemic. My intention from this account is to reflect on how games can feel like the enemy to me and how they can be the best of friends. Intriguing the experiences of people with disabilities in general (Dolmage 2017) and in games specifically (Andrade et al. 2019; Baltzar, Hassan, and Turunen 2023) is valuable in and of itself, as these are not necessarily common-day experiences that everyone, game

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developers included, encounters. From such an extreme case of a pandemic, comparative to “normal” daily life, we can more clearly extrapolate how I, as a person with disability, experience the impact of exclusion/inclusion in games and the extent of emotional and physical labor required to be a part of them. It re-emphasizes the value of and need for game accessibility. This account is also of high value given the relative lack of representation of minority groups at large (Adams and Holman Jones 2011) and people with disabilities in specific fields (Dolmage 2017), such as research, academia, and the game industry. This account further probes at several points of discussion in disability and game research and practice, the key of which are: Game difficulty and accessibility: A point of significant societal debate around accessibility pertains to how it is thought to lower a game’s difficulty and, therefore, change the game experience from what its creators intended. While entering into this debate is beyond the scope of this work, I would like to highlight that AC:NH was a game where I experienced relatively more difficulty than others with regard to some aspects of the game (catching bugs), yet, changing the difficulty level of the game was not necessarily needed for me. A community providing support and reassurance was very effective in balancing out the increased difficulty. Furthermore, as can be glimpsed from the quote at the start of this section, I felt comfortable playing The Last of Us, Part II (Naughty Dog 2020) on a relatively higher difficulty level for me, because I felt the game was helping me through the difficulty, rather than leaving me on my own against a metaphorical monster I had no way of beating. While some people can potentially argue that The Last of Us, Part II (Naughty Dog 2020) with its visual accessibility setting had already lowered the difficulty, I argue that there is more to this discussion than clear-cut arguments, and what I wrote in terms of “trusting the game” is intriguing to probe further. Clearly, I am not shying away from difficulty, but discerning what is the right difficulty/challenge to a person with disability is important to advance our understanding of how to implement accessibility in balance with game experience. Pre-game decision strategies: Understanding the gaming strategies of people with disabilities has been of significant interest to game researchers and developers (e.g., Andrade et al. 2019). Such understanding helps with accessibility features design and difficulty optimization, among other things. My account illustrates that there are not only in-game strategies but also pre-game strategies that people with disabilities employ. These strategies affect what games they are willing to spend on, and hence understanding that is important from a business perspective to understand how to facilitate and communicate game accessibility.

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Playbor: Examining these gaming strategies, I propose that the work people with disabilities put in accessing inaccessible games and gaming culture would benefit from being labeled as and examined from the angle of playbor. While the term playbor is often used to describe serious involvement with games that turn it from being a pastime to a demanding, laborious activity (Goggin 2011), I find that this term also applies to gaming with a disability, where inaccessible gaming is not simply a pastime, or entertainment, but requires gaming strategies and significant emotional and physical investments that render it laborious. Analytically connecting the concept of playbor to gaming with disability was beyond the scope of this manuscript, but I encourage future researchers toward such examination. Streamers as accessibility facilitators: The role of streamers appeared several times in my account as I used streams and gaming videos to gauge if I can play a game. My behavior here is in line with previous research indicating that people in general watch e-Sports to gain more information about a game (Sjöblom et al. 2018); however, notable is that I was watching the streamers pre-purchase and precommitting to a game. Exploring the role of streamers as accessibility facilitators and gatekeepers is important to discern what personal or personality aspects of streamers or play style could have a positive or negative impact in said process. Social accessibility: While the pandemic is hopefully a transient event in contemporary history, what can be seen from my account, as well as other research on game accessibility (see Hassan and Baltzar 2022 for a review), is that the consequences of game inaccessibility are significant on social exclusion, well-being, and mental health. I can note, from my experience, that key factors in determining whether a game experience would be inclusionary or exclusionary to me were not only the game but also the social accessibility of the gaming session, that is, the group I would be playing with, their gaming objective, gaming style, and inclusivity intentions. Social interactions that had ulterior motives, such as getting to know other people at a conference while showing off one’s brilliance among peers, or to generally highlight one’s real-life abilities and achievements or such competitive objectives, were the ones where I felt the most social pressure and isolation. The “purer” the purposes of the interaction were, the more I felt like a genuine participant. Social accessibility, while still an emerging practice that we know little about, is a simple practice that can distribute the weight of inclusion on a group, rather than placing it on the shoulders of a singular individual (Baltzar, Hassan, and Turunen 2023). We need to improve our understanding of the social accessibility of games: what it is, how it can be facilitated,

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and what genders, ages, and general demographic compositions of social groups facilitate it most. Similarly, and especially important, is to highlight the financial relevance of accessibility to developers. We need to study how people with/without disabilities benefit from game accessibility in order to highlight its financial viability. I encourage research around these questions and many others that this autoethnographic account might inspire. I similarly encourage developers to more consciously consider the impact they can have on people, positively and negatively, because of their decisions on accessibility. The practice I highlight: caring about accessibility when it significantly benefits businesses and nondisabled people is long recognized and frowned upon in disability studies (Dolmage 2017), but, in capitalistic climates, I attribute to it some of the current interest in game accessibility. For example, in 2017, long before the pandemic, Ubisoft had noted that 60 percent of those who played Assassin’s Creed (Ubisoft 2020) played it with subtitles on, a feature that originally was thought to be preferred mainly by players with auditory disabilities (Sinclair 2019). Noting and capitalizing on this player preference, Ubisoft started to turn on subtitles in many games by default, noting that only 5 percent of players chose to opt out of subtitles with the release of Odyssey (Ubisoft 2018), the next game in the Assassin’s Creed series. We also see that it is the same Naught Dog that released The Last of Us, Part II (2020) considered a landmark in accessibility. While I can’t ascertain my hypothesis, I hypothesize that this accessibility interest from Ubisoft is, at least in part, driven by data showing the preference for accessibility settings from larger market segments than people with disabilities. The financial motive does not lessen the impact these accessibility developments have had, although I would have wished to see these changes unfold for their human impact, rather than their financial one. The financial emphasis creates a danger that these developments might be rolled back if they cease to bring profits. Inclusion should not be contingent on profits. This is an autoethnographic account. By that nature, as discussed in the “Methodology” section, it is highly personal and subjective. Furthermore, given that this account is published with my name and that it reflects on a specific time period, I experienced a significant challenge in keeping the identity of third parties (outside of me and the games I played) anonymous, affecting the level of detail reported here. Finally, this is an account of the life of one person. It is limited by my view of life, skills, past experiences, available resources, and perceptions. It can give insight into gaming with a disability, but it is by no means generalizable or unproblematic.

Conclusion This is an autoethnographic account of gaming the pandemic with low vision. It highlights the positive and negative experiences I encountered

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around games during said time, the role of streamers as facilitators of purchase decisions, and the strategies a person with low vision employs before deciding whether or not to engage in a multiplayer game session. A key observation throughout is that I do not choose the games I play simply because I particularly like them more than others. On the contrary, the games I play are chosen for me by developers who have determined its (in)accessibility, or by my social circle or society that, often unintentionally, has made it otherwise impossible for me to exist with ease and cohesion with them without enduring the labor, playbor, of using the same technologies they use. Hence, the inaccessibility of games has serious exclusionary ramifications that significantly affect the well-being of a person with a disability when they can’t easily be a part of game culture like everyone else. Sincere social commitment toward social accessibility can remedy this inaccessibility, and I highlight games where technical and social accessibility facilitated my participation and inclusion. Nonetheless, much research and work are needed to advance game accessibility and social inclusion through and in games.

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Cunningham, S. J., and M. Jones (2005), “Autoethnography: A Tool for Practice and Education,” Proceedings of the 6th ACM SIGCHI New Zealand Chapter’s International Conference on Computer-Human Interaction: Making CHI Natural, New York: Association for Computing Machinery, 1–8. Daws, R. (2021), “Game Developers Can Have the Accessibility of Their Titles Checked by Xbox,” Developer Tech News, February 18. https://develo​per-tech. com/news/2021/feb/18/game-dev​elop​ers-access​ibil​ity-tit​les-chec​ked-xbox/ (accessed September 10, 2021). Dolmage, J. T. (2017), Academic Ableism: Disability and Higher Education, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. EA Redwood Shores (2008), Dead Space (PlayStation 3; Microsoft Windows; Xbox 260; Xbox Cloud Gaming), Electronic Arts. Finnish Government (2020), “Government, in Cooperation with the President of the Republic, Declares a State of Emergency in Finland over Coronavirus Outbreak.” https://val​tion​euvo​sto.fi/en/-//10616/halli​tus-tot​esi-suo​men-ole​vanpoik​keus​oloi​ssa-koron​avir​usti​lant​een-vuo​ksi (accessed July 16, 2023). Goggin, J. (2011), “Playbour, Farming and Leisure,” Ephemera: Theory & Politics in Organization, 11 (4): 357–68. Haegele, J. A., and S. Hodge (2016), “Disability Discourse: Overview and Critiques of the Medical and Social Models,” Quest, 68 (2): 193–206. Hassan, L., and P. Baltzar (2022), “Social Aspects in Game Accessibility Research: A Literature Review,” Proceedings of the 2022 DiGRA International Conference: Bringing Worlds Together, Tampere: DiGRA. www.digra.org/ wp-cont​ent/uplo​ads/digi​tal-libr​ary/DiGRA​_202​2_pa​per_​111.pdf (accessed July 16, 2023). Heydarian, C. H. (2020), The Curb-Cut Effect and Its Interplay with Video Games, Tempe: Arizona State University. IGDA (2004), Accessibility in Games: Motivations and Approaches, Toronto: International Game Developers Association. InnerSloth LLC and PlayEveryWare (2018), Among Us (Nintendo Switch; Android; iOS; PlayStation 4, 5; Microsoft Windows; Xbox One; Xbox Cloud Gaming; Xbox series X, series S), InnerSloth. Joddrell, P., and A. J. Astell (2019), “Implementing Accessibility Settings in Touchscreen Apps for People Living with Dementia,” Gerontology, 65 (5): 560–70. Johnson, G. M., and S. K. Kane (2020), “Game Changer: Accessible Audio and Tactile Guidance for Board and Card Games,” Proceedings of the 17th International Web for All Conference, New York: Association for Computing Machinery, 1–12. Lankoski, P., and S. Björk (2015), Game Research Methods: An Overview, Pittsburgh, PA: ETC Press. Leat, S. J., G. E. Legge, and M. A. Bullimore (1999), “What Is Low Vision? A Re-evaluation of Definitions,” Optometry and Vision Science, 76 (4): 198–211. London Studios (2016), PlayStation VR Worlds (PlayStation 4), Sony Interactive Entertainment.

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Meriläinen, M. (2022), “Pandemic Rhythms: Adults’ Gaming in Finland during the Spring 2020 COVID-19 Restrictions,” Convergence, 13548565221077582. Nast, C. (2019), “A Billion New Players Are Set to Transform the Gaming Industry,” Wired UK, December 29. www.wired.co.uk/arti​cle/worldw​ide-gam​ ers-bill​ion-play​ers#:~:text=There%20are%20now%20m​ore%20t​han,over%20 250%20mill​ion%20reg​iste​red%20us​ers (accessed July 16, 2023). Naughty Dog (2020), The Last of Us, Part II (PlayStation 4), Sony Interactive Entertainment. Naughty Dog & Iron Galaxy (2013), The Last of Us, Part I (PlayStation 2, 3, 4, 5; Windows PC), Sony Interactive Entertainment NHS (2023), “Albinism.” www.nhs.uk/con​diti​ons/albin​ism/ (accessed May 22, 2023). Nintendo (2020), Animal Crossing: New Horizons (Nintendo Switch), Nintendo. Pereira, L. G., M. S. França, V. H. Piccoli, T. Rodriguez, and M. A. Eliseo (2020), “Mr. Pizza: An Educational Game for Inclusion of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder,” Proceedings of the 6th Iberoamerican Conference of Computer Human Interaction, Arequipa: CEUR Workshop Proceedings, 256–365. Rapp, A. (2018), “Autoethnography in Human–Computer Interaction: Theory and Practice,” New Directions in Third Wave Human-Computer Interaction: Volume 2-Methodologies, Cham: Springer, 25–42. Resonair, Monstars, and Stage Games (2018), Tetris Effect (PlayStation 4, 5, Microsoft Windows; Xbox One, series X, series S; Oculus Quest; Nintendo Switch), Sony Interactive Entertainment. Ryan, R., and E. Deci (2002), “Self-determination Theory: An Organismic Dialectical Perspective,” in E. L. Deci and R. M. Ryan (eds.), Handbook of Self-Determination Research, Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 3–33. Shakespeare, T. (2005), “Nordic Disability Research: Reflections, Not Conclusions,” in A. Gustavsson, J. Sandvin, R. Traustadottir, and J. Tössebro (eds.), Resistance, Reflection and Change, Sweden: Studentlitteratur, 295–302. Sinclair, B. (2019), “Ubisoft Sees High Acceptance for Opt-Out Subtitles,” GameIndustry.biz, June 26, www.gamesi​ndus​try.biz/ubis​oft-sees-high-acc​epta​ nce-for-opt-out-subtit​les (accessed July 16, 2023). Sjöblom, M., L. Hassan, J. Macey, M. Törhönen, and J. Hamari (2018), “Liking the Game: How Can Spectating Motivations Influence Social Media Usage at Live Esports Events?” Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Social Media and Society, Copenhagen: ACM, 160–67. Spry, T. (2001), “Performing Autoethnography: An Embodied Methodological Praxis,” Qualitative inquiry, 7 (6): 706–32. Tedlock, B. (1991), “From Participant Observation to the Observation of Participation: The Emergence of Narrative Ethnography,” Journal of Anthropological Research, 47 (1): 69–94. Ubisoft (2018), Assassin’s Creed Odyssey (PlayStation 4, 5; Xbox One, series X, series S; Microsoft Windows; Google Stadia; Amazon Luna), Ubisoft. Ubisoft (2020), Assassin’s Creed Valhalla (PlayStation 4, 5; Xbox One, series X, series S; Microsoft Windows; Google Stadia; Amazon Luna), Ubisoft.

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Waters, R., and L. Lewis (2021), “Why Gaming Is the New Big Tech Battleground,” Financial Times, December 29. www.ft.com/cont​ent/2d446​160-08cb-489f-90c8853b3​d887​80d (accessed July 22, 2023). Wright, P., and J. McCarthy (2008), “Empathy and Experience in HCI,” Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, New York: ACM, 637–46.

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PART TWO

The Lasting Impact of the Pandemic

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5 When the Virtual Office Became Reality: Digital Game Development during and after the Lockdown Jakub Majewski

Introduction The present volume explores many aspects of the impact of the COVID19 pandemic and its related governmental restrictions on game players, whether as individuals, as communities, or, even more broadly, as gaming culture. However, for any game player to be affected by the pandemic, there first had to exist a game, created by game developers. Those developers, like most other industries, were also affected in deep ways by the pandemic. The present chapter examines the pandemic effects not on game players but on the developers and their employers: the game industry. Digital game development is a well-established industry populated by large and usually tightly concentrated game development teams (Rabowsky 2009; Nichols 2014). This high degree of concentration meant the game industry was especially vulnerable to any kind of disruption that would affect workplace person-to-person collaboration, such as would occur when many governments across Europe, North America, and East Asia—the three most significant global hotbeds of game development—imposed movement and workplace restrictions to limit the spread of the pandemic. Conversely,

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the game industry proved to be among the most resilient and adaptable of the various entertainment industries. The reasons for this are clear when comparing games with films. The production of movies is strongly dependent on close personal contact between actors and production crews on set. There are few possible workarounds for this, with the consequence that numerous film and television productions were suspended for many months during the pandemic and subsequently resumed only under severe restrictions (Robb 2020). While some games do also involve extensive stage collaborations between film crews and voice or motion-capture actors (Cloud Imperium Games 2015), such work is only a small element; by contrast, much of the remaining game industry work was far more amenable to remote collaboration. The digital game industry is necessarily positioned at the leading edge of digital communication technologies. Even in the 1980s and 1990s, game developers could collaborate with freelancers or remote studios working as outsourcers, supplying individual graphical assets or even complete game projects on floppy or compact disks by physical mail in the 1980s, and then switching to digital file transfer protocols in the 1990s. In the age of the internet and email, remote work became even more common, especially in the 2010s (O’Donnell 2014; Chandler 2020; Nowocień 2020). Not only do studios collaborate extensively with individuals or external companies (cf. Jones 2017), but in some cases, there have been distributed teams where each member worked from a different location (cf. Fray 2017; Wang 2018). Within game development discourse, numerous accounts describe how particular teams organize their remote work, the toolsets available for this purpose, as well as the challenges involved (e.g., Fray 2017; Jones 2017; Wang 2018; Chandler 2020; Nowocień 2020). Nonetheless, in the prepandemic era, the key barrier to full-fledged remote collaboration remained the emphasis on personal contact in game development. Discussions about remote development indeed often concentrate on the question of how to create a surrogate of a local working environment, and especially how to better integrate remote workers in partially local teams (cf. Fray 2017; Jones 2017; Wang 2018). In my own experience collaborating with several game development studios over two decades, this imbalance between local and remote employees was always a key issue. It is typical for local coworkers to casually discuss project-related issues and make decisions in impromptu meetings, without necessarily documenting or transmitting their conclusions to their remote coworkers. As the developer testimonies cited above indicate, developing a culture that includes remote coworkers and collaborator studios is a key challenge—one less related to technology than to resistance to change. Thus, for the game industry, the disruption experienced in the pandemic was not purely destructive. To some extent, the pandemic merely accelerated an ongoing workplace transformation, expanding to a larger scale and

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triggering a desirable formalization of already-existing forms of remote collaboration. Even with the global emergency stage of the COVID-19 pandemic declared over by the World Health Organization, the pandemic remains too recent an event for us to properly and fully assess its impact on game industry practice, particularly with regard to long-term effects. Nonetheless, this assessment process needs to begin somewhere. This chapter, therefore, is not an in-depth methodological study of the pandemic impact, nor even its exhaustive description: rather, it should be seen as a reconnaissance attempt. Effects of the pandemic are signaled by examining currently available industry reports and research, which thus far has been almost exclusively from the United States and Europe. To these reports, I at times add further evidence from my observations and ongoing conversations with past and present collaborators, especially since I combine the roles of university scholar and freelance game developer. Based on these early findings, it would appear the pandemic impact must first be divided into short-term and long-term effects. In the short term, the lockdowns forced developers to sharply pivot to work from home (WFH). This pivot provided a major disruption with unequivocally negative consequences. In the long term, however, the lockdowns accelerated changes to the industry’s employment and collaboration model, resulting in a more elastic and, crucially, more resilient structure. These changes were built on a pre-existing technological foundation of relatively widespread remote collaboration. Nonetheless, these long-term changes are also not unequivocally positive—the results have been sometimes positive, but generally mixed. Having been forced to fully embrace remote collaboration, the industry adapted but also discovered natural limits to the pursuit of large-scale creative collaborative endeavors across a distance.

The Pre-pandemic Context Earlier experience with online collaboration meant the game industry was technologically well equipped for the situation of the COVID-19 lockdowns, having at its disposal a range of tools to facilitate online communication and collaboration (e.g., Chandler 2020; Nowocień 2020). Small studios could function entirely in distributed form without a central office, as described especially by Fray (2017) and Wang (2018) in accounts of their distributed development models. Tellingly, these studios highlighted the difficulty of scaling their model up beyond around ten employees, noting past experiences that had generated difficulty. This presumably is the reason why larger distributed studios do not seem to exist. Typically, larger studios employed a mixed model, where most of the company would work on-site, but freelance outsourcers as well as individual employees might contribute from off-site.

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Certainly, as Jones (2017) explains, many individual employees highly appreciated the flexibility of WFH but, at the same time, often did not take into account the complexities involved, ranging from having the necessary hardware to setting up a home office impervious to nonwork distractions and family-related interruptions. Unsurprisingly, not all large studios were willing to allow their employees to work this way. Some companies would not allow remote work at all; others willingly accepted remote work and made it a part of their work culture. Between these extremes, some companies allowed remote work, but treated it as a measure for emergencies; Jones also recounts cases of situations where companies had been open to such collaborations but were careful about which employees they would trust this way, having been discouraged by problems encountered on the side of the employee (cf. Jones 2017). Indeed, the reliability of employees who are not present, and therefore must actively communicate whether they are working and on what, is a common issue for the smaller fully remote studios as well (cf. Fray 2017; Wang 2018). Another issue important for distributed studios, though less relevant for the pandemic-era WFH scenario, is the need to align work across time zones. This is again not a technology but a culture issue: both Fray and Wang provide various suggestions for how companies can streamline communication and collaboration across time zones. Other culture-related issues that crop up across all accounts of remote collaboration (Fray 2017; Jones 2017; Wang 2018; Nowocień 2020) are the need to develop alternate team-bonding mechanisms and alternatives for the  casual “water cooler” conversations that would ordinarily take place in the office. Technologically, these issues are addressed by online communication software—text-based, voice chat, and video-based—all of which are used not only for work conversations but also for more casual exchanges, including sharing photos and general gossip. Nowocień (2020) also describes “virtual office” software that provides a virtual representation of physical office space, where one employee might “visit” another; however, thus far, I have not encountered accounts of game developers using such packages. Beyond small indie developers, it is worth highlighting one seemingly unique case among the largest game developers/publishers: Ubisoft, a France-based company that has development studios spread around the world on almost every continent. While it is typical for large game companies to have multiple studios, each developing a different title, Ubisoft has for years practiced co-development, where different studios across the globe work on the same titles (e.g., Reparaz 2021). However, this advanced model of co-development is not analogous to remote collaboration: Ubisoft’s employees worked at multiple studios, but in each case, they worked at a studio with full infrastructure. The company had employed various commercially available solutions to facilitate task management, and more importantly data transfer between studios. Also telling is the fact that Ubisoft’s remote collaboration model involves what is described as

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“onboarding”—when another studio is brought onto a project, its key staff will be flown into the city where the main development studio is based and will spend several days on presentations, dinners, and so on, to gain both a formal understanding of the project and an informal rapport with their partner studio(s) (Reparaz 2021). The issue of data transfer in Ubisoft’s example highlights the fact that beyond communication and task coordination, equipment and the back and forth of data transfer are among the key challenges with regard to WFH in the game industry. It is typical for game developers to set up centralized repositories containing all the data from a given game project—including raw materials, work in progress, and the final output. The repository is maintained on a central server whose contents are regularly duplicated to produce backups in case of problems. If the company works entirely locally, users will connect to this server via a local network, and the server can be securely disconnected from the internet. However, a WFH arrangement requires the repository server to be accessible from the outside and capable of pushing and pulling data to/from numerous users simultaneously. This not only requires a powerful internet connection but also produces a dilemma for game developers: even with the fullest possible precautions, enabling external access still creates a vulnerability to external attacks, hacker vandalism, or simply data theft. While none of these requirements are especially problematic in terms of costs or setup difficulty, it is clear that WFH requires conscious decisions about how the company’s data infrastructure will be set up to facilitate it. Apart from small-scale indie game production, games frequently require not only powerful computers but also additional specialized equipment. For console games representing the majority of the work for large game development studios, this would include game development kits (devkits) for consoles—essentially, special versions of consoles designed to be connected to a PC and enhanced with additional capabilities for debugging. While documents concerning the pricing and conditions for devkits are generally hidden behind nondisclosure agreements, I can attest that devkits are typically expensive enough that not all staff members in a development team would be equipped with such kits, and the kits would be made available under the express condition that they are stored in a secure facility—clear barriers for WFH. For VR game development, individual employees may need not only one or more VR headsets of different types but also an appropriate space to deploy them—ideally at least a two-by-two-meter space, but preferably more. As I am currently struggling to work as an outsourcer on a VR project in my home office, I can again attest to the difficulties involved: in home conditions, it is common to have comparatively open space in a living room, but in a typical city apartment, it is unlikely a home office will be a spacious room. It must also be mentioned that more specialized aspects of game development require additional equipment: motion and performance

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capture will involve large stages and specialized camera setups, while voice recording will typically take place in a specialized recording studio (Cloud Imperium Games 2015). Neither of these can easily be replicated at home, and in both cases, the presence of additional stage and technical crewmembers would make it impossible to maintain social distancing. Overall, while the game industry collectively had access to a large suite of tools and technologies that potentially facilitated WFH and distributed development, before the pandemic, there had been a clear understanding that WFH is limiting and problematic, that it requires not only hardware and software but also adjustments to the workplace culture and practices, and that even with all such adjustments, the body of practices developed for WFH worked best for small teams of fewer than ten developers and would generate new and unexpected problems when scaled up for a bigger team. The difficulties of any such transition were amplified by the specific workplace conditions prevalent in digital game development, which were challenging even without the pandemic. Sources ranging from scholarly analyses (e.g., Dovey and Kennedy 2006; O’Donnell 2014), industry manuals (e.g., Chandler 2020; Keith 2021), journalistic accounts (e.g., Schreier 2017, 2021a, 2021b), to developer biographies and autobiographies (e.g., Meier and Noonan 2020), and even works of fiction written by game developers themselves (Hady 2015) are all replete with stories of long working hours, tight budgets dependent on precariously fickle relationships with publishers, and the instability of constantly evolving projects. With the global game industry having now reached the age of fifty, it is clear that the numerous problems encountered in game development, many of which had been repeatedly discussed for decades (e.g., Dovey and Kennedy 2006; Keith 2010), are not the problems of beginners. These difficulties, often tightly interwoven, are engrained in the industry’s workflow, culture, and practices. As journalist Jason Schreier (2017) argues in his collection of developer accounts, evolving technologies, market changes, and shifting publisher interests enforce the repeated revision of project parameters during development. The evolution of project parameters, in turn, generates additional labor. This, in a situation where budgets and schedules are notoriously inflexible, can lead to periods of overtime work, referred to as “crunch” in industry parlance. Indeed, as O’Donnell (2014) argues in his extensive fieldwork-based study of the industry, crunch is essentially embedded into the industry as a social practice for both large and small studies. Crunch is toxic, but can also be addicting, and in extreme cases, it ceases to be even perceived as a problem, instead becoming a part of a studio’s culture, something its representatives will defend as a necessary part of game development. For example, Hady (2015) is a novel describing the crunch culture of a purely fictional studio, but Hady herself had been an employee of CD Projekt, a company that, having been accused by anonymous ex-employees on the portal Glassdoor of relying excessively on crunch,

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defended its stance by claiming that game development simply requires such sacrifices, that a good game cannot be made without “reinventing the wheel” (Purchese 2017). Overall, despite improvements in production management and genuine attempts by some large development studios to develop healthier work practices, the problem of unpredictable schedules and crunch culture remains prominent, with Keith (2021) referring to the situation as a crisis. The presence of this underlying crisis had a clear implication for the pandemic: a sudden and immediate lockdown would inevitably amplify these pre-existing issues, generating further chaos in the industry.

Lockdowns: The Immediate Impact Much of the present volume has revolved around the increase in gaming activity during the pandemic. While many of the changes in gaming patterns described here were noted to be temporary, the fact remains that the strongest initial impact of the pandemic on the gaming industry was not felt in the office, but on the balance sheet. In the initial days of the lockdown measures, developers, like other businesses, faced an unknown situation—but unlike most other businesses, they saw a spike in downloads accompanied by equally positive changes in monetization patterns—possibly the only other industry that benefited financially from the enforcement of stay-at-home measures was the video streaming industry. As noted by a report (Irpan et al. 2020) produced by Unity Technologies—a technological company behind one of the most commonly used game engines in the industry (Nicoll and Keogh 2019)—lockdown measures, which were introduced at different times in different countries, typically were accompanied by immediate increases in the number of active users, game downloads, average gaming times, sales value, and advertising revenues. This increase is corroborated by other reports (e.g., Krampus-Sepielak et al. 2020; Schreier 2020). The positive impact of the lockdowns on game revenues seems to have somewhat obscured the negative effects of the lockdowns on actual game development. Nonetheless, such problems appear to have been common and, in many cases, difficult. Although we have described above the welldeveloped toolbox of both software and hardware available to facilitate WFH in the game industry—undoubtedly to a greater extent than in many other industries—we have also seen that efficient WFH requires a pre-existing culture of remote work with the necessary greater employee independence and self-management, as well as strong habits of ongoing communication, sharing, and so on. Even in such situations, we have seen practitioners such as Fray (2017) and Wang (2018) express their belief— verified by practice—that the limit of efficient remote collaboration is about ten people. Even assuming this limit, expressed by practitioners from

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companies that function across multiple continents and time zones, might be higher in a scenario of WFH for a studio that had previously worked in a single locale and therefore in one time zone, some limit of efficiency must still exist. Even more clear is the fact that a sudden transition like in the case of a lockdown prevents the development of a remote collaboration culture. Such a sudden transition will also necessarily mean that many hardware and software solutions used to facilitate WFH will not have been implemented beforehand and will take time to set up. Server infrastructure must be adjusted to allow remote access, employees in many cases must set up a home office and adjust to the difficulties of distraction-free work at home, and so on. Finally, the development kits used to develop games for consoles, normally held in small numbers in the office, will not be available for WFH. While there are not yet any detailed case studies describing how particular studios dealt with the transition, the short reports that exist generally highlight great difficulties. Schreier (2021b) describes how CD Projekt Red developers working on the final stages of Cyberpunk 2077 (CD Projekt Red 2020) found themselves struggling to work on the game without access to the devkits. Communication issues also entered the picture, and the outcome was that the release of the already-troubled production had to be delayed until November.1 In the United States, another equally challenging production, The Last of Us, Part II (Naughty Dog 2020), had to be ominously delayed “indefinitely” in its final weeks of production (White 2020); while the delay was ultimately relatively brief, here too, Naughty Dog employees noted the difficulty of WFH without the camaraderie of an office environment—an especially important issue in the case of a production that, like Cyberpunk 2077, involved frequent and extended periods of so-called crunch—heavy overtime sometimes spread across six- or even seven-day work-weeks (White 2020; Schreier 2021b). Given the model of multi-studio development employed by Ubisoft, disruptions due to lockdowns, while perhaps not greater in impact, were certainly greater in scale for this company. Thus, as producer Julien Laferrière put it when the lockdown was imposed in Canada, the company, in the beta stages of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla (Ubisoft 2020), transitioned from working on the game across seventeen studios to “like a thousand studios” (Reparaz 2021). Laferrière indicates that the company’s multi-studio model made it easier to transition into WFH because the company already had implemented the technological solutions necessary for this. Nonetheless, he also notes the rise of cultural barriers requiring the development of a remote work culture, for example, to develop informal communication channels

This delay would not save Cyberpunk 2077 from a disastrous launch, particularly in light of the manner in which the title had been overhyped beforehand. For an account of the way especially hype and broken promises impacted the game’s release, see Siuda et al. (2023). 1

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and to facilitate the meetings that would normally have taken place offline. Another challenge was technical: the company used its IT and logistics departments to deliver and set up PCs for those developers who did not have functional home offices. Laferrière’s account is generally optimistic, claiming that this transition was completed within two to three weeks. However, there is another way of looking at this outcome, by noting the difference in resources and experience between Ubisoft and other smaller developers. It took Ubisoft up to three weeks to successfully navigate this transition, even though the company, due to its multi-studio development model, already had in place most of the technical solutions necessary, as well as parts of the cultural solutions, and which also had the resources to simply provide its employees with whatever equipment they were lacking. This fact should indicate that for many smaller developers, the period of adjustment would be longer and much more challenging. It must also be noted that the negative short-term effects of the pandemic on the development did not end when a company completed the necessary transition to WFH, and indeed, these negative effects in some cases did not even manifest immediately. Some studios reported that work efficiency remained unaffected in the first days of the lockdown and then dropped precipitously after a few weeks, when employees ran out of previously assigned tasks and the difficulties of efficiently verifying and assigning tasks virtually to an entire studio emerged. For example, developers at Belgian company Larian Studios reported that the first week of WFH actually went very well, and then in subsequent weeks, more and more difficulties would gradually manifest themselves (Schreier 2020). Initially, as developers switched to WFH, they simply continued the assignments they already had; but as tasks were completed, the radically different cultural and communication requirements of distributed development became manifest. As the studio’s head Swen Vincke explained, “We’d spend all of our days just communicating—trying to solve problems, organize things, give direction” (Vincke, cited in Schreier 2020). These effects also manifested themselves across the company’s external partner studios, further compounding the difficulty. Larian Studios also noted more prosaic causes of delays, probably common for most employees working at home during the pandemic: the presence of locked-down spouses and children, the frustrations of being cramped in small spaces, the need to work unusual hours to take care of home-bound families, and so on. It is safe to assume all such issues were present at the studios mentioned earlier—CD Projekt Red, Naughty Dog, and Ubisoft. Each of the companies mentioned thus far could easily be its own case study: unfortunately, at the moment, no deep case studies exist, and we are limited to employee interviews with journalists published in news media (Schreier 2020, 2021b; White 2020), or even on the company’s website as part of a public relations effort (e.g., Reparaz 2021). However, while deeper studies

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are unavailable, there have been multiple efforts to collate data in a shallower but broader manner. Such reports corroborate the above stories, making clear that the pandemic impact was similar across the game industry in the major Western countries, and presumably in all countries affected by lockdowns. Indeed, even for companies in countries that, like Sweden, never implemented formal lockdown measures, game developers would have been affected either because companies and individuals voluntarily decided to switch to WFH for the pandemic or because their studios might be collaborating with publishers or other partners in countries with more stringent lockdown measures. Of the available reports, four were particularly notable for documenting the short-term effects of the pandemic measures. The first of these was the GDC 2020 State of the Industry Report: Work from Home Edition (Game Developers Conference 2020), a special update for the Game Developers Conference’s (GDC) annual report that polls game developers from around the world, in this case focusing solely on the impact of the pandemic. A second early report on the pandemic effects was the Polish-language 2020 Kondycja polskiej branży gier (2020 Condition of the Polish Game Industry) (Krampus-Sepielak et al. 2020), which briefly summarized voices specifically from the Polish industry. A third was a brief study by Waber and Munyikwa (2021) published in the Harvard Business Review. Finally, the 2021 edition of the GDC’s annual report also followed up on the pandemic and the effects of the still-ongoing lockdowns and WFH regime. These reports effectively repeat most of the issues described above but base their findings on quantitative data. Thus, in the initial months of the pandemic, 70 percent of the developers who filled out the GDC’s survey (Game Developers Conference 2020) reported transitioning to WFH, with a further 27 percent reporting already working from home: only 3 percent of the sampled individuals did not experience WFH at all. In the same survey, a third of the sample reported on delays, citing many of the reasons we have indicated above: communication, lack of access to important tools and equipment, and isolation. However, the impact on productivity and creativity was interestingly bidirectional: 41 percent reported some decrease in productivity against a 32 percent reported an increase; similarly, while 35 percent reported some decrease in creativity, 26 percent reported an increase. Another important finding in the report was that, unlike other industries, very few game developers reported losing their job or being furloughed, and only 20 percent reported working less; 41 percent reported no change, while 39 percent indicated working more than before. Overall, the results indicated that WFH was disruptive, and it had a net negative effect, but crucially, not an exclusively negative effect: a significant percentage of developers claimed to have found the transition to be a net positive. The 2021 report (Game Developers Conference 2021) followed these issues up a few months later; while in this case only two questions in the survey addressed the (then still ongoing) pandemic impact, the

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responses indicated a slight increase in reports of pandemic-caused delays— now 44 percent had experienced such delays—while the division between increases and decreases of productivity remained similar to the previous report. Importantly, the 2021 report also reported on employment changes, showing that whatever the delays may have been, the industry as a whole remained successful: only 1 percent reported studio closures, and 13 percent studio contractions, whereas 34 percent of developers indicated no change in studio size and 47 percent reported expansion. The Polish report (Krampus-Sepielak et al. 2020), while spending relatively little space on the pandemic and mostly reporting the same impact as other sources, did add one important detail: growth and studio expansion, while ongoing, were made more complicated by the pandemic. In the WFH situation, it was harder to interview, test, and especially onboard a new employee, with a special emphasis on junior employees, whose addition to the team would typically require more handholding. These issues should be seen in conjunction with the GDC’s data, which indicates that even in this situation, new hires were ongoing, though without indicating whether perhaps these hires weren’t also concentrating on more senior employees. Finally, Waber and Munyikwa (2021), whose report concentrated primarily on the business aspects and especially highlighted growth in revenues, also delved into project delays, especially for public video game companies. Here, the impact was staggering—while the GDC reports indicated fewer than half of their sample of individual developers had encountered pandemic-related delays, Waber and Munyikwa reported that for public video game companies, working in a WFH model translated into 4.4 times more delays than before the pandemic. Considering this, it becomes clear that the negative impact of WFH is proportional to studio size, with the biggest studios reporting the greatest negative impact. Overall, the picture that emerges from the data is complex, and certainly not completely negative. WFH was a significant cause for delays, especially for large companies, but for smaller companies, the results were in many cases positive—even though the GDC reports do not provide the data to test such correlations, it seems highly probable, considering all other factors, that the developers who reported increases in productivity and creativity would have been concentrated in smaller studios. With the possible exception of Ubisoft, large companies simply did not have an institutional culture and infrastructure that would work complimentarily with WFH culture; smaller studios undoubtedly found it easier to adjust.

Post-pandemic Long-Term Developments By 2022, the pandemic measures had largely subsided, and the game industry was more or less free to choose its path forward. At this point, the long-term

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effects can be examined, with the important caveat that these are likely to be malleable. The picture, in any case, is complex: while some studios have returned to pre-pandemic norms, many have chosen the pandemiceffected changes, especially with regard to WFH; of the latter, in turn, some have remained fully remote, while others have embraced varying degrees of mixed work, where office attendance is either optional or only required for parts of the week. The GDC’s two subsequent reports, for 2022 and 2023 respectively (Game Developers Conference 2022, 2023), indicate that an overwhelming majority of developers either has to work remotely or has remote work as an option. In both years, only 7 percent of the sample reported either ceasing office work or, having worked from home at some point, now no longer having this option. For those who continue to WFH, it is notable firstly that across both years, around a third of the sample indicated always working from home, even before the pandemic, which seems to suggest the GDC’s survey sample is probably biased toward freelancers and developers employed at smaller studios. Secondly, there appears to be a gradual voluntary return to the office both for the individual and the employer; thus, between 2022 and 2023, the number of developers reporting not having the option to return to the office decreased from 11 to 8 percent. The number reporting having optional access to the office but still choosing to work remotely decreases from 29 to 25 percent. Finally, the number of developers who have chosen to split time between remote and office work has increased from 11 to 17 percent, while full returns to the office (despite the WFH option remaining available) have remained stable, with a shift of 1 percent from 10 to 11 percent. Thus, overall, the percentage of sampled developers who spend at least a part of their work time in the office has increased between 2022 and 2023 from 28 to 35 percent. With no knowledge about the actual sample—which countries, which studio types were more represented—and given the self-selecting format the GDC’s surveys typically take, it is impossible to determine from these figures what the remote/office divide looks like for the whole game industry. Nonetheless, it seems safe to assert that (1) remote work, either as the sole mode of employment or as an option for developers, is now engrained in the game industry, and (2) a return to the now-optional office is visible but quite gradual. There is little other concrete data to invoke to corroborate this picture. Anecdotally, I can point to the Warsaw-based development studio I collaborate with, and note that firstly this collaboration, which began in late 2020, has always been remote; secondly, over the space of the past two years, while the studio did reopen its offices post-pandemic, it has indeed made office attendance optional, with a slew of organizational measures introduced to streamline collaboration between remote and local staff. Another interesting indicator of the current situation can be found on industry job aggregation and recruitment agency websites. In particular,

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at the UK-centric job aggregation portal Games Jobs Direct (www.game​ sjob​sdir​ect.com/), “remote” is now the second-most popular job location category after the “UK.” However, once one looks into the details of such jobs, it can be observed that the portal intentionally conflates remote and hybrid work arrangements into one category. Thus, many of the jobs listed as remote are in fact hybrid arrangements, where the employee must still relocate to the city the studio is based in but has the possibility of working remotely for part of the week. Nonetheless, the increase in the availability of WFH and a new openness for companies to consider hiring even seniorlevel staff as remote employees is striking. Whatever the traumas of the initial lockdowns, now that game development studios have gone through the painful process of adopting WFH culture at short notice, many are determined to hold on to the benefits of this arrangement.

Conclusion Long before the pandemic and the government-enforced lockdowns, the game industry already had the tools available to enable studios to work with some remote staff, or even—in the case of small studios—to transition to a fully remote model. The possibility of WFH was constrained above all by cultural opposition—most game development studios had, obviously, always worked as single-location entities and saw little reason to change this. Opposition to remote work was evident for individual employees, who often struggled to obtain permission to work remotely except under special circumstances (Jones 2017); small studios that had embraced remote work also stressed the fact that the fully remote model was difficult to apply for companies bigger than ten employees. A wider adoption of WFH in the game industry thus required, firstly, the development of a compromise—hybrid—model of optional office attendance, and, secondly, the development of company cultures that would enable this model to function at least sufficiently effectively to be acceptable from a business perspective. Some studios were already experimenting with such transitions before the pandemic (Krampus-Sepielak et al. 2020), and others undoubtedly would have at least been talking about introducing mixed and remote work. Nonetheless, it seems safe to assert that for most developers, the lockdowns were a necessary impulse, effectively forcing studios to try out this new arrangement. For many studios, this transition was highly challenging, leading to many project delays and frustration for both employers and employees. At the end of this process, however, it seems that a lasting hybrid model of work has emerged in the game industry. While there is a trickle of employees choosing to voluntarily return to the office, it is clear that there is no going back to the office-only model that had been prevalent before the lockdowns.

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It must be stressed, however, that after this initial reconnaissance into the pandemic impact on work in the game industry, we still face many critical unknowns. Much of the data presented in this chapter is limited in depth, consisting either of stories from individual studios or of industrydriven surveys whose methodology does not provide sufficient detail to fully understand the picture. The biggest question about the short-term impact of the pandemic concerns studio size. There is some evidence to suggest the transition to WFH was far more problematic for large companies than for smaller ones. However, this evidence is far from conclusive, particularly given that it is the larger companies—with Ubisoft being the extreme example—that had already developed methodologies for collaboration between multiple offices, an experience that provided them with some idea about transitioning to a fully remote model. For the long-term effects, the most fascinating question is perhaps the hardest to measure: the virtual (or at least hybrid) office is here to stay, but does it actually work as well as, or better than, a fully local office? In 2020 and 2021, developers certainly stressed the delays caused by the impact of the lockdowns—but is there any evidence that these delays disappeared post-lockdown? Whenever the question of impact on productivity and/or creativity of individuals was asked, the results were mixed, with slightly more reporting a negative impact than a positive impact, and a third, almost equally large group, reporting no impact at all. Since the GDC surveys that asked about this in their 2020 and 2021 reports did not follow up on the issue in 2022 and 2023, we do not know if the percentage of developers reporting a decrease in productivity/creativity has dropped (as employees grew more comfortable with WFH arrangements), remained unchanged, or increased since. It is reasonable to speculate that the developers who selfreported as being less effective in WFH would also be the ones who most frequently choose to return to the office in the post-lockdown environment. But is this the case? Has the efficiency of game development—an industry notorious for its challenging work environment and business practices even before the pandemic—recovered after the lockdowns ended, or is it simply that the pandemic-driven delays have been embraced as part of the “new normal?” It is certainly not inconceivable that game development studios would choose to tolerate hybrid work models even if they were less efficient than the office model—the undeniable employee preference for the flexibility of hybrid arrangements is a powerful argument. Another important issue for the “new normal” is again the question of studio sizes. To what extent does the requirement to be present in the office full time or at least part time correspond to bigger companies? Is there a difference between large and small companies in terms of who has chosen to retain pandemic-era remote and hybrid work models? A final issue concerns the differences between more and less experienced employees. The pandemic-era reports did indicate (e.g., Krampus-Sepielak et al. 2020) that integrating junior employees into

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a remote office was harder than with senior staff. It may also be that in the long term, those employees who started out working in the office will have developed a different work ethic than those who worked from home from the outset of their career. All these are questions for which no answer can be given at the moment, and in some cases, no answer will ever be given, because of methodological difficulties. For instance, how would one compare the efficiency of pre-pandemic-era development and post-pandemic-era development, given that in the meantime the complexity of games under development has increased and the tools used to make them have evolved? It must finally be stressed that 2023 is still, in a sense, early. It remains to be seen to what extent the changes described above will remain in place, and especially whether the trend of returning to office work will pick up pace, fizzle out, or reverse itself. The present essay, summarizing existing media and expert reports, is only the first word on this topic. The impact of the pandemic and its related restrictions will be felt for years to come and must continue to be studied.

References CD Projekt Red (2020), Cyberpunk 2077 (Google Stadia; Microsoft Windows; PlayStation 4; PlayStation 5; Xbox One, series X, series A), CD Projekt Red. Chandler, H. M. (2020), The Game Production Toolbox, Boca Raton: CRC Press. Cloud Imperium Games (2015), “Squadron 42: Behind the Scenes,” Star Citizen, October 10. www.yout​ube.com/watch?v=T4oO​L26Q​n7U (accessed May 15, 2023). Dovey, J., and H. W.Kennedy (2006), Game Cultures: Computer Games as New Media, Maidenhead: Open University Press. Fray, A. (2017), “Remote Working at Spry Fox,” GDC, September 2. www.yout​ ube.com/watch?v=3gbS​ILzo​8hc (accessed May 15, 2023). Game Developers Conference (2020), State of the Game Industry 2020: Work from Home Edition, San Francisco, CA: Game Developers Conference. Game Developers Conference (2021), State of the Game Industry 2021, San Francisco, CA: Game Developers Conference. Game Developers Conference (2022), State of the Game Industry 2022, San Francisco, CA: Game Developers Conference. Game Developers Conference (2023), State of the Game Industry 2023, San Francisco, CA: Game Developers Conference. Hady, S. (2015), Na końcu wchodzą ninja (In the End, the Ninja Arrives), Dębica: Soda Studio. Irpan, E., N. TenBoer, A. Gohil, and R. Young (2020), COVID-19’s Impact on the Gaming Industry: 19 Takeaways—An Examination of Pandemic Gaming Behavior and Game Monetization, San Francisco, CA: Unity Technologies. Jones, J. (2017), “How to Cut the Tether and Work from Anywhere,” GDC, October 10. www.yout​ube.com/watch?v=ka_​GEK-u4VE (accessed May 15, 2023).

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Keith, C. (2010), Agile Game Development with Scrum, Upper Saddle River, NJ: Addison-Wesley. Keith, C. (2021), Agile Game Development: Build, Play, Repeat, New York: Addison-Wesley. Krampus-Sepielak, A., M. Bobrowski, D. Gałuszka, P. Rodzińska-Szary, and M. Śliwińkski (2020), Kondycja Polskiej Branży Gier 2020, Kraków: Krakowski Park Technologiczny. Meier, S., and J. L. Noonan (2020), Sid Meier’s Memoir! A Life in Computer Games, New York: W. W. Norton. Naughty Dog (2020), The Last of Us, Part II (PlayStation 4), Sony Interactive Entertainment. Nichols, R. (2014), The Video Game Business, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Nicoll, B., and B. Keogh (2019), The Unity Game Engine and the Circuits of Cultural Software, Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Nowocień, R. (2020), Zespoły wirtualne I rozproszone: Zdalne zarządzanie projektem informatycznym (Virtual and Distributed Teams: Remote IT Project Management), Gliwice: Wydawnictwo Helion. O’Donnell, C. (2014), Developer’s Dilemma: The Secret World of Videogame Creators, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Purchese, R. (2017), “CD Projekt Red: ‘This Approach to Making Games Is Not for Everyone,’ ” Eurogamer, October 16. www.euroga​mer.net/cd-proj​ ekt-red-this-appro​ach-to-mak​ing-games-is-not-for-every​one (accessed May 15, 2023). Rabowsky, B. (2009), Interactive Entertainment: A Videogame Industry Guide, Oxnard: Radiosity Press. Reparaz, M. (2021), “From 17 Studios to 1,000: How Assassin’s Creed Valhalla Crossed the Finish Line during the Pandemic,” Ubisoft, July 23. https:// news.ubis​oft.com/en-us/arti​cle/ND6lN6​6SMr​EGko​x3L2​l0j/from-17-stud​ ios-to-1000-how-assass​ins-creed-valha​lla-cros​sed-the-fin​ish-line-dur​ing-thepande​mic (accessed May 15, 2023). Robb, D. (2020), “Hollywood Labor Unions & Management Finalize Returnto-Work Agreement,” Deadline, September 21. https://deadl​ine.com/2020/09/ hollyw​ood-ret​urn-to-work-deal-labor-uni​ons-produc​ers-man​agem​ent-123​4573​ 357/ (accessed May 15, 2023). Schreier, J. (2017), Blood, Sweat, and Pixels: The Triumphant, Turbulent Stories Behind How Video Games Are Made, New York: HarperCollins. Schreier, J. (2020), “Gaming Sales Are Up, but Production Is Down,” New York Times, April 21. www.nyti​mes.com/2020/04/21/tec​hnol​ogy/perso​nalt​ech/coro​ navi​rus-video-game-pro​duct​ion.html (accessed May 15, 2023). Schreier, J. (2021a), Press Reset: Ruin and Recovery in the Video Game Industry, New York: Grand Central. Schreier, J. (2021b), “Inside Cyberpunk 2077’s Disastrous Rollout,” Bloomberg, January 16. www.bloomb​erg.com/news/artic​les/2021-01-16/cyberp​ unk-2077-what-cau​sed-the-video-game-s-dis​astr​ous-roll​out (accessed May 15, 2023). Siuda, P., D. Reguła, J. Majewski, and A. Kwapiszewska (2023), “Broken Promises Marketing. Relations, Communication Strategies, and Ethics of Video Game

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Journalists and Developers: The Case of Cyberpunk 2077,” Games and Culture. https://doi.org/10.1177/15554120231173479. Ubisoft (2020), Assassin’s Creed Valhalla (PlayStation 4; PlayStation 5; Xbox One; series X, series S; Microsoft Windows; Google Stadia; Amazon Luna), Ubisoft. Waber, B., and Z. Munyikwa (2021), “Did WFH Hurt the Video Game Industry?” Harvard Business Review, August 3. https://hbr.org/2021/08/ did-wfh-hurt-the-video-game-indus​try (accessed May 15, 2023). Wang, I. (2018), “How to Build a Remote Team for Better Happiness,” GDC, July 19. www.yout​ube.com/watch?v=ZopW​gi_q​FpM (accessed May 15, 2023). White, S. (2020), “The Last of Us Part II: How Naughty Dog Made a Classic Amidst Catastrophe,” GQ, June 9. www.gq- magazine.co.uk/culture/article/thelast-of-us-part-ii-neil-druckmann-interview (accessed May 15, 2023).

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6 The Influence of COVID-19 on Newspaper Discourses on Video Games in Cross-cultural Perspective: Between Safe Social Spaces and Video Game Addiction Stefan Brückner

Introduction The COVID-19 pandemic brought with it wide-ranging changes in lifestyles around the world. Practices such as social distancing, quarantine, and remote work led to an increase in the time we spend playing video games (Barr and Copeland-Stewart 2022; Haug et al. 2022). This chapter examines how the outbreak of the pandemic affected the portrayal of video games in select mainstream media of Germany, Japan, and the United States. How mainstream media frame games and players is not only an indication of media producers’ attitudes toward them. It also affects the opinions and attitudes of the recipients of these media, particularly those with limited experience playing games (Kümpel and Haas 2016). A critical examination of how games and their players are depicted is therefore necessary to

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understand not only the current role of games within our society but also the potential trajectories of public opinion. During the pandemic, scholars and media have argued that games can contribute toward their users’ psychological well-being and form a substitute space for social interactions (Marston and Kowert 2020; Zhu 2021). Such a portrayal stands in contrast to a hitherto often negative portrayal of video games and their players in mainstream media, where gaming is frequently framed as contributing to social withdrawal, violent behavior, addiction, or health problems (Kowert, Griffiths, and Oldmeadow 2012; Whitton and Maclure 2017). This raises the question whether the onset of the pandemic changed the portrayal of games in the media or whether such positive portrayals only appear more noticeable due to changes in our lifestyles. I collected all newspaper articles (n = 1,471) published between January 1, 2019, and December 31, 2020, in six major German, Japanese, and US daily newspapers that include the term “video game” or a synonym in the respective languages. Based on the results of a thematic analysis of these articles, I argue that, overall, the pandemic has not so much changed how games are depicted in the media, but instead, COVID-19 served as a catalyst that clarified and amplified already existing media narratives about games. The pandemic highlighted an already broad societal acceptance of games in Germany and the United States, but also presented a new stimulus that solidified a pre-pandemic critical depiction of games in the Japanese media, as has been evident, for example, in a high number of articles on gaming disorders in Japanese newspaper articles. The central contribution of this study therefore lies in clarifying how media discourses on games have changed during the pandemic by contrasting articles from before and after the outbreak of COVID-19. Aside from examining how the media framed games, this also generates insights into the societal role of games during the pandemic and constitutes an update on previous research on how games are depicted in US print media since the 1970s. Extending the analysis to newspaper articles from Germany, Japan, and the United State further enables a comparison across regions, to account for regional and cultural differences in game-related discourses that hitherto have received only limited attention (cf. Brückner 2020). Germany, Japan, and the United States were selected for practical as well as theoretical reasons. Practical considerations that limited the selection of countries and newspapers were access to the article data, my familiarity with the target region, and language fluency. Within these constraints, including US newspapers in the analysis makes it possible to draw comparisons with previous studies. Germany and Japan were selected as major game markets located in Europe and Asia. As of 2022, the United States is the second largest market for games by revenue after China, while Japan is the third, and Germany the fifth largest behind South Korea (Newzoo 2022).

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In the following section, I first give an overview of previous research on the depiction of games and players in the media. This provides a background against which the results of this study can be interpreted. In the third section, I detail the process of selecting and collecting the newspaper articles used in the study and briefly outline the method of thematic analysis I employed in their analysis. Subsequently, I present the results of the analysis across time periods (2019, 2020) and regions (Germany, Japan, the United States), first through a quantitative overview of thematic categories that emerged during analysis, and second through a close reading of actual text segments from the articles. The corpus of articles is divided into two subsets: articles published between January 1 and December 31, 2019, and articles published between January 1 and December 31, 2020. I define articles published in 2019 as “pre-pandemic” and articles from 2020 as being published after the “outbreak” of COVID-19. This is because in all three regions, the first confirmed cases of COVID-19, as well as the first articles on the virus in the selected newspapers, emerged in January 2020 (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2020; Ministry of Health 2020; Spiegel Online 2020).1 In the last section, I discuss the results and their implications by contrasting them with the results of previous research and answer the question of how the pandemic influenced media discourses on video games.

Video Games in the (News) Media Since McKernan’s (2013: 308) assertion that “unfortunately, very little work examines video games’ historical social construction,” scholars have paid more attention to the portrayal of games in the media. Dedicated video game magazines have been analyzed in regard to how they contributed toward “normalizing” video games (Kirkpatrick 2013), how their contents are influenced by commercial relations to developers (Dewar 2018), and how they depict violence (Miller 2009) or women and gender roles (Fisher 2015; Miller and Summers 2007; Summers and Miller 2014). Studies on the depiction of games in the mainstream media have focused on “violent computer games in the German press” (Sørensen 2013), the framing of gaming disorder (Parrott et al. 2020), or e-Sports (Hou, Yang, and Panek 2020). Aside from print media, the portrayal of games in German TV news (Bigl and Schlegelmilch 2020) has also become a target of academic inquiry. Partially due to commercial pressures that favor “bad news” over “good news” due to a higher “newsworthiness” (Bednarek and Caple 2017; Copenhaver, Mitrofan, and Ferguson 2017; Martins et al. 2013),

However, the first articles in which COVID-19 is explicitly linked to video games emerged in February (Japan and the United States) and March (Germany) 2020. 1

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previous studies often discern (and focus on) negative portrayals of games in news media: players are socially isolated; games are violent, addictive, and can lead to various health problems, such as obesity or deteriorating eyesight (Kowert, Griffiths, and Oldmeadow 2012; Whitton and Maclure 2017; Saguy and Almeling 2008). Bigl and Schlegelmilch (2020) recently found that the German TV coverage of video games is mostly accompanied by visuals of first-person shooter or action games, while Copenhaver, Mitrofan, and Ferguson (2017) indicate that lower-quality psychological studies that find a correlation between video game consumption and violent behavior in adolescents are more likely to be cited by the media than studies of higher methodological quality with different results (cf. Martins et al. 2013). This dramatization of games and gamers arguably results from commercial pressure, as media contents need to “sell” (Saguy and Almeling 2008). So far Williams’s (2003) framing analysis of US news magazines’ portrayal of games from the 1970s to 2000 and McKernan’s (2013) similar study of the New York Times coverage of games from the 1980s to 2010 remain the most systematic and comprehensive chronological accounts of how games and players are portrayed in mainstream news media. Both find that games were largely framed, or “vilified” (Williams 2003: 524), as a “social threat” up until the 1990s. Williams attests a “partial redemption” of games during the 1990s, while McKernan concludes that “by the end of the 1990s, video games are no longer a looming threat but simply one more type of children’s entertainment that parents must monitor” (2013: 325). Williams’ and McKernan’s studies are an account of how playing video games increasingly is portrayed as a “normal” activity in the US media. Aside from their potential as a “social threat” (Williams 2003), newspapers started to discuss games’ potential value for education, negotiate their artistic value, and acknowledge their potential to provide unique and powerful experiences (McKernan 2013: 321). However, both studies are limited to the US mainstream press and only cover a period up until 2010, while the more recent studies mentioned above are limited in scope, due to their focus on specific themes, such as violence or e-Sports. Cao and He (2021) recently provided a valuable insight into how games are portrayed in the Chinese newspaper People’s Daily since 1981. Like Williams and McKernan, they find that negative reports on games and their effects on players have become less frequent since the late 1980s, although they are still often framed as “poison to the youth” as of 2017. As the pandemic has highlighted, video game production and consumption practices are constantly evolving. With the proliferation of smartphones and digital modes of game distribution, the market has grown more global. A generation of people who grew up with video games are now active in society and raise a second (or third) generation of children growing up with this medium. In 2019, 65 percent of adult Americans had been playing video

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games for, on average, fourteen years (ESA 2019). As such, a re-examination of media discourses surrounding games is necessary to understand their evolving societal role locally and globally.

Method Article Selection and Collection The corpus analyzed for this study consists of all articles that include the term “video game” or a synonym, published between January 1, 2019, and December 31, 2020, from six widely circulated German, Japanese, and US national print newspapers (see Table 6.1). While a high circulation and corresponding high number of readers does not necessarily indicate that the selected newspapers best reflect public opinion, it does mean that they are widely read in their respective regions and do exert some influence on public debate, for example, through their capacity of agenda-setting (McCombs 2005). As of 2021, the German BILD and Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ), as well as the Japanese Yomiuri Shimbun and Asahi Shimbun, are the most widely circulated print newspapers in Germany and Japan, respectively (IVW 2022; Yomiuri Shimbun 2021). The USA Today (UST) is the most circulated newspaper in the United States, while the New York Times (NYT) is ranked third by circulation as of 2019 (Cision Media Research 2019). The Wall Street Journal (second by circulation) was discarded from the study due to its strong focus on business topics, which would impede comparability between newspapers and regions. I collected articles from the BILD, SZ, UST, and NYT through the newspaper online database Lexis Nexis and articles from Yomiuri and Asahi

TABLE 6.1  Number of Articles Analyzed per Newspaper and Period Germany BILD

SZ

Japan

USA

Total

Yomiuri Asahi

UST

NYT

2019

49

180

156

82

72

211

750

2020

30

136

155

87

72

241

721

Total

79

316

311

169

144

452

1,471

Source: Own study.

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TABLE 6.2  Search Algorithms for German, Japanese, and English Articles German

“Videospiel” OR “Computerspiel” OR “digitale Spiel” OR “digitales Spiel” OR “Handyspiel” OR “Mobile Game” OR “Onlinespiel” OR “Online Game”

Japanese

This is an alphabetical transcription of the Japanese characters used: terebigeˉmu OR dejitarugeˉmu OR sumahogeˉmu OR mobairugeˉmu OR seˉsharugeˉmu OR onraingeˉmu

English

“video game” OR “computer game” OR “mobile game” OR “digital game” OR “online game”

Source: Own study.

from their respective online archives. The configuration of search terms to select articles for inclusion in this study was refined in a process of trial and error to include (as far as possible) all articles mentioning digital games (video games, computer games, mobile games, etc.) while excluding articles that merely mention the term “game” in contexts not related to video games. As the first step, I collected all the articles that included the term “game” in the respective languages. I then identified the specific terms used in articles related to video games and gaming, such as “video game” or “computer game,” and utilized these terms to narrow down the sample of articles. Through a comparison of the samples by their headlines and skim reading of the main texts, I further refined the search algorithm when relevant articles were not included in the second sample. For example, I added the term sōsharugēmu (social game) to the Japanese search terms. Table 6.2 depicts the final search algorithms for each language. The final corpus consists of 1,471 articles of greatly varying length, ranging from thirty-eight (Yomiuri Shimbun) to 62,846 (NYT) characters, with a total of 8,117,569 characters.2 The article data, consisting of headline, author, date, text, and image captions, was transformed into CSV files and imported into MAXQDA, a software package for qualitative data analysis. MAXQDA provides an intuitive environment for assigning, keeping track of, and comparing codes (i.e., short labels summarizing content) across document sets (groups of articles). Articles were grouped by newspaper,

This is simply the sum of all characters in the corpus. However, it is difficult to meaningfully compare the number of characters and the length of articles between the Japanese writing system and German and English articles. 2

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period (2019 or 2020), and country to facilitate chronological and crossregional comparisons.

Thematic Analysis The analysis of articles methodologically builds upon Braun and Clarke’s six-phase approach toward thematic analysis, “a method for systematically identifying, organizing, and offering insight into patterns of meaning (themes) across a data set” (2012: 57). In the first phase, the researcher familiarizes themselves with the data by reading and rereading relevant texts. For the present study, I combined this phase with the generation of the search algorithms in Table 6.2. In the second phase, initial codes are generated, which form the basis for identifying overarching themes in the data during phase 3. Codes “identify and provide a label for a feature of the data that is potentially relevant to the research question” (Braun and Clarke 2012: 61). Through inductive coding I assigned short descriptive phrases that summarize how games or their players are depicted to each relevant text segment in an article. Often several codes are assigned to a single article, depending on its thematic range. Through a constant comparison between codes, I grouped thematically similar codes into categories and then thematically similar categories into parent categories to identify salient themes in the data (Saldaña 2013: 9–12). This creates a thematic index of topics in the corpus, easily traversable within the environment of MAXQDA. Text segments with similar topics can, for example, be directly compared with each other, and the frequency with which specific codes or categories are represented in the data is easily calculable. For example, five articles in the corpus mention how games enable communication with players located in foreign countries. I first assigned descriptive codes of low abstraction, such as “communicate with people from other countries” or “raid with players from the US,” to these text segments. Through a constant comparison of the codes, I then grouped them into a category “Intercultural Communication.” Again, through a constant comparison between codes and categories, I then grouped this category into a parent category “Communication/Social Spaces,” together with categories such as “Connect with friends” or “Parent/child communication.” Throughout the coding and categorizing process, I recorded the criteria for assigning a specific code in short memos to keep the process consistent. Phases 4 and 5 of the thematic analysis involved reviewing the identified themes by re-examining the original codes and data, as well as defining and naming the themes. As some salient topics only became evident later in the coding process, I conducted a second coding cycle (Saldaña 2013: 207–9) to ensure consistency in coding criteria and definitions. The final phase consists

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of writing up the research report, which is however based upon notes taken throughout the coding process. While Clarke and Braun’s thematic analysis is a qualitative approach toward data analysis, I also consider the frequency of codes when comparing themes across time periods and regions. Furthermore, I grouped codes for decidedly negative or positive portrayals of games and players into “code-sets,” that is, groupings of codes and categories independent from the hierarchical category-code system. This was done as a last step in the analysis to account for and visualize sentiment in the articles. The “negative” code-set includes codes and categories for text segments in which games or players are portrayed, for example, in relation to health problems, crime, violence, or as a danger to children. The “positive” set includes codes related to mentioned benefits of games, such as their ability to facilitate communication, provide opportunities for learning, or foster teamwork and social skills.3 In the following section, I first provide a quantitative overview of the thematic categories that emerged through the analysis and then discuss specific examples of text segments coded into these categories.

Results Definition and Quantitative Comparison of Thematic Categories Examining the frequency of assigned codes makes it possible to identify quantitative changes in topics mentioned in 2019 and 2020 and helps to expose which topics newly appear after the outbreak of the pandemic. Table 6.3 depicts the frequency of codes assigned to the ten most salient (i.e., most frequently coded) top-level thematic categories for articles in 2019 and 2020. The relative distribution of code frequencies per year suggests different thematic emphases in 2019 and 2020. The most frequently coded category overall is “Benefits of games.” In this category and its constituting subcategories, I sorted all codes for text segments mentioning perceived advantages and benefits of playing games, usually falling into one of six subcategories related to (1) games’ ability to facilitate communication or build communities, (2) their potential for facilitating learning, (3) the

These code-sets are independent of the hierarchical code system. For example, all text segments and codes related to gaming disorder or addiction are grouped into the thematic category “Addiction.” This category contains codes that I additionally sorted into the “negative” or “positive” code-sets. The code “APA refutes WHO” is grouped into the positive code-set, whereas the code “Game addiction and problematic spending practices” is grouped into the negative code-set. Text segments with no clear learning are not grouped into either code-set. 3

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TABLE 6.3  Comparison of Total and Relative Code Frequencies for the Ten Most Salient Thematic Categories for 2019 and 2020 Categories

2020

2019

245 (33%)

130 (15%)

375 (23%)

78 (10%)

170 (20%)

248 (15%)

103 (14%)

132 (15%)

235 (14%)

Describing games/players

73 (10%)

110 (13%)

183 (11%)

Addiction

53 (7%)

115 (13%)

168 (10%)

Crime/delinquency

56 (7%)

67 (8%)

123 (8%)

Business

71 (9%)

32 (4%)

103 (6%)

Social justice/political correctness

37 (5%)

53 (6%)

90 (6%)

Role of parents

23 (3%)

32 (4%)

55 (3%)

Serious games/gamification

12 (2%)

29 (3%)

41 (3%)

Benefits of games E-Sports Games and other media

Total

751 (100%)

870 (100%)

Total

1,621 (100%)

Source: Own study.

unique experiences they provide, (4) their use as a tool for managing players’ moods, (5) their role as a driver of technological advances, and (6) their capacity for raising players’ cultural awareness. While “Benefits of games” was only the third most frequently coded category for articles in 2019, in 2020 it is by far the most often coded category in the corpus, indicating a shift in the news coverage to discuss the positive potential of games during the pandemic. The second most frequently coded category is “e-Sports.” Several articles solely discuss e-Sports-related topics, such as its growing popularity, its infrastructure and modes of competition, or the lives of e-Sports athletes. This category appears particularly frequently in articles from 2019, but is also common in 2020, the main difference being that in 2020, e-Sports were also discussed as official or unofficial replacement for sports such as soccer, for which matches were canceled during the pandemic. “Games and other media” include all comparisons of video games to other media, such as books, movies, or board games. Such comparisons

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are often made to the benefit of video games, particularly in Germany and the United States, indicating an overall high contemporary acceptance of the medium. There are however no substantial changes in such mentions between the two time periods. The category “Describing Games/Players” subsumes all explicit normative descriptions of games and players, including negative stereotypes such as players being less athletic, less academically successful, or less social than nonplayers. “Addiction” includes all mentions of gaming disorder or “game addiction.” Due to a very high number of codes in the Japanese newspapers, it is the third most frequently coded category overall. This is largely due to the eleventh revision of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, which for the first time included “gaming disorder” as a recognized mental disorder in 2019 (WHO 2019). As I will show in the next section, German and US articles mention this revision comparatively rarely and appear rather critical of the term “gaming disorder,” while in Japanese newspapers, this spurred a series of dedicated articles on the causes and effects of “being addicted to games.” Interestingly, the outbreak of COVID-19 in 2020 led the WHO to recommend video games as a means for communication during times of social distancing, which was mentioned in articles in the NYT and UST, but not in Germany or Japan. “Crime/delinquency” subsumes all mentions of games or players in the context of actual crimes or delinquent behavior. This largely takes two forms: (1) games as a place for criminal conduct, such as for sex offenders searching for potential victims, and (2) mentions of crimes committed by people who play video games. The latter appears most frequently in conjunction with articles on shootings. There is no distinct qualitative or quantitative difference in this category before or after the outbreak of the pandemic. “Business” includes text segments that mention the financial situation, strategies, or practices of game developers—for example, monetization practices or changes in work environment due to the pandemic. The increased frequency of this category in 2020 is due to several articles mentioning the (commercially positive) effects of the pandemic on game developers. “Social justice/political correctness” includes codes related to toxic or misogynist behavior in games, or to the depiction of racial or sexual minorities. “Role of parents” consists of discussions and guides of what parents should be aware of when their children play and how they can/ should control their children’s interactions with games. Finally, “Serious games/gamification” includes texts that mention games explicitly designed and used for purposes besides entertainment. There is no clear quantitative difference discernible in these categories between 2019 and 2020. Examining code frequencies per region and year reveals regional differences in how games and players were portrayed in 2019 and 2020 (see

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Table 6.4). For example, “Addiction” is the most frequently coded category in the Japanese articles, while it appears far less salient in the German and US newspapers. On the other hand, the category “Social justice/political correctness” that appears comparatively prominent in US articles is far less frequent in the Japanese newspapers. The category “Benefits of games” was the most frequently coded category overall in the corpus, appearing more frequently in 2020 than in 2019 in all three regions. As Table 6.4 shows, this increase is largely due to an increase in mentioning games as safe substitute spaces for communication and social interaction during the pandemic (“Communication/social spaces”). This increase is stronger in German and US than in Japanese articles, where other subcategories of “Benefits of games” were coded less frequently in 2020 than in 2019. While there are also differences in the German and US portrayal of games and players, such differences are more pronounced between German and US articles on the one side, and Japanese texts on the other. Overall, games and players appear to be more negatively framed in Japan than in Germany and the United States. Table 6.5 shows the frequency of decidedly “negative” and “positive” portrayals of games and players across regions and periods. Codes were considered to be “positive” if concrete benefits of games are mentioned, for example, their potential for education, their role in facilitating safe communication during the pandemic, or their artistic value. “Negative” codes include all text segments where games are described as harmful, being a cause for addiction or mentioned in relation to crimes or delinquent behavior. Overall, articles appear to be more positive in 2020 than in 2019. In both periods, positive codes are more frequent than negative codes in Germany and the United States, while negative codes are more frequent than positive ones in Japan. This tendency also holds true when looking at the code frequency for individual newspapers in each country.

Qualitative Comparison: Consistencies and Differences before and after the Pandemic While a quantitative overview of thematic categories provides insights into the distribution of topics present in the corpus, a close reading is necessary to show how games and players were depicted before and after the outbreak of COVID-19 and how the pandemic influenced their portrayal. Below I focus on the most prominent differences in the articles from 2019 and 2020 in two salient categories “Benefits of games” and “Addiction” to show that while COVID-19 did influence articles on games and players, this did not drastically alter the trajectory of media coverage. Instead, while the new context provided by the pandemic, including limited physical interactions and an overall longer time spent playing, presented newspapers with ample

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TABLE 6.4  Total and Relative Frequencies of Seven Salient Thematic Categories for All Document Groups Categories

2020

2019

US

DE

JP

*Communication/ social spaces

84 (17%)

38 (6%)

60 (20%)

20 (8%)

42 (8%)

*Learning/gaining skills

42 (8%)

40 (7%)

16 (5%)

38 (15%)

28 (5%)

*Enabling experiences/ freedom

47 (9%)

18 (3%)

24 (8%)

20 (8%)

21 (4%)

*Mood management

45 (9%)

12 (2%)

37 (13%)

12 (5%)

8 (1%)

*Advance technology

12 (2%)

14 (2%)

10 (3%)

5 (2%)

11 (2%)

*Heightening cultural awareness

15 (3%)

8 (1%)

1 (0%)

2 (1%)

20 (4%)

E-Sports

78 (15%)

170 (29%)

53 (18%)

Addiction

53 (11%)

115 (19%)

10 (3%)

17 (7%)

141 (26%)

Crime/delinquency

56 (11%)

67 (11%)

17 (6%)

23 (9%)

83 (15%)

Social justice/political correctness

37 (7%)

53 (9%)

43 (15%)

33 (13%)

14 (3%)

Role of parents

23 (5%)

32 (5%)

16 (5%)

11 (4%)

28 (5%)

Serious games/ gamification

12 (2%)

29 (5%)

8 (3%)

18 (7%)

15 (3%)

504 (100%)

596 (100%)

295 (100%)

258 (100%)

547 (100%)

Total

59 (23%) 136 (25%)

Subcategories are shown for the “Benefits of games” category, marked by an asterisk. The document groups are not mutually exclusive, e.g., the documents in “JP2019” are also part of “JP” and “2019.” Source: Own study.

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US 2020

US 2019

141

JP 2020

JP 2019

DE 2020

DE 2019

Total

45 (26%) 15 (12%) 24 (11%)

18 (5%)

15 (12%)

5 (4%)

366 (11%)

10 (6%)

6 (5%)

9 (4%)

19 (6%)

23 (19%)

15 (11%)

246 (7%)

20 (12%)

4 (3%)

9 (4%)

12 (4%)

18 (15%)

2 (1%)

195 (6%)

29 (17%)

8 (6%)

8 (4%)

0 (0%)

8 (6%)

4 (3%)

171 (5%)

7 (4%)

3 (2%)

3 (1%)

8 (2%)

2 (2%)

3 (2%)

78 (2%)

1 (1%)

0 (0%)

12 (6%)

8 (2%)

2 (2%)

0 (0%)

69 (2%)

27 (16%) 26 (21%) 33 (16%) 103 (30%)

1 (1%)

18 (15%)

41 (31%)

744 (23%)

9 (7%) 47 (22%)

94 (28%)

5 (4%)

12 (9%)

504 (15%)

4 (2%) 13 (10%) 40 (19%)

43 (13%)

12 (10%)

11 (8%)

369 (11%)

23 (13%) 20 (16%)

4 (2%)

10 (3%)

10 (8%)

23 (17%)

270 (8%)

3 (2%) 13 (10%)

16 (8%)

12 (4%)

4 (3%)

7 (5%)

165 (5%)

7 (6%)

11 (8%)

123 (4%)

124 (100%)

134 (100%)

3,300 (100%)

1 (1%)

7 (6%)

4 (2%)

11 (3%)

171 (100%)

124 (100%)

209 (100%)

338 (100%)

351 (68%)

162 (32%)

513 (100%)

Positive

Negative

Total

Source: Own study.

2020

Codes

69 (24%)

214 (76%)

US

554 283 (100%) (100%)

272 (49%)

282 (51%)

2019

258 (100%)

74 (29%)

184 (71 %)

DE

526 (100%)

291 (55%)

235 (45%)

JP

169 (100%)

22 (13%)

147 (87%)

US 2020

114 (100%)

47 (41%)

67 (59%)

US 2019

217 (100%)

114 (53%)

103 (47%)

JP 2020

309 (100%)

177 (57%)

132 (43%)

JP 2019

127 (100%)

26 (20%)

101 (80%)

DE 2020

131 (100%)

48 (37%)

83 (63%)

DE 2019

3,201 (100%)

1,302 (41%)

1,899 (59%)

Total

TABLE 6.5  Total and Relative Frequency of “Positive” and “Negative” Codes per Document Group

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opportunities to write on games and players from a new perspective, this did not alter the overall argumentative thrust or the thematic range of articles. Quantitatively, the most salient difference between articles from 2019 and 2020 lies in the increase of references to the perceived benefits of playing games, particularly games’ potential as alternative safe spaces for social contact, the experiences and freedom they provide, and their role in managing players’ moods. However, even before the pandemic, particularly in Germany and the United States, these themes are already evident. For example, in May 2019 an article from the NYT titled “The Best New Social Network?” argues that one increasingly popular reason to play video games is “to spend time with friends,” as games are now “first and foremost designed as social experiences” (Suderman 2019). The German SZ remarks how games now frequently lead to long-lasting friendships, and the Japanese Asahi argues that “in games, age or language doesn’t matter. In the virtual space you partner up with people from all over the world to defeat an enemy together4” (Asahi Shimbun 2019b). Video games are depicted as social realities for their players that provide them with freedom, experiences, and social contacts they would otherwise not be able to encounter. A NYT article on the online gaming platform Roblox mentions that “[kids] often meet in simulated worlds with new users and team up to construct buildings or accomplish other tasks” that they are unable to do in “today’s world, [where] things are more organized” and where children follow instructions “even when they’re building stuff” (Sorkin 2019). The SZ finds that “communication between children today happens largely in virtual spaces” and that “video games are now, what soccer fields where in the past: places of encounter, to measure one’s abilities and to learn social skills” (Schmieder 2019b). The NYT, SZ, and the Yomiuri even mention therapeutic uses of games, as they are portrayed to potentially contribute toward their users’ mental health (Parker 2019; Schmieder 2019a; Yomiuri Shimbun 2019c). During the pandemic, such reports did not fundamentally change, rather they intensified. Due to social distancing and quarantine measures, games were no longer alternative spaces for social contacts; they were one of the only safe places to keep in touch with friends or family. As asserted in the NYT, “at a time when Zoom party fatigue is real … video games have emerged as another means of hosting a party during the coronavirus shutdown” (Prince 2020), with articles suggesting how best to “spice up quarantine” (Lawler 2020) through games. As the SZ reports, work teams hold meetings in virtual gameworlds and games now increasingly “take over functions that were originally held by cafés, bars or public spaces” (Bovermann 2020).

4

All translations from Japanese or German into English are by the author.

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While in the German and US articles from 2020 games are predominantly portrayed as “a reprieve from isolation” (Goodwin 2020), the “perfect stayat-home pastime amid [the] coronavirus pandemic” (Snider 2020), enabling us to “connect with friends” (Molina 2020), this stands in sharp contrast to many of the Japanese articles. Yomiuri and Asahi, while observing the same trend, paint the increase in time spent playing in a very different light. For example, although a clinical psychiatrist interviewed in the Asahi mentions that she “wants parents to know that some children find games to be an important means of connecting with friends and gaining a sense of accomplishment” (Asahi Shimbun 2020), the headline of the article, “How to Get along with the Internet and Games,” already reveals a somewhat cautious view. The Japanese Yomiuri appears particularly critical of the increased time children spend playing. In 2020, ten articles express concern that this will negatively affect children’s grades, athletic capabilities, and sleeping rhythms (e.g., Yomiuri Shimbun 2020d, 2020c), lead them to spend more money (Yomiuri Shimbun 2020b), and risk them becoming the target of criminal activities (Yomiuri Shimbun 2020a). In fact, the social affordances of games, and the communities that form in and around them, largely portrayed positively in German and US articles, are frequently framed as a threat in the Japanese newspapers, as this is seen as a contributing factor toward gaming disorder or “game addiction.” The WHO’s decision to designate “gaming disorder” in 2019 as a mental disorder did not receive widespread attention in the German and US newspapers. The German BILD did not directly report on it at all, while the SZ, while discussing other forms of addiction, mentions gaming disorder once, stating that there are “86,000 people in Bavaria addicted to games” and “there is little public attention paid to the personal tragedies that can emerge from gaming addiction” (Mittler 2019). The NYT critically examines the scientific basis for declaring gaming disorder a psychological disorder (Percy 2019), while in the UST, gaming disorder was mentioned in four articles. Among these, one focuses on drug addiction, only mentioning that “dad-deprivation is a significant predictor of the increasing rate of male suicide, drug overdose, obesity and withdrawal into video game addiction” (Farrell 2019), one depicts a push to “ban loot boxes” (Molina 2019), and one (Goodwin 2020) focuses on the potential of games as a place for social interaction during the pandemic, only mentioning at the very end: On March 28, the World Health Organization shared that it’s teaming up with major gaming companies such as Activision Blizzard, Zynga and Riot Games to launch #PlayApartTogether, an initiative that encourages healthy social distancing and hygiene guidelines. The WHO outreach to game companies is a turn from 2019’s labeling of video gaming addiction as a mental disorder. (Goodwin 2020, original emphasis)

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The final article (Snider 2019) briefly cites the WHO’s definition of gaming disorder, followed by four paragraphs emphasizing dissenting voices from health authorities, academia, and the games industry that “decried the move” as there was “not enough research to warrant the classification.” In contrast, throughout 2019 and 2020, Yomiuri and Asahi published a series of feature articles focused on describing gaming disorder and how to treat or prevent it, frequently with interviews or commentaries by (usually adolescent) victims or their families. Overall, they attest a “strong increase of gaming disorder among children” (e.g., Asahi Shimbun 2019a; Yomiuri Shimbun 2019d) and caution of negative effects, such as health problems, sleep loss, a drop in academic performance, social isolation, and financial problems. A frequently mentioned cause for children to “become addicted to games” lies in the social environment and communities they provide. For instance, one adolescent interviewed describes his experience of playing games as “having found a place to stay” (Yomiuri Shimbun 2019b), a sentiment echoed in other feature articles on addiction. An accepting social environment and peer pressure to improve one’s skills in the game to keep up with other players are made out as some of the main reasons for game addiction. While gaming disorder is framed as an “illness” that needs “treatment.” it is interesting to note that aside from parental control measures, such as limiting game time, the main thrust of such treatments is suggested to lie in “showing,” “creating,” or “realizing” that there is also “fun in the real world” (Yomiuri Shimbun 2019b, 2019e). To summarize, while the German and US newspapers are consistent in their overall positive portrayal of games before and after the pandemic, framing them as a valuable means of communication, this is seen more critical in the Japanese articles. The outbreak of the pandemic did not change the overall stance on games, evident in the articles; instead, it served as a chance to further present already present narratives. The pandemic only highlighted the already evident role of games as a new form of social reality and space for interactions. Before and after the outbreak of COVID-19, this has consistently been portrayed more critically in the Japanese than in German or US articles. Qualitatively, the influence of the pandemic on the portrayal of games and players therefore appears limited. While the pandemic provided new topics to discuss, such as guides on what to play during a shutdown, or news reports on e-Sports tournaments as a replacement for physical sports, the overall stances and portrayals of games and players remain consistent with their portrayal before the pandemic.

Discussion and Conclusion The task of this study was to examine how the outbreak of the pandemic influenced the portrayal of games and players in the news media in

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Germany, Japan, and the United States. The analysis of 1,471 articles from six newspapers yields the following picture. The outbreak of the pandemic and the associated changes in lifestyles in Germany, Japan, and the United States provided new stimulus for the media coverage on games. In some cases, this led to articles on themes not evident in 2019, but more often, the pandemic only seems to have brought already held views on games to the forefront, as pre-existing narratives remain largely consistent before and after the pandemic. The pandemic did not “accelerate” a shift in attitudes toward games; rather, it provided a catalyst to grasp these attitudes more easily by displaying them in a broader range of topics resulting from higher public attention on games. Although not discussed in detail here, articles on serious games and the benefits that games can provide, for example, to the disabled or for seniors appear in all newspapers in all three regions, and reviews on games or in-depth articles on game developers are also common. This highlights a higher social acceptance and greater proliferation of games, but also their changing role in society when compared to even a decade ago. However, the analysis also reveals a salient divide between German and US versus Japanese articles, particularly that Japanese articles appear more critical of games. While German and US articles, whether written before or during the pandemic, provide evidence to Williams’s (2003) and McKernan’s (2013) thesis of games becoming more “normal,” in the Japanese newspapers, particularly the Yomiuri Shimbun, they are frequently framed as a “threat” and as unsafe spaces that can lead to addiction. In addition, contrary to the German and US articles, the Japanese articles frame games as an activity primarily for children. There are various potential explanations for such differences. They can be an expression of differing views on games, either societal or held individually by the journalists, but also the result of different contextual factors and circumstances in the three countries. One potential factor could be the age of the journalists. It is usually not possible to pinpoint who wrote a specific article in the Japanese newspapers, as they are predominantly published without the authors’ names. However, according to Weaver and Willnat (2012: 531), Japanese journalists are on average 53.3 years old, the highest average among the thirty-one countries they compare. In contrast, both German and US journalists are on average forty-one years old. Arguably, articles in the German and US newspapers are more likely to be written by a journalist with gaming experience than the Japanese articles. I would however argue that a more critical approach toward games in Japan is not limited to journalists, but to some extent also evident in the broader public. For example, in April 2020 the regional government of Kagawa prefecture in Japan issued an ordinance asking parents to limit video game time for minors (below the age of twenty) to sixty minutes on school days and ninety minutes on weekends (Dooley and Hida 2020). While the

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regulation of video game contents is also frequently discussed in Germany and the United States, this measure, and the limited public resistance toward it, hints at a more paternalistic view toward games in Japan. The above ordinance was a direct response to the fear of a spread of gaming disorder. This leads to the question whether this ordinance, as well as the high number of Japanese newspaper articles on game addiction, might be the result of this simply being a comparatively greater problem in Japan than in Germany or the United States. I am not aware of any validated studies that compare the prevalence of gaming disorder in these three countries. However, Oka et al. (2021) find that the prevalence in Japan increased during the pandemic by 1–2.5 percent to about 4 percent of their sample (95 percent confidence interval: 3.9–4.2 percent). At least superficially, this appears consistent with a global meta-analysis with data from before the pandemic (Stevens et al. 2021) that finds a prevalence of 3.05 percent (95 percent confidence interval: 2.38–3.91 percent). Potentially, a greater sensitivity toward gaming disorder in Japan could also be a result from the country’s experience with “acute social withdrawal” (hikkikomori), which has been highly present in the Japanese media and, according to the Japanese Cabinet Office’s survey from 2016, affects at least 541,000 people in Japan (Tajan, Hamasaki, and Pionnié-Dax 2017). More frequent mentions of the benefits of games in the German and US newspaper articles, particularly frequent mentions of games as safe alternative social spaces, could be the consequence of a greater need for such spaces in both countries when compared to Japan. Japan reacted to the outbreak of the pandemic with what has been called a “mild” (Yamamoto et al. 2020) or “semi-lockdown” (Konishi et al. 2021). “State of emergencies” were declared at different periods of time for particular areas, for example, in April 2020 for Tokyo prefecture. The Japanese government did not impose strict lockdowns as common in Germany and many areas in the United States. Nevertheless, in Japan as well, social gathering was limited, travel was restricted, schools and universities closed or switched to online lessons, and telework spread. Particularly children in Japan, who usually spend most of a workday at school and after-school club activities, stayed home for extended periods of time. Japanese articles in the corpus mention this fact as well. Only, instead of depicting games as relevant substitute spaces for social contacts, they elaborate upon negative repercussions of gaming toward health or the risk of addiction. Results of this study are limited by the selection of newspapers and articles. Newspaper articles do not necessarily reflect public opinion or even dominant social discourses, and an inclusion of further media might alter the outcomes of the study. For example, online news sites such as Yahoo News, popular in Japan, might portray games in a more positive light due to a different target audience or perhaps even due to, on average, younger writers. However, it seems noteworthy that differences between newspapers

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within a region appear very limited, despite, for example, differing political stances and readerships of the UST and NYT in the United States, or the BILD and SZ in Germany. Finally, the results provide implications for further research. First, at least in the four Western newspapers examined, games appear to be more positively portrayed than has been previously stated. Albeit that negative stereotypes are not absent even in the German and US articles, the oftencited “negative portrayal” of games in the media arguably requires an update. While a critical examination of controversial topics related to games and players in the media remains, of course, an important venue for academic inquiry, scholars’ focus on such topics should be supplemented by more comprehensive studies, to better grasp the role games play in our contemporary societies. Perhaps, it would be prudent to study, for example, the freedom and various experiences games are portrayed to provide, in addition to studies of the portrayal of violence. By focusing on the latter, we risk falling into the same trap of favoring “bad news” over “good news” due to a higher newsworthiness that Bednarek and Caple (2017) observe. Second, this study has highlighted anew that there is no “global” media discourse on games. Regional and cultural differences in how we portray and interact with games are evident (e.g., Brückner 2020; Lee and Wohn 2012; Zagal and Tomuro 2013) and need to be considered when we, for instance, discuss the portrayal or role of games in society. Changes the pandemic brought to the portrayal of games in the media are conditional upon the changes the pandemic brought to our lifestyles. Germany, Japan, and the United States show similarities in this regard, as they are developed countries that, albeit to differing degrees and in different forms, adopted measures such as social distancing, remote work, or quarantine that limited physical social contacts. Including other regions that reacted differently in the study would likely lead to very different results and new perspectives on the role of games during COVID-19 and beyond. In particular, due to linguistic barriers, this study excludes China, the largest market for games in the world, but further research should attempt to elucidate gaming discourses in South American, African, or Southeast Asian countries to provide a holistic picture of how gaming discourses are shaped in different localities, how they differ, and how they connect with and influence each other.

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7 A Review of Studies on Location-Based Live-Service Games during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Players’ Behavior and Reluctance to Return to the Pre-pandemic State Samuli Laato, Bastian Kordyaka, and Juho Hamari

Introduction When the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 a global pandemic on March 11, 2020, multiple nations announced limitations to their citizens’ movements in order to restrict the spread of the disease. The movement restrictions were a particular challenge for location-based games (LBGs), as the core idea of these games is to play by moving in the real world, explore new places, and meet other people (Laato et al. 2020a, 2020b; Dunham et al. 2022). We saw LBG developers react quickly by introducing a wide variety of mechanisms that better accommodate remote and solo play. For example, in NextGames’ LBG Walking Dead: Our World (2018), players were given the option to explore the map on the back of a

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FIGURE 7.1  A timeline of key events related to in-game changes in Pokémon GO due to the COVID-19 pandemic (Dunham et al. 2022; Pokémon GO Live 2023).

motorcycle, effectively replacing walking in the real world with a joystick interface; in Ingress Prime (Niantic 2013), players were given the option to remotely scan key areas called portals, allowing play from home. The currently most popular LBG, Pokémon GO, saw multiple changes, such as cancelled community days, halved egg hatch distance requirements, increased spawn rates, doubled PokéStop interaction radius, remote raids (see Figure 7.1), and removal of walking requirements for the game’s player vs. player (PvP) battles (Dunham et al. 2022). While LBG players in general respected the pandemic safety measures, a handful of individuals made news by breaking lockdown restrictions to play Pokémon GO (Niantic 2016) (see, e.g., Anis 2020; Walker 2020). Once the most dangerous waves of the pandemic were over, governments began lifting movement and social meeting restrictions. Simultaneously we saw attempts from LBG developers to revert some of the changes they had implemented to help players play during the restrictions (Kacurov 2021). However, many of these changes did not go smoothly. For example, the world’s most popular LBG Pokémon GO reverted the point of interest (PoI) interaction radius back to prepandemic levels, which caused an uproar among the player community and ultimately led the developer to reinstate the expanded interaction radius introduced during COVID-19 (Laato and Rauti 2021; Silberling 2021). Players were reportedly unsatisfied with the decision to roll back the pandemic safety measures implemented to the game, not only due to health issues but also because they saw many of the changes as “quality-of-life” improvements (Silberling 2021). This is interesting as it suggests that active Pokémon GO players wish for less intensive location elements in the game, prima facie contradicting the fundamental tenets of the LBG genre. To investigate this matter, we conducted a systematic literature review of the academic studies on LBGs during the pandemic. To guide our literature search process and data extraction, we propose the following research questions (RQs):

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RQ1: What effects did the pandemic and related in-game changes have on LBG players’ behavior according to the academic literature? RQ2: What evidence does the academic literature offer regarding players’ reluctance to return to normal after the primary pandemic threat was over? Through addressing the RQs, we synthesize the academic knowledge on the role of LBGs during the pandemic and also provide insights into LBGs in general by invoking the context of the pandemic to understand player behavior. The remainder of this study is structured as follows. First, we discuss the background literature leading up to our literature review. We then detail our research methods followed up by the main findings. Finally, we discuss the implications and limitations of this research and propose avenues for future research.

Background Academic research on LBGs dates to early 2000s (Nicklas et al. 2001), but the genre saw significant commercial and mainstream success only fifteen years later in the summer of 2016, when smartphone technology, internet access, game technology, and satellite navigation had evolved to a point where the megahit Pokémon GO was ripe to be launched. This marked a boom in both the academic literature on the topic (Wang et al. 2021) and interest toward the LBG genre among the general population (Laato et al. 2019). Inspired by the design of pioneer games such as Shadow Cities (Grey Area 2010), Ingress Prime, and Pokémon GO, most of the currently popular LBGs are multiplayer live-service games. This means the game world is shared with other players and that the same game is maintained and steadily updated for years. For example, most of the popular LBGs listed by Baer et al. (2022) are such games: they have been released prior to 2018 and are still around and actively maintained. LBG research prior to the COVID-19 pandemic focused on understanding how the game influences players’ movement and exercise (e.g., Gabbiadini et al. 2018), social interactions and connections (e.g., Fonseca et al. 2021, 2022; Vella et al. 2019), and relationships with place and space (Low et al. 2022; Oleksy and Wnuk 2017), among other things. Interestingly, within these domains, research had already identified how for several players LBG playing was integrated into their daily lives. For example, according to Gabbiadini et al. (2018), Pokémon GO players were only more active than a comparison group due to game-related physical activity, meaning the health effects players got from the game were tied to that context. Similarly, Colley et al. (2017) demonstrated that Pokémon GO directs and influences players’ movement, and Bhattacharya et al. (2019) showed that the game facilitates social interaction and group formation for players in the form of raiding.

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In 2020 when the pandemic hit, due to quarantine measures and movement restrictions, live-service LBGs were pressured to change the way the games are played. However, they were also in the position of doing so, since the games were regularly updated in any case and actively maintained (Dunham et al. 2022; Laato et al. 2020b). One of these updates was remote raids, which as the name implies offered players to play remotely as opposed to having to attend specific locations in-person. Players were appreciative of the changes that LBG developers made in response to the pandemic (Ellis et al. 2020a; Laato et al. 2020a), and, for example, Pokémon GO proceeded to generate lifetime records of in-game revenue in both 2020 and 2021 (Statista 2023). However, as commented on by Hjorth and de Souza e Silva (2023), moving from the pandemic circumstances back to normal or a new normal is “the challenge of the decade,” and this also applies to LBG developers. In Figure 7.2 we show a timeline of key events pertaining to Niantic’s (i.e., the developer of Pokémon GO) endeavors to revert one of the changes they implemented in Pokémon GO during the pandemic, namely, the increased PoI interaction radius. After Niantic announced that they were reducing the interaction radius back to normal (Pokémon GO Live 2023), players first voiced their concerns and then went as far as organizing a “Pokémon NO day” on August 5, 2021, coupled with several highly liked and shared social media posts and videos protesting the change. Ultimately on August 25, 2021 Niantic announced that they would keep the PoI interaction radius the same (Laato and Rauti 2021). A similar situation was seen again in April 2023 (see Figure 7.2) when Niantic announced that they were moving away from remote raiding and increased the cost of remote raid passes and put a limit on how many can be used per day. Again, some players expressed that they were displeased with the situation. In order to understand these events and address the RQs, we conducted a systematic literature review of the academic studies on the topic. Next, we describe these processes followed up by our findings.

Materials and Method Literature Search Processes Methodologically this work is divided into two parts: (1) academic literature search and (2) data extraction and analysis. We followed the ROSES method (Haddaway et al. 2018) for the literature search process as suggested by recent literature reviews in the video game context (e.g., Krath et al. 2021). We began by screening for relevant literature on Elsevier’s Scopus research metadatabase. This database was selected since it is a robust and versatile collection of peer-reviewed research from major academic publishers such

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FIGURE 7.2  Two events where players expressed their dissatisfaction with reverting pandemic changes. First in 2021 players protested against the reduction of PoI interaction radius to pre-pandemic levels, and as an outcome, Niantic made the pandemic change permanent. A second case was seen in 2023 where players this time protested against a price hike and use reduction of remote raiding. However, this time Niantic did go through with the change.

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TABLE 7.1  Keywords Used in the Initial Search for Academic Literature Topic

Search Keywords

The COVID-19 pandemic

COVID-19, pandemic, global health crisis

Location-based games Pokémon GO, Ingress Prime, locative games, LBGs, pervasive games, location-based AR games, GPS games Source: Own study.

as Elsevier, IEEE, ACM, Wiley, Springer, Taylor & Francis, and Emerald. We began by gathering keywords related to both location-based gaming and the COVID-19 pandemic, which was done through our initial reading to the topic. These keywords are listed in Table 7.1. With these keywords, we conducted a search in February 2023 in Scopus by chaining keywords in the same topic with the “OR” operator and combining the two sets of keywords together with the “AND” operator. This search resulted in twenty-eight documents. The relatively low number of documents can be explained by the novelty of the topic and the accuracy of our keywords. As an example, including generic keywords such as “games” and “play” exploded the number of search results in February 2023 to over twenty thousand items (20,707 to be exact), making a manual screening process extremely challenging. For this reason, we opted for accurate, as opposed to broad search, keywords. Due to the manageable number of initially discovered documents (n = 28), we read each of them in full and applied the following inclusion criteria:

The study had to be written in English. The study had to be peer-reviewed (book chapter, conference paper, or journal article). The study had to focus specifically on LBGs during the pandemic.

●

●

●

After applying the inclusion/exclusion criteria, we were left with eight studies (Bhattacharya et al. 2021; Dunham et al. 2022; Ellis et al. 2020; Jumareng et al. 2020; Laato et al. 2020a, 2020b; Peaty and Leaver 2020; Saaty et al. 2022). To add robustness to the search, we then performed forward and backward citation chaining on these eight studies to ensure we did not miss any relevant studies. First, we screened the references of the eight studies for any potentially relevant studies, and then we used Google Scholar to probe whether there are newer relevant studies that cite one or more of the eight papers. The forward citation chaining resulted

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FIGURE 7.3  Summary of the literature search process.

in the discovery of Chen et al. (2022) and Hjorth and de Souza e Silva (2023) and Andrade and Nery Filho (2023). We then continued the process of forward citation chaining for these three articles, but did not discover any new relevant studies. All three studies were published in journals by SAGE Publishing. The entire literature search process is summarized in Figure 7.3. To connect the academic literature with concrete events, we referred to the official websites of the LBGs dealt in the academic literature, such as the Pokémon GO Live website (Pokémon GO Live 2023).

Data Extraction and Analysis We began the analysis of the sample of academic research (n = 11) by reading through all the articles to familiarize ourselves with the studies. We noticed that all of them dealt with Pokémon GO to some degree, and many studies (e.g., Dunham et al. 2022; Ellis et al. 2020; Saaty et al. 2022) focused specifically on Pokémon GO alone. Thus, we adjusted our focus toward Pokémon GO, using it as an example for analysis and drawing from the other LBGs to triangulate the findings and assist in understanding whether the findings within the academic studies are generalizable. We extracted information regarding the main research approach, whether the research was conceptual

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or empirical, study sample(s) (if relevant), and main findings. Regarding the two RQs, we recorded all the information that was related to LBG play during the pandemic. We made notes regarding the main findings and methods used to reach these findings. Finally, we extracted the limitations and future work sections from the studies and processed the findings of this study and the limitations within to derive the future research agenda for this topic. As we read through the academic literature, we observed a dearth of studies concerning the aspect of returning to pre-COVID normalcy. While some works (Hjorth and de Souza e Silva 2023) discussed this matter, these studies were conceptual in nature and not empirical. Regardless, the discovered studies offered a firm foundation for understanding how players reacted to the in-game pandemic changes and founded a backdrop against which the subsequent struggles to return to pre-COVID normalcy can be understood. The literature search and data extraction processes were carried out by the first author, supervised by the last author, and commented on by the second author. All authors participated in data interpretation and sensemaking regarding the final findings.

Findings As stated, the discovered academic literature on LBGs during the COVID19 pandemic (n = 11) was overwhelmingly focused on the most popular LBG in terms of monthly active users and generated revenue, Pokémon GO. Furthermore, the studies mostly used Pokémon GO as a vehicle for understanding human behavior during the pandemic times, as opposed to focusing on phenomena that would be completely unique to Pokémon GO. There was only one exception, a study which developed their own LBG and tested user reactions to that (Chen et al. 2022). The studies drew mostly from data collected at the beginning of the pandemic (e.g., Ellis et al. 2020; Laato et al. 2020a, 2020b; Peaty and Leaver 2020; Jumareng et al. 2022) and during the pandemic (Andrade and Nery Filho 2023; Dunham et al. 2022; Hjorth and de Souza e Silva 2023). One study conducted a comparison of before the pandemic vs after the pandemic (Saaty et al. 2022) (see Table 7.2). Several studies recruited participants through social media and ended up having global samples (Dunham et al. 2022; Ellis et al. 2020; Laato et al. 2020a, 2020b; Saaty et al. 2022). However, none of these samples were likely globally representative, due to the bias of collecting data through specific game-related social media channels. There were studies which collected data from one specific country, one from the USA (Bhattacharya et al. 2021) and one from Brazil (Andrade and Nery Filho 2023). Overall, the samples in all studies were skewed due to the recruitment avenues and methods. Thus, one future research avenue is testing the generalizability of the discoveries of the studies with globally representative samples.

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TABLE 7.2  Summary of the Research Approach, Methods, and Main Findings from the Eleven Academic Studies Focusing on LBGs in the Pandemic Context Study

Research Approach

Sample

Summary of Key Findings

Andrade and Nery Filho 2023

Understand 74 Brazilian Players were able to play remotely through an locative game through multiple means. First, online survey players they could spend real money on how players remote raid passes in Pokémon engage in GO, or similar features in other LBGs during locative games. Second, they the pandemic could also engage in location spoofing.

Bhattacharya et al. 2021

A two-week Eleven North During the pandemic Pokémon GO diary American players sought to maintain their study with players connection to the community Pokémon participated by shifting from in-person GO players in the diary meetings to asynchronous regarding study and ten online communication. Many their participants players relied on Pokémon GO experiences in subsequent for mental and physical health. of play codesign LBG design could benefit from during the sessions creating opportunities from pandemic, social construction of space followed up and accommodating multiple by codesign playstyles. sessions

Chen et al. 2022 The work Eighteen student The LBG MeetDurian was successful presents the participants, in the preliminary evaluation in design and twenty-one teaching about hygiene habits preliminary responses to a and understanding the COVIDevaluation survey 19 pandemic countermeasures. of an LBG The designed game achieved called these learning outcomes through MeetDurian an immersive design.

(Continued)

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Table 7.2 (Continued) Study

Research Approach

Sample

Dunham et al. 2022

Player 30 Pokémon interviews GO players of their experiences of play during the pandemic

Summary of Key Findings

The experiences of players can be broadly described within four themes: (1) socialization around the game, (2) play with family and friends, (3) relationships to place and space, and (4) coping with the pandemic via LBGs.

Ellis et al. 2020 A mixedA global sample Players’ physical activity decreased methods (n = 2002) due to movement restrictions, survey of Pokémon and over half of the survey approach GO players participants reported having probing recruited poor mental health as measured players’ through by the WHO Well-being Index. physical social media 77.2 percent of participants and mental posts indicated that video games (not health LBGs specifically) had a positive during the impact on their mental well-being pandemic during the pandemic. Hjorth and de An overview of A conceptual/ Souza e Silva the role and theoretical 2023 potential of study LBGs during the COVID19 pandemic Jumareng et al. 2020

During the pandemic, various alternative LBGs for Pokémon GO were designed, such as a “social distancing game” and a mobile game aiming to activate older adults and their pets.

An intervention Ninety-four Pokémon GO provided an effective group teenagers means of promoting physical playing from three activity among teenagers in high Pokémon high schools school during the COVID-19 GO vs. in Indonesia pandemic. In this study playing a control Pokémon GO significantly group; increased walking, moderate and measured even vigorous physical activity. effects on physical activity

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Sample

165

Study

Research Approach

Summary of Key Findings

Laato et al. 2020a

A cross855 Finnish Intensive Pokémon GO players sectional Pokémon GO had a small but significant survey players relationship with playing the measuring game socially. Players who rated the impacts the pandemic as severe, and of LBGs on players who were accepting socializing movement restrictions, were less likely to play Pokémon GO socially.

Laato et al. 2020b

Observation Reactions All observed LBGs made changes of changes to social to their game, providing more made to media posts affordances for remote play. LBGs due to (n = 20); LBGs impacted player movement the pandemic raiding activity during the pandemic also through and players’ in Finland changing the available raid bosses reactions in-game.

Peaty and Examination A conceptual/ Leaver 2020 of how theoretical Pokémon study GO changed during the COVID-19 pandemic through the lens of nostalgia

Pokémon GO served a purpose of being more than a game—a way of life. Much of the “Pokémon nostalgia” that Pokémon GO initially drew from revolves around physical movement, in-person social relationships, and outdoor exploration, all of which were negatively impacted by the pandemic.

Saaty et al. 2022

Social media comments could be viewed in three main topics: socialization, exploration, and exercise. During the pandemic, players gravitated toward virtual rather than in-person socialization. The pandemic as a whole moved the LBG experiences more from in-person toward the virtual, making LBGs resemble. “traditional” non-locative video games.

Reddit data 114,076 prescraping pandemic using comments Pushshift.io. and 96,620 analysis with postthe LDA pandemic machine comments learning on the r/ technique Pokémongo subreddit

Source: Own study.

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Transformation of Playing Habits during the Pandemic The inductive work within the discovered studies offered ways to categorize the effects of the pandemic on players. Dunham et al. (2022) proposed four categories relating to (1) social play; (2) playing with one’s family; (3) relationships with place and space; and (4) coping with the pandemic. The social media content analysis of Saaty et al. (2022) went with three categories: (1) social play; (2) exploration; and (3) exercise; which echo the work of Peaty and Leaver (2020) who discussed the same dimensions in their conceptual study regarding the effects of the pandemic on Pokémon GO players. Partially overlapping between these two conceptualizations was that of Bhattacharya et al. (2021) who focused on (1) exploration; (2) health; and (3) social play. In addition, there were studies looking at more specific effects of the pandemic on LBG playing, such as a study focusing on the effects on physical and mental well-being (Ellis et al. 2020); and a study focusing on players’ intention to play LBGs socially despite encouragements for self-isolation (Laato et al. 2020a). We have summarized the areas of investigation in the extant literature in Table 7.3. Effects on social play and socialization. Social play was the most discussed dimension among the discovered studies, being in the focus of empirical work in five studies (Andrade and Nery Filho 2023; Bhattacharya et al. 2021; Dunham et al. 2022; Laato et al. 2020a; Saaty et al. 2022) and mentioned in the others. First, it is critical to distinguish the effects of LBGs from the effects of government-imposed measures restricting social interaction. Governments were responsible for lockdowns, promoting or mandating the use of facemasks and encouraging people to stay in isolation (Farooq et al. 2021). There were restrictions on the number of people that could stay simultaneously in public places, and some businesses also set their own rules regarding social interaction. In this setting, it was natural that LBG developers also unanimously reacted by pivoting away from gameplay that require social interactions (Laato et al. 2020b). By doing so, LBGs enabled players to restructure and refocus their social LBG playing, not only from offline to online, but also from synchronous toward asynchronous (Bhattacharya et al. 2021; Dunham et al. 2022). While in the case of Pokémon GO some remote synchronous play opportunities, primarily remote raids were available from April 15, 2020, onward; much of the communication, chatter and banter that players had previously experienced in-person now switched to online forums, and WhatsApp, Telegram, and Discord groups (Bhattacharya et al. 2021). In summary, there were two key effects on players: (1) the switch from in-person playing to remote playing; and (2) the change from synchronous communication toward asynchronous. The switch to remote playing was partially forced by restrictions, and partially enabled by in-game changes

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TABLE 7.3  High-Level Categories of Areas of LBG Play That Were Impacted by the Pandemic and Subsequent In-Game Changes #

Effect Areas of the Pandemic and In-game Changes on LBG Players

Sources

1.

Social play, and socialization

Andrade and Nery Filho 2023; Bhattacharya et al. 2021; Dunham et al. 2022; Laato et al. 2020a; Saaty et al. 2022

2.

Exercise and movement

Ellis et al. 2020; Jumareng et al. 2020; Laato et al. 2020b; Saaty et al. 2022

3.

Exploration

Bhattacharya et al. 2021; Peaty and Leaver 2020; Saaty et al. 2022

4.

Health, well-being, and coping with the pandemic

Bhattachaya et al. 2021; Dunham et al. 2022; Ellis et al. 2020

5.

Place and space relationships

Dunham et al. 2022

Source: Own study.

to LBGs such as remote raiding (Dunham et al. 2022; Laato et al. 2020a). The partial shift from synchronous meetings toward asynchronous communication can be understood as a direct consequence of the lack of in-person meetings. The affordances of modern digital communication technologies nudge communication toward the asynchronous direction. These shifts created a new kind of social experience for Pokémon GO players, one Saaty et al. (2022) argue resembles more traditional video games and no longer makes best use of the locative elements of LBGs. Effects on exercise and movement. Prior to the pandemic, the impacts of LBGs on exercise were one of the most studied research topics, with multiple literature reviews (e.g., Baranowski and Lyons 2020; Khamzina et al. 2020; Lee et al. 2021) conducted on the topic. These studies indicate that LBGs such as Pokémon GO in general provide a significant increase in mild exercise in the form of walking, but do not increase moderate or strenuous physical activity. The work of Ellis et al. (2020) demonstrates that early in the pandemic players globally reported significant decreases in their physical activity, while reporting to play more video games. This makes sense as people were encouraged, or in some countries even forced to selfisolate (Farooq et al. 2021). Furthermore, as people in many professions and

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activities transitioned toward remote work and participation, daily activities such as commutes and travel become less frequent. Interestingly, Laato et al. (2020b) showed that in countries such as Finland which have a low population density and had no restrictions on outdoor movement, players kept on participating in in-person raiding also during the early stages of the pandemic, even increasingly so than prior to the pandemic. This highlights how while on the global scale the effects of the pandemic on LBG players’ physical activity were largely negative, there existed differences between countries. Indeed, Jumareng et al. (2022) demonstrated that during the pandemic LBGs could be used to increase players’ physical activity when leveraged to do so, and demonstrated this in the context of Brazilian students. Saaty et al. (2022) also note that there were differences in the impacts of the pandemic (and related in-game changes) on players in urban and rural areas, as well as between able-bodied and disabled players. To summarize, the effects of the pandemic changes on movement likely varied from region to region and player to player depending on a multitude of factors. The pandemic can be framed as a gigantic stir of the soup, where statistically players exercised less (Ellis et al. 2020) but there were significant individual differences that are worth considering. Effects on exploration. Without externally imposed movement restrictions, exploration is one of the key implicit activities facilitated by LBGs (see, e.g., Laato et al. 2022), but during quarantine, players were handicapped and could no longer move around at will. Saaty et al. (2022) and Peaty and Leaver (2020) both bring up exploration, arguing along these same lines that it is a central part of the experience, particularly in Pokémon GO. While not explicitly measured, there is circumstantial evidence within the eleven studies that the pandemic may have actually increased players’ exploration of novel areas. The mechanism is that since many players transitioned to remote working, studying etc., they no longer traveled typical routine paths. Instead, they were freer to explore novel locations, and locations with fewer people. However, future research is needed to confirm this. Bhattacharya et al. (2021) report on the findings of a codesign workshop on exploration, illustrating multiple ways in which Pokémon GO could be improved to better scaffold exploration. Among the suggestions were virtual exploration and the sharing of location history, presenting remote and asynchronous forms of exploration respectively (Bhattacharya et al. 2021). This demonstrates that while LBGs may prima facie be all about in-person synchronous exploration, the pandemic provided a catalyst for reimagining exploration by utilizing both asynchronous and remote mechanics, while still being tied to the core ideas of the genre. Effects on health, well-being, and coping with the pandemic. In the study of Ellis et al. (2020), more than half of the participants reported that they were suffering from poor mental health. While this may be alarming, descriptions of declining mental well-being were reported among the general

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population during the pandemic (e.g., Panchal et al. 2021; Samji et al. 2022; Vindegaard and Benros 2020) meaning this is not a problem specific to LBGs and Pokémon GO. In fact, a central theme in the work of Dunham et al. (2022) was that Pokémon GO offered players a way to cope with the pandemic. There were multiple mechanisms through which this occurred. First, Pokémon GO offered players goals to strive for and meaning. It was a fictional world where players could escape the worries of the world into. Second, Pokémon GO offered a structure to players’ daily lives. There were certain tasks and activities players could do daily, and this structure was important to, for example, family-oriented players who now had a reason to leave their house. All in all, while players’ mental well-being declined during the pandemic (Ellis et al. 2020), LBGs such as Pokémon GO continued to offer structure and meaning to players’ lives. Effects on place and space relationships. The only study in the sample that empirically explored space and place relationships specifically was Dunham et al. (2022). In their paper, Dunham et al. (2022) provide examples from player interviews demonstrating that in addition to quarantines and restrictions, players were restricted from going to public places through social unspoken rules. As players were hence restricted in their movement, their daily routines disintegrated, players found new ways and areas to play in. Dunham et al. (2022) highlight how people around the world experienced the changes differently. Some were completely denied from leaving their home for extended time periods while others were freer to find exercise and solitude in new areas such as forest and nature. Ultimately, the pandemic significantly altered the way people experience their surroundings and nudged some to find new elements and insights in the places around them. Other effects and potential effects. There were two studies (Chen et al. 2022; Hjorth and de Souza e Silva 2023) which presented ad hoc new LBGs for addressing some of the pandemic concerns. These included LBGs for social distancing and exercise (Hjorth and de Souza e Silva 2023) and a game for improving players’ hygiene habits (Chen et al. 2022). These studies demonstrate the versatility and potential of the LBG genre and show how both (1) behavioral, and (2) learning goals can be reached by combining elements intrinsic to the LBG genre such as movement in the real world with the intervention goals such as educational information about hygiene habits.

Understanding the Reluctance to Return to the Pre-pandemic Game Mechanics Many of the discovered studies (Bhattacharya et al. 2021; Dunham et al. 2022; Laato et al. 2020a; Laato et al. 2020b; Peaty and Leaver 2020; Saaty et al. 2022) highlighted the importance of in-person socialization and physical activity for Pokémon GO players prior to the pandemic and showed

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that the movement and socialization restricted imposed by governments fundamentally changed the status quo for LBG players. It is clear from Statista (2023) that players continued to play roughly the same amount during the pandemic, and hence, learned to structure their playing around the new mechanics and in-game rules. From previous research on consumer behavior, we find that there is a cost, sometimes discussed as inertia or status quo bias, when switching from one way of operating to another (Talukder et al. 2021). Since we found from the literature that players are structuring their entire family activities, exercise, social interaction among others (Dunham et al. 2022) around the game, this cost can feel huge to players. From this, we can form our first implication: • Implication 1: Players reoriented their playing around the new mechanics of the pandemic. The reversion of these mechanics would have required players to again renegotiate playing as part of their daily lives. Another factor explaining Pokémon GO players’ reluctance to revert the increased stop interaction radius, is that the pandemic change made playing more convenient (Dunham et al. 2022). Prior research has shown that players sometimes change their movement patterns due to LBGs (Colley et al. 2017), but with a larger PoI interaction radius players were less often required to do so. This made playing while walking to a specific location smoother, and also helped players to play more optimally while in the company of other people. Thus, we form our second postulation: • Implication 2: Players were reluctant toward reverting those pandemic changes which made their playing more convenient. Lastly, prior research has shown that Pokémon GO players are driven largely by a need to progress in the game (Alha et al. 2019). Many of the pandemic changes accelerated this progression. Furthermore, the increased Stop interaction radius enabled players to more easily stock up on Poké Balls, items that are needed to participate in the primary game loop of Pokémon GO which is catching Pokémon. If players run out of Poké Balls, they can purchase more with the in-game currency. This relates particularly to the dimension of exploration (Bhattacharya et al. 2021; Peaty and Leaver 2020; Saaty et al. 2022), since stocking up on Poké Balls is often a requirement to go out into new uncharted territory such as nature trails. Thus, the pandemic changes offered players a concrete monetary benefit: • Implication 3: The increased PoI interaction radius offered faster progression which even in some instances could be measured in in-game currency.

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On top of these three implications, it is worth examining briefly the reasons why players initially were more positive toward the pandemic changes. First, the quarantines and restrictions originated from governments, not LBG developers. Thus rage, if any, was directed toward governments and not LBG developers. In fact, the literature shows that LBG players were largely positive and accepting toward LBG developers’ initial changes (Laato et al. 2020a). Second, the initial changes were justified by protecting people’s health. Thus, there was a strong reason to make the changes. Third, as discussed, the changes made playing more convenient (increased stop interaction radius) and accelerated progression (e.g., remote raids). From here on, it remains a huge challenge for LBG developers to return back toward in-person interaction and synchronous communication, as noted by Hjorth and de Souza e Silva (2023).

Discussion Implications of the Findings Our study has theoretical and practical implications on LBG design and on furthering our understanding of human behavior during and after the pandemic. Next, we discuss these implications. Regarding LBG design we summarize the key implications as follows. First, Pokémon GO players mostly play the game while they go about their daily real-world activities. It is important to allow players freedom to move without the need to accurately navigate to specific locations. This suggests that the increased PokéStop interaction radius was a good design choice, even without the pandemic context. Second, the social elements appear significant to players throughout the academic literature on Pokémon GO during COVID-19 (see, e.g., Bhattacharya et al. 2021; Laato et al. 2020a; Saaty et al. 2022), highlighting the importance of creating gameplay where players can meet each other for various meaningful activities. Third and finally, the progression-focused design of Pokémon GO (Alha et al. 2019) creates a dynamic where players are incentivized to arrange their playing in a way where they get to spin the most PokéStops, raid the most gyms and catch the most Pokémon, as opposed to focusing on, for example, the real-world environment or the game experiences. We argue that while goals and progression can be motivating, Pokémon GO and other LBGs should constantly try to also direct players’ attention to the real-world environments, story, and play. Regarding the implications on human behavior during and after the pandemic, our main contribution is offering a synthesis of the entire LBG research literature during this time. We contribute to the literature discussing “the new normal” (Barnett et al. 2021) after the pandemic by demonstrating

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the existence of friction toward reverting to the status quo that existed prior to the pandemic, and attributing this to changes that made people’s lives more convenient. This study also offers perspectives on the literature surrounding games during the COVID-19 pandemic by elucidating the unique position that the LBG genre had among all video games.

Limitations and Future Work The future research directions proposed in the eleven studies revolved largely around addressing the limitations of their work. Examples include studying the situation with other LBGs besides Pokémon GO (Saaty et al. 2022), increasing the number of participants and other sampling methods for better reliability and for exploring cultural differences (Bhattacharya et al. 2021; Ellis et al. 2020; Laato et al. 2020a), improving the rigor of the research setting (Andrade and Nery Filho 2023; Ellis et al. 2020; Laato et al. 2020b) and simply studying the topics further with alternative methods (Dunham et al. 2022; Laato et al. 2020b). Taken together, it seems clear there are limitations in the extant research, and we summarize addressing these in future research in Table 7.4. Furthermore, there were also a few unique ideas arising from the research, which we also list in Table 7.4. Furthermore, players’ expectations of what their game “ought to be like” are shaped by various external factors, not only their intrinsic preferences and the opinions of their social reference group. For example, in the case of the Cyberpunk 2077 (CD Projekt Red 2020) news agencies propagated hype for the game, and the lack of a critical attitude created unrealistic positive expectations, which then ultimately contributed to player dissatisfaction with the final product (Siuda et al. 2023). In the case of Pokémon GO players’ negative response to rolling back some of the pandemic changes, social media and news agencies played a significant role in shaping the narrative and story surrounding players’ sentiments. Thus, we also encourage future research to focus on these aspects, and the complex interplay between the various stakeholders involved in the formation of attitudes toward liveservice games and changes to them.

Conclusion The key lesson to be learned from LBGs during the pandemic is that these games have become intertwined with players’ social lives, daily routines, and habits. For example, alterations to Pokémon GO forces players to reorient their lives, exercising and socialization, and in some circumstances in-game changes can cause friction. Further negative sentiment when attempting to revert pandemic changes may have been caused by the fact

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that Pokémon GO players are primarily motivated by progression (see, e.g., Alha et al. 2019) and rolling back pandemic in-game changes slowed down players’ pace in achieving their goals. In other words, the initial changes were better accepted since they were both convenient and necessary for players. By contrast, the later attempts to roll back the changes meant the reintroduction of some inconvenience for the players. To mitigate players’ reluctance toward rolling back features or even introducing new content, LBG developers could observe their players’ lived experiences from the perspectives of convenience and the integration of playing into the players’ daily lives. In practice, we propose to pay attention to particularly two things. First, location-based live-service game developers should accept some of the “power creep” in their game and introduce new mechanics with slightly bigger rewards. For example, Pokémon GO developers could

TABLE 7.4  The Future Research Agenda on This Topic Based on the Literature Review #

Proposed Future Research Direction

Source

1.

Explore hybrid LBG options that mix synchronous communication with asynchronous, and remote participation with in-person experiences

Saaty et al. 2022

2.

Further explore the mechanisms through which LBGs Dunham et al. 2022 are used by players to cope with stressors in their lives and improve mental health

3.

Empirically test the implications derived in this study Literature review regarding players’ reluctance to revert the pandemic conducted in this changes study

4.

Study whether the pandemic increased players’ Literature review exploration of new areas since they were freed from conducted in this their daily routines to a degree study

5.

There is a lack of research focusing on the transition from the pandemic situation back to normal in terms of LBGs

6.

Findings in the discovered literature were drawn from Literature review samples recruited through social media. Future conducted in this work should test whether similar findings emerge study with other samples.

Source: Own study.

Literature review conducted in this study

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shift their attention to developing new mechanics that require in-person socialization and exercise, as opposed to simply removing mechanics that do not. Second, location-based live-service game developers should carefully consider whether some of the changes made to their game (such as the doubled PokéStop interaction radius in the case of Pokémon GO) improved the playing experience. Equally important is to know when it is possible to get rid of mechanics that did not improve the playing experience for the overall player population in the long run.

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8 Pandemic Gaming and Wholesome Philosophy: How New Players Reimaged Gaming Practices Noel Brett and Sasha Soraine

Over the pandemic, Animal Crossing: New Horizons (AC:NH) (Nintendo 2020) became incredibly popular, garnering attention from journalists and academics alike. While the game was discussed for its wholesome and friendly nature, we saw multiple comments in the online community like: “Sounds like it’s really not the game for you. I’d recommend you just … stop playing” (r/AnimalCrossing user 2022). These comments were directed at people criticizing the game, often referencing changes they wished to see to improve the experience. While individual comments seem innocuous, they belie an insidious message: real Animal Crossing fans do not feel this way, and therefore you are not really one of us. We (Noel and Sasha) are long-time gamers and fans of the AC (Nintendo 2002) franchise. Rhetoric of who are or are not real members of an online community was not new to us, but we were intrigued by the almost friendly way that it manifested in this community. In traditionally hardcore spaces, like the League of Legends (LoL) (Riot 2009) community, we are accustomed to seeing these kinds of conversations taking a more active and aggressive form, such as: “maybe instead you should not fucking die and avoid fights that you have low chance of winning” (r/leagueoflegends user 2020).

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While unique in presentation, both are examples of toxicity. Toxic behaviors include actions such as incivility (i.e., name-calling, aspersions, lying, vulgarity, and pejorative remarks) (Coe, Kenski, and Rains 2014), trolling, harassment, and cyberbullying (Rajadesingan, Resnick, and Budak 2020). Both comments question the legitimacy of another player in the community based on their game-playing behavior and desires. AC’s toxicity is less immediately apparent than LoL’s, partly because understanding behavior as toxic is subjective (Aroyo et al. 2019); communities have their own practices, so what is understood as acceptable differs between spaces. If toxicity is a process unique to each subculture, why then is it easy to see LoL as toxic and not the behavior of AC players as the same? One potential reason is that LoL is understood as “hardcore” (Kenreck 2012) and AC as “casual” (Holman 2020). Historically, gaming positioned itself as a Hardcore-Casual dichotomy. Academic work looked to define the demographics, desires, and behaviors of Hardcores (Fritsch, Voigt, and Schiller 2006; Kapalo et al. 2015). Whereas, Casual “appeared specifically in contrast to the idea that video games could only be made for a hardcore game audience” (Juul 2012: 26). This approach to understanding players is based on typologies that capture motivations of play (Parks Associates 2006; Quantic Foundry 2021), but the usefulness and validity of these typologies have been criticized (Hamari and Tuunanen 2014). However, these views of “hardcore” and “casual” persist and cloud our ability to see how gaming practices crossover between these groups in culture-specific ways. “Hardcore” and “casual” represent both playstyles (i.e., behaviors and practices) and gamer identities (Mayra 2008: 40). Community ideologies, like gaming labels, and playstyles are formed through social processes and gameplay (Brett 2021) which exist within hierarchies of power that influence an individual’s practices and their use of these terms (Galinsky et al. 2003). Therefore, self-identifying labels like “casual” and “hardcore” signal specific values and position within the larger gaming culture. The use of toxicity to re-establish group identity and belonging is clear in these example comments from AC and LoL players. As community practices are collectively formed through the players who engage online, the COVID-19 pandemic had significant effects on these ideologies due to the large migration of people into these spaces. More specifically, safety measures, like lockdowns, led people into online gaming spaces for the purpose of safe entertainment and socialization (Cranmer et al. 2021). In this way, people from other gaming communities with their own practices, as well as those new to gaming entirely, suddenly converged on these spaces. This created threats to existing group labels as new players challenge their norms and practices, creating frictions that are felt through toxicity practices. But to what extent has this COVID-19-inspired global migration of players to online spaces impacted the connotations of identity labels and community practices?

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We situate our study on gaming identities in the context of the AC and LoL communities based on their pre-existing relationships to the Casual and Hardcore labels, respectively. Additionally, each franchise released new titles during the pandemic—AC:NH (Nintendo 2020) and League of Legends Wild Rift (WR) (Riot Games 2021). Our goal is to illustrate how COVID-19 affected and changed gaming practices and by extension identities via the mass migration of people to games and gaming culture. Moreover, we draw from it generalized theories on the state of these changes, which refutes labels as static stereotypes. Instead, we argue that these labels are embodied ideologies designed by a set of practices collectively built by the gaming communities, felt and practiced by individuals. We examine these communities through their presence on Reddit, recognized as “a location for larger gaming-related discourse” (Bergstrom and Poor 2021). By tracing a historical account of the effects of the COVID19 pandemic within gaming, we observe three ways the pandemic became an active player in changing gaming culture. Firstly, the large influx of players defied the “hardcore” and “casual” gaming categories by bringing in new practices into these spaces. Secondly, this influx fashioned a fresh gaming hierarchy, producing different flavors of toxic practices in otherwise wholesome and supportive communities. This complicates the notion of gamer toxicity and underscores the need for a more nuance understanding of toxic practices. Finally, we identify the concept of the “Wholesome Gaming Philosophy” from the rise of supportive gamers as a community practice to resist the hierarchies imposed by toxic gamers.

A Ground to Stand On We use constructivist grounded theory as a framework for understanding social processes, leveraging its “systematic, yet flexible guidelines for collecting and analyzing qualitative data” (Charmaz 2014). Grounded theory combines data collection and analysis, allowing for theories to emerge organically from our investigation process. As constructivists, we recognize that social practices and processes construct phenomena, and that our positionality influences our interpretations, analyses, and the communities we are studying. Grounded theory’s entangled data collection and analysis allows us to capture the nuances of the social processes we are studying through our interpretations and relationship to the subject matter. Hence, we craft an interpretive inductive theory from the qualitative data to explain general changes we see in these social processes, resulting in a generalizable qualitative theory (Carminati 2018). The rest of this section demonstrates our methodological process. We explain the decisions behind our search protocols, how we interpret the data, and specific limitations of the methodology.

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Searching (Reddit) Far and Wide We scoped our search to include the two biggest general gaming subreddits (r/games, and r/gaming), two generalized gaming subreddits (r/ truegaming and r/girlgamers), the general subreddit for Nintendo Switch users (r/nintendoswitch), and game-specific subreddits for both LoL and AC franchises. Table 8.1 summarizes the subreddits we examine in this chapter. We conceptualize broad trends and changes in gaming identities before and during the COVID-19 pandemic by dividing our search into two time periods pre-pandemic (January 1, 2019, to January 30, 2020) and pandemic (February 1, 2020, to May 31, 2021). This division creates historical snapshots of the AC, LoL, and gaming communities. We based these dates on the timeline of COVID-19 measures in our geographical location (Ontario, Canada). The identified “pandemic” period covers Ontario’s school and work closures, supply shortages, lockdowns, social distancing, masking requirements, and vaccine rollout. We assert that these dates do

TABLE 8.1  Subreddits Used in the Study Subreddit

Established Date

Total Members

Specific or General?

r/games

May 5, 2008

3.1 million

General

r/gaming

September 17, 2007 34.0 million

General

r/truegaming

May 1, 2011

1.3 million

General

r/wildrift

September 9, 2019

130, 000

Specific

r/animalcrossing

April 13, 2010

1.8 million

Specific

r/animalcrossingnewhor

February 9, 2020

230, 000

Specific

r/acnh

June 11,2019

85, 000

Specific

r/girlgamers

January 5, 2010

186, 000

General

r/nintendoswitch

October 26, 2016

4.2 million

General

r/leagueoflegends

January 13, 2010

6 million

Specific

Source: Own study.

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not significantly impact our results as time periods correlate to the global experiences of the pandemic. We searched for any posts containing or tagged with “hardcore” and “casual” within the subreddits in Table 8.1. We used Google to perform our search and reference the posts we found against Unddit. Unddit is a tool that archives snapshots of Reddit threads, including all posts and comments, current and deleted. We standardized our Google searches as: site:www. red​dit.com/r/* [“hardcore” OR “casual”] AND [$]‌, where * represents the specific subreddit being searched and $ represents the game names. For example, the search for AC on r/games was: site:www.red​dit.com/r/games [“hardcore” OR “casual”] AND [“Animal Crossing”]. Using this search method, we manually examined 2,723 posts (920 pre-pandemic; 1,803 pandemic) for content and relevancy.

Encoding Data Having scoped and defined our search process, we began to collect and analyze the data. Due to the contextual nature of the data, we manually coded and analyzed all posts and comments. We approximated this nonlinear process in Figure 8.1. Before the manual coding process, we cataloged the text’s basic infor­mation (i.e., which subreddit it came from, when it was posted, who posted it, its number of upvotes and comments). We then summarized our interpretations of the text’s meaning and general sentiments from the comments. During this readthrough, we highlighted instances that we thought would be meaningful to the Hardcore-Casual discussion based on our familiarity with existing work. For example, we noted gendered language since non-male-identified players are less likely to self-identify as gamers or Hardcore (Shaw 2012). We then began manual coding (see “Manual Coding” in Figure 8.1). Our initial coding process relied on our knowledge of existing Hardcore and Casual elements from literature. Consider an example: “no, only people who still play their Animal Crossing [Nintendo 2002] save on Gamecube can be considered real gamers” (r/gaming user 2019). We coded this comment as “casual,” “hardcore,” “realness,” and “gamer identity.” Code words cover both implicit and explicit discussions of the concepts, allowing for a robust encoding of the data. For our example, “realness” and “gamer identity” are explicit in the text, “casual” and “hardcore” are implicit based on the perception of AC as “casual,” which is associated with “not real” (Consalvo and Paul 2019). We deemed these code words sufficient in conveying the contextual meaning of this comment. With more detailed texts, we pulled out new concepts and refined our codes (see “Code Refinement” in Figure 8.1). For example, we coded multiple posts from LoL as “try hard,” “smurf,” and “noob,” which were

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FIGURE 8.1  Data processing and analysis process.

different from existing “hardcore” concepts. With these new codes, we needed to conduct a retrospective analysis of the previously coded data to check whether these new codes had been inadvertently omitted. Upon completing the coding process for a given post, we initiated a preliminary analysis of the resulting data (see “Preliminary analysis” in Figure 8.1). This involved the categorization of related codes into distinct groupings. For example, we grouped the codes “try hard,” “smurf,” and “noob” under the overarching category of “Competitive,” given their shared descriptors of similar practices and behaviors. Throughout the coding process, we regularly adjusted and modified groupings and categories to incorporate new information as it emerged from each post. We excluded any data that failed to add new insights through new codes, groups, or categories relative to existing coded data. Our body of data was thus reduced to 153 coded posts (fifty-six pre-pandemic; ninety-seven

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pandemic) and 46,061 coded comments (12,995 pre-pandemic; 33,066 pandemic). The manual elimination of duplicate posts gave us insight into the multiplicity of recurring discussions, interactions, and practices across various communities, which in turn influenced our theories. We then began a secondary analysis focused on the relationships between categories (see “Secondary Analysis” in Figure 8.1). If these relationships revealed new code words, we returned to coding. Otherwise, we proceeded to theory-crafting (see “Theory-Crafting” in Figure 8.1). Theory-crafting allows us to contextualize and explain the trends around the category relationships for each era. We then construct these theories by comparing the themes between pre-pandemic and pandemic times. An example of a theme from secondary analysis is the “casualization” of LoL and its relation to the “Competitive” category. “Casualization” feeds into our theory of realness and identity by explaining the existing social power structures present in the LoL community. This process of analysis and theory-crafting is iterative, involving numerous revisions and adjustments in response to new data. The primary focus of our work involves the explanation of our analyses and theories.

Limitations and Considerations The main limitation in our work is the perceived subjectivity of our interpretations and research choices. As a researcher’s positionality and relationship with the subject matter changes, their interpretations of the data may also be affected. A complicating factor is that there is “no standard approach [which] governs how subreddits for game franchises are handled” (Bergstrom and Poor 2021). Subreddit organization, use, and terminology, is community-specific. This leads to questions about the choice of subreddits, and interpretation of the community discourse. We mitigate this factor by being taking steps to increase transparency regarding our relationship to the communities. This transparency and positionality of our relationship to the communities serves to offset the issue of community-specific communication. We each played AC and LoL and participated across many different gaming forums (including Reddit). Soraine has engaged with the online AC community since 2002; Brett has engaged with the online LoL community since 2011. As long-term community members, we have comprehensive understanding of the implicit meanings in these communities. As a result, we can provide in-depth explanations through our interpretations. Moreover, Reddit has an overrepresentation of North American cultures, with 54.49 percent of overall traffic coming from the United States and Canada (Bianchi 2023). As North American researchers, our positionality overlaps with the Reddit communities we are studying, allowing for more robust data interpretation.

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Toward Theory The following sections explore two threads from the data: the creation of new group identities from shifting gaming practices, and their relational power structure. To add transparency and mitigate subjectivity, we tell the story of these communities in their own words, through quotes from their discussions. To preserve their privacy, we present their quotes anonymously mentioning only the subreddit it came from and year. We also add citations for any games referenced in quotes using square brackets. We interweave these quotes with our interpretations to provide context. From here on we present the data (quotes), analysis (interpretations), and theory-crafting side by side to preserve their nuances. To minimize ambiguity, we specifically label subsections as analysis or results.

The Birth of a New Label and the Stratifications of the Gaming Community Our journey begins by illustrating how the e-Sports and gaming as a profession during the pre-pandemic era destabilized the Hardcore-Casual dichotomy. We discuss how gaming Professionals have a different relationship with gaming and gaming spaces than Hardcores. Moreover, we reveal how professional gaming practices bled into other gaming spaces, where self-proclaimed amateur professionals (which we call Competitives) differentiate themselves from Hardcore and Professional while integrating certain professional standards into their gameplay and community interactions. The pandemic further shaped this identity segmentation thread as existing gamers gravitated toward more casual spaces and new gamers interacted with Hardcore and Competitive players. This influx of players further reconfigured gaming practices as they encouraged different ways of play and community interactions. Thus, these changes gave way to new performative identities which we call Professional, Competitive, Casual-Competitive, CompetitiveCasual, Hardcore-Casual, and Casual-Hardcore. Their performative qualities separate these identities from the typological archetypes by highlighting how collective social practices of gamers affect the evolution of gaming practices. In other words, they are a product of a complex combination of player identities, gaming practices, and collective ideologies.

Analysis: Pre-pandemic E-Sports and the Rise of Competitives Electronic sports (e-Sports) in the 2010s had evolved to feature sponsored professional players and teams competing in widely spectated tournaments

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through online streaming platforms like Twitch (Taylor 2012). The rise in popularity of online competitive multiplayer games like LoL (Riot 2009) led to an increase in players aspiring to become “Professionals” (Taylor 2018). While professional players had always existed (Mora and Héas 2003) they were historically considered a subset of Hardcore, but distinct practices differentiated them in the pre-pandemic era. Being “Professional” meant only playing e-Sports centered on online player-versus-player (PvP) gameplay, attending tournaments, and winning the prize pool. Many e-Sports began to follow a “games as a service” (GaaS) model, which includes free-to-play games with constant updates to the game’s content. This update structure allowed e-Sports to have seasons where players compete for rankings based on in-game performance. “Pros set the standard” (r/leagueoflegends user 2019) of what competitive play looks like and what is considered the appropriate meta (the set of skills, strategies and attitudes that support optimal play) for each season. Each season resets the ranking ladder and includes a large update where players find new meta-play, allowing for more Professional playstyles. Players believe that “without [a]‌pro scene League [of Legends (Riot 2009)] wouldn’t be half as popular” (r/leagueoflegends user 2019). There is a distinct group that sits at the intersection of Professional and Hardcore: Competitive players (Competitives). The pre-pandemic formation of Competitives was marked by two specific shifts: Competitives identifying as amateur Professionals (separating themselves from Professionals), and self-identified Hardcores decoupling themselves from Competitives. “I like to try as hard as I can (which doesn’t mean I try to be pro, but at least I try at all) to win” (r/games user 2019). Competitives share behaviors with Professional (such as playing to win and following the meta) but differ in self-perception and gaming practices. These players mostly play e-Sports but do not see themselves able to participate in tournaments. Competitives emulate Professional practices by watching them play, but believe that they cannot establish the standards of Professional play (meta). As many Competitives recognize their lack of opportunity to be Professional, many Hardcores similarly find they lack the time or desire to be Competitive: “I used to be pretty try hard and would play rank/ competitive mode in PvP games. Nowadays forget about rank, sometimes I don[’]t even want to play PvP games at all … . While for single player games maybe is difficult, but [I]‌can take it at my own pace and difficulty (for the most part)” (r/games user 2019). This quote reflects the feelings of many self-identified aging players that grew up identifying as Hardcore, but feel that they cannot keep up with younger players in competitive play. They discuss how aging has made them prioritize other aspects of their lives and cannot dedicate time to e-Sports-style games. However, they still engage in single player or cooperative games to maintain their adherence to Hardcore gaming practices. In this way, they create “Casual-Hardcore” identities.

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Casual players (Casuals) did not participate in conversations about Competitive or Professional gaming practices. As previously noted by Consalvo (2009), they remained focused on expressing Hardcore practices in their own spaces. Casuals engaged in thorough discussions about game content and knowledge, and devoted countless hours to their casual games. Hence, identity formation within these spaces had been stagnant to this point. The pre-pandemic changes to gaming practices happened in the Hardcore spectrum. Professional became its own label with its own set of practices, rather than a subset of Hardcore. Competitive came from the intersection of Hardcore and Professional, and developed its own distinct practices to set it apart from both (e.g., exclusively playing e-Sports but not participating in tournaments or making money). Casual-Hardcores carved out their own niche as well. In short, the state of pre-pandemic gaming identities was highly stratified with Professional on one end, and Casual on the other.

Analysis: COVID-19 and the CasualCompetitive Surge By April 2020, many LoL players felt the COVID-19 gamer migration into their servers and bemoaned the “casualization” of their community. Multiple posts to the r/leagueoflegends subreddit discussed how they “feel the quality has gone down from the quarantine so instead of just the normal crowd, you got a lot of bonus idiots that are just finding something to do and they choose League [of Legends (Riot 2009)]” (r/leagueoflegends user 2020). In response to their new growing set of COVID-19 players, Riot Games reintroduced their amateur e-Sports tournament mode, Clash, a previously defunct amateur tournament mode in February 2020. This appealed to Competitives who “always dreamed of being a pro League [of Legends (Riot 2009)] player, but also knew that it was pretty unrealistic” (r/leagueoflegends user 2020). During the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, there were nineteen self-identified amateur LoL leagues, tournaments, and organizations from different regions. The players who participated in these spaces began engaging in with Professional practices and so complicated the definition of “Competitive.” These amateur Professionals began to distinguish themselves from self-identified Competitives who did not participate in tournaments. The COVID-19 pandemic triggered the merging of Competitive and Professional meta-play practices into the Casual community, sparking questions about intended gameplay experiences especially in AC. AC:NH (Nintendo 2020) attracted many first-time players to the franchise. Unlike previous AC titles, AC:NH (Nintendo 2020) follows a GaaS model, incrementally adding new elements such as items, hairstyles, villagers, and

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events, through scheduled updates and patches. The COVID-19 pandemic not only led to an increase in gaming participation, but also encouraged players to engage in online communities. Similar to the LoL community, long-standing AC players noticed changes to their community as new players interacted with them online. A meme reposted in r/animalcrossingnewhor showcased two different islands, one described as plain and the other ornate, with the meta-caption “I’m not sure if we even play the same game.” The plain island includes a small house and a few decorative objects. Whereas the ornate island uses different perspectives to create an intricate and detailed recreation of a Negoya (or Japanese Castle). In response, a user says: “Clearly two different styles of playing here … Like, my island is much more like the top picture [plain island], but I am completely blown away by the creativity and dedication it takes to make a vista like in that bottom picture [ornate island]!” (r/ animalcrossingnewhor user 2021). This exemplifies the beginnings of a rift within the AC:NH community due to the disparities in the play practices of old and new players. We see two specific factions, with the former playing AC:NH (Nintendo 2020) in a competitive manner, while the latter advocates for the preservation of traditional gameplay. The first faction are players “who compete to have the best islands” (r/ nintendoswitch user 2021). To curate the “best island” players construct meta-play practices to optimize their gameplay. One such practice is time traveling (manipulating the console’s date to influence the game). Time traveling allows players to collect and unlock items and goals faster as in-game content and mechanics are tied to real time. This results in players completing the game much faster than intended, with one user stating that “as a time traveler I finished the game in about one week” (r/animalcrossing user 2020). Other competitive-like practices include engaging in online marketplaces where currency or in-game valuables are traded for villagers, items, or clothing options. Competition in AC:NH (Nintendo 2020) does not happen in-game like it does in LoL (Riot 2009); there is no global ranking system, nor PvP elements. However, a user describes “the ‘competitive’ aspect of animal crossing [New Horizons (Nintendo 2020)] can get to the point of just trying to get the most idyllic, prettiest, most aesthetic island you can show off” (r/ nintendoswitch user 2021). Many players adopt this type of competition by posting their island on the subreddit looking to receive praise from other players. The community often discusses meta practices, like time travel and real-world trading, and shares guides for achieving specific island designs. Through these community discussions, the Competitives-Casuals of AC:NH (Nintendo 2020) try to establish their preferred play practices as the “correct” way to play. The other faction, composed predominantly of long-term AC players, are hyper-aware of these new competitive practices infiltrating their community.

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To them, playing the game with any element of competition (game- or community-imposed) goes against the intended experience of the game as “Animal Crossing [Nintendo 2002] is the antithesis of hardcore gaming” (r/animalcrossing user 2020). For this faction, cheating is undoubtedly an “incorrect” practice, as they vocally snub meta-play like time travel, saying things like: “I do consider it cheating, since it’s not an intended mechanic present in the game itself” (r/animalcrossing user 2020). This group of long-term AC (Nintendo 2002) players interpret criticisms of the game’s slower pace as evidence COVID-19’s newcomers do not understand or respect what they feel is the “correct” way to play the game. They propose that this slowness is a normal aspect of the game’s intended experience by stating things like “I saw some reviews mention quality of life and pacing. I wonder if those are from people who have previously played it or not … It’s a legit complaint from a gaming perspective, but within the context of Animal Crossing [Nintendo 2002] it’s normal” (r/nintendoswitch user 2020). Ergo, this faction of “Hardcore-Casuals” looks to preserve AC’s Casual practices against the forms of “correctness” from CompetitivesCasuals in their space.

Results: A Stratified Community—the Mixture of Games, Players, and Gaming Practices As one user states: “there are competitive communities for every game, really, even Animal Crossing [New Horizons (Nintendo 2020)]” (r/nintendoswitch user 2021). The COVID-19-inspired player migration to different gaming spaces resulted in Competitive ideologies, such as PvP competition, metaplay, and discussions of intended experiences, seeping into the Casual community. This reorganization mutated identities and created distinct gameplay practices. We visualize the changes from pre-pandemic to pandemic identities in Figure 8.2. Our analysis shows that gaming labels are a complex combination of player identities, gaming practices, and collective ideologies resulting in the emergence of new identity practices at the intersections of these elements. For instance, one player may practice Casual play by enjoying AC:NH (Nintendo 2020) without engaging with the community to show off, whereas another may adopt Competitive-Casual practices by engaging in behaviors like meta-play and community discussions around optimal strategies. Similarly, a player who leisurely plays LoL (Riot 2009), but does not invest significant time researching the game’s meta-play, might find themselves in the Hardcore-Casual intersection. We believe that looking at labels as mixtures of these three elements function as socially constructed categories, serving to establish hierarchies of realness within gaming communities.

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FIGURE 8.2  Relation between and changes to gaming labels from pre-pandemic (left) to pandemic (right). “CH” is Casual-Hardcore, “C” is Competitive, “HC” is Hardcore-Casual, and “CC” is Casual-Competitive and Competitive-Casual.

Realness, the Gamer Identity, and Wholesome Games “Realness” is a socially constructed category that has been studied as it applies to gamer identity (“real gamers”) and a game’s cultural status (“real games”). The former investigates the construction and values of gamer identity (Mayra 2008; Shaw 2012), focusing on gendered and racialized aspects (Eklund 2016). Meanwhile, the latter examines qualities that grant a game cultural status, such as developer pedigree, game platform, and perceived difficulty (Consalvo and Paul 2019). Competitive players, for instance, see PvP competition as “more real” than playing against an AI (Freeman and Wohn 2017). “Realness” reflects the hegemonic social structure that prioritizes Hardcore as the top and Casual at the bottom (Paul 2018). The “Realness” structure allows individuals to compare and relate to one another based on their gaming identities. However, this hierarchy also

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leads to individuals viewing themselves, and those higher in the structure as “real,” while attributing a “not-real” status to those below them, thereby facilitating “justified” toxic practices. The COVID-19 pandemic has not only accelerated the transformation of gaming identities, but has also restructured the “Realness” structure, giving rise to novel forms of toxicity. We reveal that each community practices its own style of toxicity to establish new social hierarchies based on this new set of gaming identities. For instance, players discuss what constitutes “real Competitive practices” and, how certain identities represent the correct way to play the game.

Analysis: Real Gamers, Real Games, and the Prepandemic Hierarchy of Hardcore-Casual Before the COVID-19 pandemic, gamers and communities solidified the labels of Professional and Competitive. These new categories created a hierarchy where Competitives and Professionals reduced the status of Hardcores by stating “it’s not uncommon to see lots of players have over +1000 hours in League [of Legends (Riot 2009)] and can still be considered as a casual player” (r/leagueoflegends user 2019). Competitives believe “a casual player, [is] one who barely plays or just doesn’t really care when playing” (r/leagueoflegends user 2019). Thus, “casual” means “not real” and is used as a slur when players do not follow Professional or Competitive practices. In this way, the Hardcore category, once esteemed for being the “most real,” became a mere entry-level category to Competitive spaces. Since they do not take the time to really understand the “correct way of playing,” they are instructed to “[not] play any ranked queue and stick to norms and have fun with friends who are looking for the same type of casual games” (r/leagueoflegends user 2019). This relegation of Hardcores exemplifies the shift in the hierarchy of gaming identities.

Analysis: Pandemic Changes to Realness “I just want a casual fun game mode that isn’t random and is a place where I can play for fun and try out new things without getting flamed every normals” (r/leagueoflegends user 2020) (“normals” refers to the non-ranked gameplay mode of LoL [Riot 2009]). This was a recurring sentiment from LoL players who want to enjoy the game at their own pace without being subjected to harassment or being viewed as inferior by the Competitive players. While the game was previously designed to cater to the Professional community, the COVID-19 pandemic brought in new players who also sought Casual gameplay modes and felt that “it’s a little disheartening to not have many casual options to play with” (r/leagueoflegends user 2020). As a result, the community began discussing what it means to be a “real”

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Professional and who should be the target audience of the game. We see more posts expressing that “balancing a game around the top 0.001% of players is dumb” (r/leagueoflegends user 2020). While these posts were generally met with lots of commenters telling them to “git gud,” Riot seems to have listened. By November 2020, they released an update where many Competitive players felt that the game began to “cater to what newer players want” (r/leagueoflegends user 2020). This prompted criticism about the “casualization” of LoL (Riot 2009) and its fanbase, and led to some Professionals abandoning the game due to its perceived decrease in difficulty. Relatedly, we see that Casual players are supportive of WR (Riot 2021), calling it “infinitely more fun, infinitely less frustrating and infinitely more forgiving to get your friends into” (r/leagueoflegends user 2021). Many state that “WildRift [Riot 2021] is the future of LoL [Riot 2009]” (r/wildrift user 2021). However, Competitives resist the new platform, framing it as “shallow as fuck in comparison [to LoL (Riot 2009)]” (r/leagueoflegends user 2021). They focus on the mobile platform to reinforce WR (Riot 2021) as Casual, because “mobile games will never have a competitive scene and nobody will really care about them, people always act so weird about wild rift [Riot 2021] like it will change anything” (r/leagueoflegends user 2021). WR players respond to this by asking “Why does it matter if it will have a competitive scene or not??” (r/leagueoflegends user 2021). Mobile games have always been seen as casual by the Hardcore community (Consalvo and Paul 2019). This group rivalry centers around exclusive content and the potential threat to the PC version of LoL (Riot 2009). WR players claim that the mobile version offers “better graphics and probably a more optimized and stable engine built from the ground up” (r/leagueoflegends user 2021). Meanwhile the PC players complain that Riot is trying to forget about LoL in favor of WR Casuals, with some users “guessing that Wild Rift [Riot 2021] ‘killing’ PC LoL [Riot 2009] might actually be Riot’s long, long-term plan” (r/wildrift 2021). This illustrates a shift toward questioning the realness of Professionals or Competitive practices in the face of the inclusion of Casual-Competitive practices, as the design of the game has moved to include casual elements. Just as competition differs between LoL and AC, so does toxicity. During the COVID-19 pandemic, AC players noticed how “the community has gotten surprisingly toxic since New Leaf” (r/nintendoswitch user 2020) which they attribute to the introduction of Competitive-Casuals to the community. AC:NH players practice toxicity by discussing the “correct” ways to play, often in the context of comparing island designs among players. A critical contrast between newer Competitive-Casuals and long-term HardcoreCasuals revolves around time travel. Previous franchise entries would punish time traveling players by having the infamous Mr. Resetti berate them, and potentially having villagers move out. These consequences do not exist in AC:NH (Nintendo 2020), implying that time travel is an acceptable playstyle. This tacit acceptance of Competitive practices by the game has

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allowed the community to be flooded with players and posts signaling that this is the new intended way to play. The Competitive practice of sharing their islands on Reddit has caused many players to feel inadequate as their islands do not measure up to others. Many feel like they are truly not playing the game correctly, and that they can “enjoy New Horizons [Nintendo 2020] more after I stopped treating it like a contest” (r/animalcrossingnewhor user 2021). In response, HardcoreCasual players use subtle ways to express toxicity. They virtue-signal to others by saying “everyone should play the game the way they enjoy it. This game is mainly a single player game and thus your way to play doesn’t affect others so it doesn’t matter how you play, just play the way you have fun. That said: I would still say that time traveling is cheating” (r/animalcrossing user 2020). Accusations of cheating are often used to shame CompetitiveCasuals who use meta-play to maximize work on their island. Comments like “it is hard to see some of the extra fantastic islands knowing it’s probably because they cheated” (r/nintendoswitch user 2020) are intended to make Competitive-Casuals feel bad about their play habits. This question of what constitutes the intended play experience has sparked considerable debate about the notion of “realness” within the AC community. This debate pits three distinct groups of long-term players against each other: the “OGs” who started with AC (Nintendo 2002), the “NLs” who started with New Leaf (Nintendo 2013), and the “Campers” who joined with Pocket Camp (Nintendo and NDCube 2017). Each group believes that the experience of the first entry they played is the “true” experience of the franchise. Campers prioritize customization options and interactions between villagers and items, as the mobile game emphasized these game mechanics. Their disappointment with AC:NH (Nintendo 2020) was that they “built too much hype in my head after playing Pocket Camp [Nintendo and NDCube 2017] for the last year.” (r/animalcrossing 2020). NLs adopt a Hardcore-Casual attitude and prefer the progression and RPG elements of AC. They are disappointed with AC:NH (Nintendo 2020) “because after playing new leaf it’s insane how much stuff was removed. Not to mention some quality of life changes the game desperately needs” (r/animalcrossing 2021). OGs want slower gameplay, lamenting that “compared to older AC [Nintendo 2002] versions, it feels like you complete everything too fast and too easily” (r/nintendoswitch 2020). They “think perhaps a lot of this ‘new leaf was better’ crowd spent their time slowly going through new leaf [Nintendo 2013] and loved that experience, so they eagerly played through NH [Nintendo 2020] super-fast, completely botching what makes playing AC great—not rushing through and are blaming it on the game when they rushed through it” (r/nintendoswitch 2020). In this way, the OGs maintain that their intended Casual experience is correct, and others are moving too far away from the traditional way of playing the game. And yet, in

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spite of the friction and toxicity between the AC eras, Competitive-Casual players are perceived largely as more “real” than Casual AC players given the hierarchy’s favor for Competitive. Anything that is labeled Casual, whether player or game, will always be seen as less real, or generally, not real at all. In a meme reposted on r/ girlgamers from r/wholesomememes, an AC player, depicted in a childlike way, is patted on the head by their buff “gamer boyfriend” for doing a good job planting trees. One user pointed out “the fact that they have to qualify the boyfriend as a “gamer boyfriend” means that, somehow, planting trees in AC is “lesser than” whatever the gamer boyfriend does in CoD [Infinity Ward 2019] or whatever the fuck he plays” (r/girlgamers user 2020). This meme and interpretation highlight how Competitive, Professional, and Hardcore will diminish the validity of any Casual gaming practices, and how acutely aware Casuals are of this fact. It is noteworthy that we have found many players self-identified as Casual and Casual-Hardcore in the AC community attempt to opt out of the hierarchy and labels altogether. “I Think of AC[NH (Nintendo 2020)] as a not-game. It helps me to relax and chill after a long day of work. It’s like coming home and talk with friends not like I have to do XY (except I want it to do). So I don’t see a good or bad game but a nice place. Compared to “real” games it is really bad, sure. But it feels good and thats all that matters imho” (r/animalcrossing user 2020). For these players, the key consideration is prioritizing the Casual attitude that games should not be hierarchical and should be for personal enjoyment. As many players vie for realness status, the boundaries between Hardcore and Casual identities, have become increasingly murky. However, we see those who self-identify as Hardcore, Competitive-Casual, and HardcoreCasual care deeply about their position on the realness hierarchy as while “there isn’t really a benchmark to split Hardcore and Casual anymore. It really depends on who you ask, everyone who uses the term is going to put themself in the hardcore category” (r/truegaming user 2019). Although the established hierarchy seems to be Professional, Competitive Hardcore, then Casual, understanding the perceived realness of the intersections between these labels across communities is complex. The connection between labels and how this translates to social standing is ambiguous, thereby operating more like a spectrum that shifts between communities and individuals weight of the values.

Results: Wholesome Gaming and the Philosophy of Accepting Play The concept of wholesome first originated from pre-pandemic Casual spaces, where players discussed how games allowed for them to relax and

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approach problems in their own style and pace. Players discussed how these types of games then helped them with mental health issues and coping with distress and stress. Alternative labels like “cozy” and “relaxing” have also been suggested since they are recurring elements in the description of wholesome games. A trend that we see post COVID-19 is a growing interest in “wholesome games,” as we see in the first Wholesome Game Direct, an indie game showcase curating uplifting, compassionate, cozy, and wholesome games, held in 2020. During and post COVID-19 lockdowns, we see a rise of “wholesome” or “cozy” games and articles (Martens 2020; Wilson 2021). However, despite the trend, there are no clear definitions of what wholesome means in gaming. Wholesome games remain ambiguously defined with no singular aesthetic, mechanics, or traits. Players even discussed traditionally Hardcore games like The Witcher 3 (CD Projeckt Red 2015), Red Dead Redemption 2 (Rockstar Studios 2018), and Dark Souls (FromSoftware 2011) as “wholesome” due to their ability to escape from the real world and the COVID-19 pandemic by allowing them to play the game in whichever way they wished. Here, the concept of “wholesome” during the COVID-19 lockdowns describes an approach that prioritizes individual enjoyment and relaxation over competition or adhering to “correct” ways to play. As such, we recognize Wholesome Gaming (Wholesome) not as a genre, but a philosophy of play. It is the gamer’s interactions with the game that determines its wholesomeness rather than any inherent qualities. Thus, Wholesome is a philosophy that emphasizes a desire to disengage from the hierarchal constructs of realness and emphasizes the significance of personalized gameplay experiences. Understanding Wholesome as a stress mitigation tool sheds light on the reasons behind its significant uptake during the COVID-19 pandemic. The desire to dissociate from reality during the pandemic was incredibly strong and well documented. News outlets and academics highlighted the role of games in providing a source of diversion and a means of social interaction during the lockdowns and social distancing measures (Martens 2020), and as an aid for mental health concerns (Benti and Stadtmann 2021). Wholesome gaming, as a philosophy of the Casual and Casual-adjacent, proved to be an all-embracing haven for the large influx of people looking for respite during unprecedented times. Wholesome, with its active refusal for meta-play, competition, and “correct” values or methods, stands in resistance and opposition to those with “realness power” in the gaming hierarchy (Hardcores, Competitives, and Professionals). This philosophy found itself in LoL (Riot 2009) in December 2020; long-time LoL players noticed that all the new skins available since the last few patches favored “cutesy” and “feminine” aesthetic, and Riot announced that monster skins do not sell well. This was perceived by some as evidence of casualization, with one user expressing

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they “DONT GET WHY is this so popular like i feel like me playing a game for teenage girls sometime” (r/leagueoflegends user 2020). In this way, Wholesome practices and philosophies actively threaten and disrupt gaming practices that construct hierarchies via their infiltration into Hardcore, Competitive, and Professional spaces. Despite inevitable pushback from those wanting to defend the status quo, the Wholesome philosophy seems likely to continue to grow with the increased popularity of Casual and Casual-adjacent playstyles. As a result, many Competitive players reject the realness of any games or players with wholesome elements. In the larger gaming culture, games aimed at people who follow a Wholesome philosophy inherit the social status of Casual. Hence why the image conjured colloquially by “wholesome” aligns with many people’s views of Casual.

Future Work and Conclusion The COVID-19 pandemic intensified the mass migration of people to games and gaming communities. In response, these communities scrambled and reassembled their practices, identities, and hierarchal systems. The AC community was significantly impacted by the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and its resultant migration of individuals. As all these players came from different gaming contexts, the community quickly saw rifts between players with continuous debates over the “real way” to play AC:NH (Nintendo 2020). Each answer depended on what the players believed was the correct way to play an AC title. For example, many spent hundreds of hours in-game and became involved with the community through the AC subreddits, learning optimal play, and showing off their island, and mirroring practices from modern Hardcore and Competitive gaming scenes. These Competitive practices justified toxicity toward others for their perceived differences of the game and tactical knowledge, and hence their perceived lower ranking in the “realness” hierarchy. The emergence of new players, labels and their intersections between communities has complicated debates over “realness.” This includes debates over whether games should be balanced for professionals, average players, or new players, and what constitutes acceptable games and gaming behavior for a “real” gamer. While some AC:NH players reflect Competitive practices as seen in games like LoL (such as devaluing other player’s work when it does not adhere to the “meta”), others dismiss this Competitive playstyle as, for them, AC will never be a “real” game. This construct of realness is defined by those who believe themselves to be pursuing or achieving Professional status, resulting in an arbitrary weighted sum of the “realness” of game, player, and gameplay practices set collectively by the community and felt by the individual.

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The rise of Casual-Competitives and WR players over the COVID-19 pandemic has further complicated what it means to be Professional gamer. Casual-Competitives have renewed their love for the game from the support of a less professional-oriented space that would otherwise include toxic remarks about their gaming practices. Meanwhile, WR players asserted their realness despite larger perceptions around mobile gaming by engaging in the community and playing LoL (Riot 2009). Riot Games’ shift from professional toward amateur play, has led some players to complain a perceived imbalanced toward Casual and casual gameplay, questioning the axiom that “Pros set the standard.” These changes in practices fed the nebulous term of “wholesome,” a concept born from Casuals used to emphasize aesthetics, relaxing player experiences, and playing the game in your own way. Players cited “Wholesomeness” as the reason for playing games and making gaming communities more approachable. From our observations, “wholesome” is not an identity itself, but a part of a larger Wholesome Gaming philosophy. We hypothesize that it will develop into an identity of its own, past the cut-off dates of our study. We believe this to be a great avenue for future research. The COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on gaming communities prompted us to develop a methodology capable of researching the influence on gaming communities and their governing systems from large events like a mass migration of players. Our findings have significant implications for understanding the dynamics of player migration and how it can alter gaming cultures and their performance practices. Our work represents a foundation for future investigations into this area. For instance, many new gaming events such as the release of a major update to AC:NH in November 2021, and the TV series Arcane on Netflix by Riot Games. Both events served as pathways for new players to engage in the gaming spaces potentially further questioning and destabilizing gaming identities and practices. Nonetheless, our work suggests that the pandemic has initiated significant shifts in gaming culture, and we eagerly anticipate the development of these changes in the future.

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9 “It Was All without Emotions, and This Wasn’t the Same Anymore”: “Replacing” Traditional Sports with E-Sports during the COVID-19 Pandemic Piotr Siuda, Michał Jasny, and Dobrosław Man ´kowski

Introduction To limit the spread of COVID-19, governments across the globe implemented measures such as social distancing, remote work, face masks, curfews, and multiple other restrictions (Hammami et al. 2022). COVID-19 started on November 17, 2019, in the city of Wuhan, Hubei Province, central China, and was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) on March 11, 2020 (Zhu, Wei, and Niu 2020). In Poland, the first case of SARS-CoV-2 infection was found on March 4, 2020 (Dąbek 2021). From March 20, 2020, to May 15, 2022, the Polish Ministry of Health imposed a series of intensive lockdowns that significantly transformed people’s lives. The present chapter covers the first year of these restrictions, from March 2020 to November 2021, in the context of changes in both traditional sports and e-Sports. We consider this period to have been crucial because the first

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year of the pandemic involved the harshest restrictions (“Rok od pierwszego przypadku COVID-19 w Polsce” 2021) and the most momentous changes for both traditional sports and e-Sports—these changes being the topic of the present chapter. Researchers reported remarkable growth in the popularity of e-Sports, most noticeably in the number of fans and cyber-athletes (Kim, Nauright, and Suveatwatanakul 2020; Bisht, Sharma, and Choudhury 2022). LópezCabarcos, Ribeiro-Soriano, and Piñeiro-Chousa (2020) noted that although many financial markets collapsed, not all sectors were affected equally. They pointed to gaming and e-Sports industries as those that “suffered the least from the fall in the markets. Millions of people locked up at home, bored, stressed, and anguished, gave gaming and eSports companies growing prominence throughout the first half of 2020” (López-Cabarcos, RibeiroSoriano, and Piñeiro-Chousa 2020: 289). For the purposes of our study, we have expanded the definition of e-Sports to include both “classical” e-Sports, including competitive games such as League of Legends (Riot Games 2009) or Dota 2 (Valve Corporation 2013), and the application of various mixed reality (MR) solutions and sports video games to traditional sports. We understand MR as an experience that merges a real-world environment and a virtual one, with physical and virtual objects coexisting and interacting in real time. As was already mentioned, classical e-Sports flourished during COVID19. What is more, interest in MR grew significantly as it garnered a reputation as a tool for enhancing real-world sports skills due to the realism and flexibility it can deliver (Richard, Lavoie-Léonard, and Romeas 2021; Romeas et al. 2022; Woyo and Nyamandi 2022). During the lockdowns, e-Sports temporarily “replaced” traditional sports in many different disciplines, such as cycling, football, or Formula 1 (a phenomenon we will discuss in more detail below) (see Witkowski et al. 2023). Many sports events were virtualized, and professional athletes’ competition routines changed in unprecedented ways (Westmattelmann et al. 2020, 2021). Sports simulators such as the FIFA series (EA Sports 1993–2022) and Zwift (Zwift Inc. 2014) became partial solutions for the sports media industries by enabling them to cope with the difficulties of canceling sports events. Interestingly, sports celebrities were often involved in promoting these new virtualized events (Goldman and Hedlund 2020; Möhring 2020; Westmattelmann et al. 2020). All this fed into claims that there are grounds for promoting sports and e-Sports simultaneously, even more than before COVID-19, as the pandemic “has placed more barriers to the playing and watching of traditional sports than it has for [e-Sports]” (Kim, Nauright, and Suveatwatanakul 2020: 10). Researchers have argued that traditional sports are now somehow compelled to move closer to e-Sports, with the gap between the two gradually narrowing. Such scholars argued the pandemic changed the fundamental meaning of sports brands, audience viewing behaviors, and

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sponsors’ investment preferences (Kim, Nauright, and Suveatwatanakul 2020; Ke and Wagner 2022). The claim was that, in a post-pandemic world, e-Sports would become an extension of sports, and the substitutability of sports with e-Sports would increase. In line with this thinking, sports brands began investing heavily in e-Sports assets in the wake of the pandemic. Kim and colleagues, for example, noted that “many major international soccer brands and professional US sports teams operate [e-Sports] teams or have bought stakes in existing teams” (2020: 10). While many researchers have eagerly embraced the confluence of e-Sports with traditional sports that has supposedly been occasioned by the pandemic, others were more skeptical. Ke and Wagner (2022), for instance, suggested that the lockdowns merely provided a temporary opportunity for the growth of classical e-Sports and the use of MR and video games as substitutes for traditional sports. In other words, e-Sports and traditional sports should properly be viewed as parallel industries rather than converging enterprises: The esports extension of sports amid [the] pandemic is acceptable … . However, sports fans may become less tolerating and feel their belief in original brand and culture are “contaminated” if the sports organizations keep recommending this “mixed content” to them after the global pandemic, because this action probably violates the current “parallel management” tenet of sports club and esports club. In this regard, sport fans are highly likely to perceive a negative extension experience. (Ke and Wagner 2020: 4) The view espoused in this chapter aligns with these doubts so rarely raised during the pandemic because of high uncertainty on what the future holds. The chapter evaluates critically the contention that e-Sports is “replacing” traditional sports and that stronger connections between the two are an enduring positive result of the pandemic. It does so by listening to the voices of insiders—journalists and others from the media industry who deal with both e-Sports and traditional sports. We conducted fifteen retrospective semi-structured in-depth interviews, and, as it turned out, the respondents were highly skeptical of the optimistic stance presented above. We consider what these voices tell us not only about the actual relations between e-Sports and traditional sports during the pandemic but also about the future of these relations and e-Sports in general. In particular, the chapter examines the oft-raised topic of whether e-Sports should take steps to gain general public recognition as “real” or “genuine” form of sport (Marta et al. 2021; Di Virgilio et al. 2022). Debates on whether e-Sports is “real” have raged for some time. In their seminal article on the impact of e-Sports on traditional sports, Jonasson and Thiborg (2010: 288) describe e-Sport as “sport within and through the medium of cyberspace” and argue that it “deserves” to be called a traditional sport. Opposing this, Holt (2016) believes that the crucial element of physical activity must be

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present for a “cybersport” to be considered a “genuine sport” (see also Hallmann and Giel 2018). Even if physicality is present in some form, however, e-Sports are virtual—in contrast to “real” sports—and this, too, raises doubts about their authenticity. Jenny et al. (2017) endorse this view, also adding that it is difficult to accept e-Sport as “true” because of its lack of history and long-term institutionalization. They claim that in e-Sports, there are no well-developed governing bodies to oversee and standardize rules (see Summerley 2020 for a comparison of early institutionalization of traditional sports and e-Sports). While not the focus of this chapter, such studies are important to understanding several of the conclusions of our research. It is our view that there is little point in comparing e-Sports with traditional sports using conventional terms of reference, as the two are distinct phenomena with their own histories, ideological bases, and rules. We shall return to this topic later.

Methods The chapter is part of a broader project examining the changes in media sports during the lockdowns (see Siuda et al. 2023). Interviewees were selected from among the top-tier Polish media broadcasters based on various rankings by influential media analytics services, mainly Wirtualne Media (www.wir​tual​neme​dia.pl/). Interviewees were associated with the most influential and popular TV channels, radio stations, newspapers, and online news services in terms of audience numbers and ratings. They are not named here as anonymity was guaranteed to all who were interviewed. All are significant journalists who either hold managerial positions or are well known and recognizable (e.g., as TV commentators). Prominence and expertise in particular sports were important criteria for selection, but we were also concerned with ensuring a representative spread from across the various mainstream media. As a result, we interviewed: • Six e-Sports journalists, including editors-in-chief of the e-Sports sections of the main Polish media and TV e-Sports commentators. All of these interviewees declared their main interest is in e-Sports. • Nine traditional sports journalists, including well-known commentators and journalists working for the largest Polish media, and heads of TV, radio, and press sports departments. These journalists indicated traditional sports as their main professional interest, including diverse disciplines such as football, cycling, tennis, and volleyball. We decided to include both traditional and e-Sports journalists to gain a broader insight into the changes that have occurred in conventional sports

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and e-Sports and the relations between the two amid the pandemic. The interviews took place during a three-month period from September to November 2021. As the full process of designing the study and analyzing the data is described in Siuda et al. (2023), here we will highlight only the data were reviewed repeatedly to obtain a sense of the whole and develop codes to capture key concepts. The codes were then linked, sorted into subcategories, and finally sorted into broader categories (see Siuda et al. 2023). The analysis was a purely inductive process for recognizing both the “explicit communication” and “inferred communication” realized in the process of the interviews (Hsieh and Shannon 2005: 36). For this chapter, we have drawn on the subcategories that correspond with our aim and used these as subtitles in the “Results” section. An interviewee’s number and type are provided alongside each quote. The letter “T” denotes a traditional sports journalist, and the letters “ES” denote an e-Sports journalist. For ethical reasons, we have anonymized the quotes and redacted information that might identify interviewees or the media in which they are involved. All interviews were in Polish and then translated during the transcript stage.

Results Coping with Changes in Traditional Sports Media The interviewees were asked to provide a retrospective view of whether and how the pandemic had affected their professional activities. They were unanimous in stressing that the cancelation of sporting events at the beginning of COVID-19-led sports media to resort to archival materials to fill the sudden gap. In addition to rescreening or replaying past events, broadcasting also included interviews with players, physicians, or psychologists, mostly about the nature of training during the lockdowns. The interviewees pointed out that the forced, ad hoc use of various online solutions was a particular challenge, especially since some had no prior experience working with newer technologies. During the pandemic, instant messaging services (such as Skype) were somehow rediscovered, experiencing a resurgence in use despite having been present for many years. As one interviewee said: “Previously media companies … paid guests for coming to the studio, for hotels, for planes, and yet now you could connect online and instead of one guest have five for the same amount of money” (I10T). For many, working from home became the new normal, and consequently, it became common for journalists to have a home-based mini-studio and take on many roles previously unknown to them, such as reporter, editor, and light and sound specialist. Over time, technical barriers ceased to be

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problematic and journalists found they could be more effective at home than in the office. This came at a cost, however, as lockdowns were damaging the organizational culture of media agencies in the long run. According to the interviewees, the pandemic caused financial losses for clubs, tournament organizers, bookmakers, and broadcasters. Examples provided were losses in revenues from commercials and subscribers canceling their paid access to sports coverage. However, the interviewees were unanimous that initial fears about a massive drain of sponsors proved largely unfounded and were more a reflection of the ubiquitous panic that characterized the beginning of the pandemic. Contrary to initial forecasts, over time, it became clear that event organizers and athletes did not face bankruptcy. Similarly, investors did not withdraw from sports en masse, as was initially anticipated, although attracting new investors has indeed turned out to be much more difficult than previously. Interviewees revealed that during lockdowns, live sports commentary was replaced by studio commentary based on footage of the sports event live-streamed via the internet to the commentator in the studio. They also believed that the pandemic confirmed the key significance of live fans at any sports spectacle. This was highly evident in the case of desperate attempts to replace “real” crowds with “artificial” crowds. Interviewees commonly criticized this mode of broadcasting for its rigidness and awkwardness. For example, people were allegedly employed to press a button for crowd cheering, sometimes mistakenly pressing the button too early or too late and conjuring “artificial” spectator responses that were delayed, too loud, or inappropriate to the situation on the pitch. This made it more difficult to comment on matches and proved that real fans cannot be effectively replaced. It also emphasized how crowds contribute to the unique atmosphere of live events by creating a performance that is crucial for sports rivalry. As one interviewee put it, without live fans “it was all without emotions, and this wasn’t the same anymore” (I05T). Another said: “Imagine an actor who plays in a theater and the audience’s reactions are played from the tape … . Everyone knows it’s a hoax” (I10T).

Bridging Gaps between Traditional Sports and E-Sports Although showing memes about athletes or their social media was an integral part of traditional sports broadcasting even before COVID-19, the pandemic has certainly forced broadcasters to use internet resources more widely. The interviewees argued that the internet was the medium least affected by the lockdowns and admitted that the shift toward new media would not have taken place so quickly or on such a large scale had it not been for the pandemic.

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E-Sports was an evident example here, as it has become the only available safe substitute for traditional sports. For this reason, video games were viewed more positively and sometimes noticed for the first time in the context of sports. The interviewees argued sports simulators were primarily intended to maintain the interest of fans or soothe their frustrations during the lockdowns, not to replace sports. In the wake of the pandemic, many media people feared fans might choose other forms of entertainment altogether, and that audiences might therefore be lost for good. They also worried that lockdown restrictions on fans supporting clubs or players directly at the sporting arena would dampen fans’ enthusiasm in the long term, and that fear of infection might prevent them from returning to the stands even after the restrictions had been lifted. This is where technology was intended to help by allowing fans to experience sports (or quasi-sports) competition in their favorite discipline in a new, relatively easy, and pleasant way. It quickly became apparent to fans that apart from watching, they could even compete with others—including well-known athletes who were themselves isolating at home—thanks to football, cycling, car racing simulators, or running applications. Zwift (Zwift Inc. 2014) (see Figure 9.1)—the most popular cycling simulator, a game adapted to compete on a stationary bike—was the perfect solution for the lockdown periods. Firstly, it directly referred to traditional sports rivalry; secondly, it required physical effort; and finally, it was not strictly associated with “classical” and disliked (in the conventional sports

FIGURE 9.1  Racing scene from Zwift. © Zwift Inc., 2014.

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community) e-Sports such as League of Legends (Riot Games 2009) or Counter-strike: Global Offensive (Valve Corporation and Hidden Path Entertainment 2012). Our respondents recognized the role of Zwift, although they saw its numerous limitations, especially the inability to comment on the history, art, or culture of the region of a given stage in the race: “Watching a cycling race is more pleasant thanks to commentators, who usually don’t talk about what is happening on the screen at all. They talk about the history of these races or the history of the regions, all that stuff you know” (I06ES). It’s like someone has cut off one of our hands. If we have three or four hours of broadcasting, or even more, this is the information we normally use …, and sometimes we manage to get the attention of fans. And they do like these comments. It’s not strictly about cycling, because you can only talk about cycling for those freaks who are crazy about the sport, but this is not a large group. And then these stages would not have such viewership, sometimes around 250,000. And that was missing in the virtual world, and this whole Zwift’s utopia was not perfect … . There was nothing to talk about. It was practically the same view all the time. Of course, we could do trivia about the cyclists, or the specificity of virtual racing, but it was very difficult and not the same. (I07T) Our interviewees also identified Formula 1 racing simulators as an attempt to tackle the new realities of the pandemic. Here they referred to the previously mentioned online competitions involving well-known sports celebrities, with amateurs having a chance to compete against their favorite athletes. Some interviewees witnessed fans beating Lewis Hamilton (the leading Formula 1 driver) or competing against Real Madrid (Spanish football club) goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois. Such events made online simulations more attractive, although many drivers (including Hamilton) pointed out that the experience of driving a “real” car is completely different from that offered by a simulator. Running marathons or half-marathons with the help of mobile applications was another popular way of dealing with lockdowns (see Woyo and Nyamandi 2022). Despite these solutions being more flexible than traditional events, the respondents were very skeptical about them being used as an alternative to conventional competitions in the future. This is because many runners care dearly about such details as having a starting number or hearing the fans’ applause when crossing the finish line. The journalists provided many examples of using various sports games in traditional sports even before the pandemic, especially football simulations from the EA Sports FIFA series (EA Sports 1993–2022). Such usage only intensified during the lockdowns, with alternative football matches in FIFA being organized instead of the canceled traditional games. For example, a FIFA game was used when the traditional fixture between Poland and Ukraine was canceled, and two players from each national team, who were

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themselves FIFA gamers, staged a FIFA match (organized by the Polish Football Association). Other interviewees mentioned traditional football clubs that have sections for FIFA gaming players who formally represent the club in e-Sports leagues and tournaments. During the pandemic, this blending of sports and e-Sports became even more pronounced, and both traditional sports and e-Sports were able to promote their brands and products among new audiences. Although the interviewees did notice this kind of interpenetration of sports and e-Sports, they still believed that COVID-19 had not changed the subordinate position of the latter, as it would, in their view, always be “inferior” (I10T) to traditional sports. In this regard, many journalists expressed limited interest in and skepticism about e-Sports, arguing that during “lockdowns sports does not exist and no simulators will replace it” (I06ES). According to the interviewees, as the pandemic progressed, the vast majority of journalists, athletes, and fans expected a return to the normality they had known before the pandemic. They believed a return to traditional forms of practicing and broadcasting sports was inevitable because (1) alternatives are less attractive; (2) direct offline contact is essential for journalistic work; and (3) the risks of transmitting a virus on the pitch or in the studio are negligible. For the most part, journalists saw the replacement of traditional sports as a kind of unavoidable, temporary compromise—a “rescue” for players that had to take a break. A return to “normal” events with only some restrictions (e.g., in the number of spectators) was seen as a “light at the end of the tunnel,” the beginning of the end of the pandemic. Our interviewees stressed that lockdowns had caused fans to appreciate what had been taken away from them and that they would eagerly return to sports arenas. The interviewees were unanimous that after the pandemic, not only would sports abandon various electronic solutions adopted during the lockdowns, but the community would also have had enough of these for good. In this regard, various examples were given, such as a video where Mikel Landa (a Spanish cyclist) destroys his stationary bike with an axe. The journalists argued any professional athlete who is committed to competing in real-life events would not, by choice, switch to any kind of electronic event as an alternative. It was emphasized that some sports simulators, such as FIFA, had already spread before the pandemic and despite this, they had not come anywhere close to replacing traditional games. In this view, e-Sports can certainly serve as a kind of bridge to traditional sports, but, like sponsors or bookmakers, it is not essential to the “real game.”

E-Sports’ Problems Our interviewees noticed the increase in the popularity of e-Sports during the pandemic outlined at the beginning of this chapter. Interestingly, they were not entirely convinced this was the result of a search for alternatives

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by traditional sports fans. They speculated that this growth could have occurred naturally and might anyway have happened without COVID-19, especially since e-Sports viewership had been growing year after year before the lockdowns. Although e-Sports coped with the pandemic relatively well, it too was affected by many of the same problems, such as the lack of crowds during live events. The most important tournaments in e-Sports are organized along similar lines to traditional sports events; that is, in specially prepared arenas with fans in the stands, live broadcasts (mostly internet streaming and occasional TV broadcasting), bookmakers, and so on. The finals of the Intel Extreme Masters Katowice 2020 World Championship were the largest tournament in Poland canceled at the beginning of the lockdowns, just twelve hours before the scheduled start (see also Markowska 2020). As one interviewer pointed out, the most important e-Sports events cannot be effectively replaced on the internet: “IEM Katowice with and without fans is completely different … . The prestige of the entire tournament immediately increases when you see that the whole world is watching you, not just streaming on the Internet, and when you have thousands of supporters gathered in one place” (I02ES). The interviewees emphasized that the interpenetration of traditional and electronic sports during the pandemic revealed a lack of professionalism in e-Sports organizations. These organizations operate differently, as e-Sports is an important part of the gaming market and publishing companies own copyrights. While the organizations manage to abide by the rules of this market, they are not necessarily experienced in cooperating with large media entities like national and global television networks. For example, unexpected delays due to technical issues are much more common in e-Sports than in traditional sports. Unexpected changes to the fixed TV schedule caused by such delays are a very serious issue for TV producers, and this is an issue of which, according to the interviewees, e-Sports organizations are rarely aware. During the interviews, it was stressed that e-Sports streaming is less “rigid” compared to TV broadcasting, which made it easier to adapt to the rapidly changing conditions of the pandemic. However, streaming cannot be easily transferred to traditional television. One reason for this is players’ use of profanities or offensive language. The interviewees emphasized that while e-Sports will undoubtedly continue to grow online, its potential for growth on TV is mediocre at best. One of the most professionally experienced journalists (I10T), who has covered sports since the 1990s, pointed out that compared with the relatively structured and refined content of TV broadcasts, the vast majority of the online content is simply of poor quality. A further issue from the perspective of TV sports channels is that broadcasting e-Sports in prime time is highly problematic because some popular games, such as Counter-strike: Global Offensive (Valve

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Corporation and Hidden Path Entertainment 2012), are intended for people over eighteen years of age.

General Skepticism toward E-Sports The interviewees frequently stressed that despite the experience of lockdowns, it is difficult to imagine replacing traditional sports with anything else. Sports and e-Sports “occupy different places in society” (I06ES). People who identify with a particular traditional or electronic sport are characterized by a “different lifestyle” (I05T), and the pandemic did not change this significantly. Advertising agencies usually reach out to e-Sports influencers not because they are the new faces of mainstream sports, but rather to attract a niche group of gamers. In this regard, the interviewees highlighted generational differences, and believed e-Sports are primarily for young people: Well, it won’t replace sport, let’s make it clear. I think the Premier League organized a tournament with footballers and they played football games. It was all nice, but I’m not buying it. But I believe young people could be interested in their idols playing these games and enjoy watching it. Well, there were many curious attempts to do sports without sports. (I14T) As mentioned earlier, during the lockdowns, many celebrities participated in virtual competitions, including athletes representing the most popular traditional sports disciplines, and they “dragged some of their supporters with them” (I14T). E-Sports temporarily gained from this, which the interviewees repeatedly confirmed by reference to viewership data. Nonetheless, it was pointed out that while the growth in video games during the pandemic was not surprising (although it is not certain to what extent it was caused by the pandemic itself), it is more difficult to predict whether this will be perpetuated in the future. Some interviewees doubted it would be, emphasizing that the new opportunities offered during the pandemic are likely to be wasted. In this regard, it was stressed that the increased interest demonstrated in e-Sports was instead a spontaneous and temporary trend that resulted from forced isolation. Due to the lockdowns, moreover, some of the best gamers had to move from competing live at prestigious tournaments, such as the Intel Extreme Masters, to quite common online games. One of the interviewees (I03ES) mentioned the well-known Ukrainian e-Sports team Natus Vincere, whose members were forced to play important games online for the first time in a year. This is important because playing offline and online differs significantly, both in terms of tournament preparation (e.g., the need to organize travel and accommodation) and from the point of view of how the matches are experienced by both players and the audience. Sponsors are

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conscious of the differences between live e-Sports events and those staged on the internet and are not willing to invest as much in online games. The interviewees emphasized that famous athletes and other celebrities who invest in e-Sports do not do so because they believe e-Sports will replace sports, but rather as means of making lucrative short-term profits. While the rules and social contexts of popular traditional sports are widely known, entering the gaming community requires quite a commitment. “Newbs” are excluded from the growing, but still quite hermetic, group of e-Sports fans. In addition, e-Sports are very diverse, with numerous streamers scattered across the internet: The available technology allows you to comfortably follow e-Sports, however, it’s still not that widespread. I wouldn’t expect a revolution here, making the games even more attractive, and causing people who haven’t watched esports to suddenly start following it … . What is challenging is … to “tell” this game interestingly for laymen and professionals at the same time. It seems to me that this technological barrier, I mean using various technologies, is not problematic here. However, deciding how this storytelling should look, and how to attract the masses is incredibly challenging for all those who create esports content. (I13ES) In general, our interviewees agreed that during the pandemic, e-Sports was primarily a kind of “life raft” for both traditional sports organizations and media facing a huge crisis. This “life raft” turned out to be very useful during the lockdowns, but will not be needed in the long run: There should always be blood, sweat, and tears on the pitch or the track, and so on. Of course, in a goalless situation, where there is no other possibility, it’s a different story … During that first COVID-19 wave, I was in favor of stopping football games, because the world was worried whether this pandemic would wipe us off the face of the Earth … . But the more we know about it, the longer we live with it, the more I would defend this sport because, in the long run, there is nothing healthier than regular physical activity. (I05T)

Discussion This chapter has thus far presented the outcomes of interviews with prominent Polish journalists about how sports media coped with the pandemic, how it impacted the state of traditional sports and e-Sports, and how it affected the relationship between the two. Most interviewees agreed that viewership of e-Sports grew and some new connections were made between it and traditional sports during the pandemic. However, they argued strongly

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against the view that some kind of enduring confluence between e-Sports and sports was forged as a result of the COVID-19 lockdowns. The interviewees were emphatic about two critical points. The first is that, contrary to widespread belief, it is fiction that e-Sports experienced a net benefit due to the pandemic. Like traditional sports, e-Sports were detrimentally affected both financially and organizationally by the lockdowns. The interviewees’ second critical point is that, at least in their view, the increased use of video games and MR solutions during the pandemic cannot be taken to indicate a permanent shift in traditional sports, nor can these platforms be considered to have the potential to replace traditional sports to any significant extent. Events organization, management, training, viewership, building communities of fans, and evoking excitement and emotion are so vastly different between the two. The respondents identified many problems related to the interpenetration of sports and e-Sports that occurred or intensified during COVID-19 lockdowns. The present study challenges the view of the pandemic as an agent in the process of moving traditional sports closer to e-Sports. It also casts doubt on studies that stress the long-term impact of lockdowns on traditional sports and e-Sports, and the alleged closer connections it brought about between the two. One should consider whether all the so-called new phenomena that supposedly emerged during social isolation were not, in fact, existing technologies that were merely spotlighted during the pandemic. Similarly, it is questionable if the interconnections between sports and e-Sports that became more pronounced during the lockdowns were not the outcome of some kind of natural evolution. Either way, these phenomena were not harbingers of permanent change and did not revise understandings of either traditional sports or e-Sports, especially since these phenomena did not persist after the lockdown periods, as we now know (see, e.g., “Sports Teams, Venues Revved for Return of Full-Capacity Crowds” 2022; Otake 2022). This leads us to the broader conclusion that care should be taken when analyzing and juxtaposing e-Sports and traditional sports. Rather, these should be understood as separate phenomena, each defined by its own distinctive characteristics (see also Jonasson and Thiborg 2010; Hutchins 2008; Hebbel-Seeger 2012; Seo and Jung 2016; Witkowski 2012). This is especially true in light of the failure during COVID-19 to successfully replace traditional events and practices with electronic alternatives. Had this occurred, one could argue that traditional sports have indeed shifted permanently in its nature as a consequence of the pandemic. But this did not occur—at least, not with any level of success. The conclusion that has to be drawn is that e-Sports is a completely different domain of social activity; it takes different social forms and fulfills different social functions. If a global event of the scale of the pandemic failed to bring about a fundamental shift in the relationship between sports and e-Sports,

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this only serves to underline the essential distinctions between the two, and actually reinforces the unassailability of traditional sports. This chapter is not about pointing out the defining characteristics and features of e-Sports using traditional sports as a frame of reference. As mentioned at the outset, many such attempts have already been made (see, e.g., Hewitt 2014; Isaac 2021; Parry 2019; Thiel and John 2018). Nonetheless, the failure of electronic solutions to successfully fill the gaps in traditional sports practice and coverage during COVID-19 holds a particular lesson for the e-Sports community (people, organizations, fans, etc.). Specifically, e-Sports should not try to be like conventional sports, nor should it aim to prove its value by following the path of conventional sports. Again, e-Sports is a distinct and independent domain and recognition of this has major implications for its management and its future. For example, this has some major implications on how to manage the institutionalization of e-Sports. It would be unwise to compare traditional sports, whose first institutions date back to the nineteenth century, with the twentyfirst-century phenomenon of e-Sports (see also Abanazir 2019). Indeed, institutionalization—as it is commonly understood and manifests in, for example, state sports associations—may not even be fully possible for e-Sports due to its entanglement with the gaming market. Game producers are key players in the e-Sports ecosystem and hold copyrights for the games (Karhulahti 2017). Our interviewees stressed that the stronghold held by game producers over the e-Sports industry was evident during the pandemic, but this did not translate into any kind of institutionalization as it is conventionally understood. There are other lessons e-Sports could learn, foremost among which is perhaps that e-Sports is not only about streaming. The cancelation of e-Sports events such as Intel Extreme Masters Katowice 2020 proved how important it is for e-Sports fans, players, and organizations to have their offline live “Sports Mega Events,” that is, large-scale sporting events that have a dramatic character and mass popular appeal (see Lee Ludvigsen, Rookwood, and Parnell 2022; Roche 2000). The growing e-Sports community needs to keep in mind that offline events of this kind are essential for the development of e-Sports. The experience of the pandemic has shown that the future of e-Sports lies as much in the concrete realities of offline social and cultural contexts and interactions as it does in online virtual realities. Our study also shows that despite its enormous growth, e-Sports is still a niche industry compared with traditional sports and is still located outside of mainstream media. E-Sports audiences are mostly young people (Rogers 2019) and despite some dedicated TV channels broadcasting e-Sports, the bulk of transmissions are streamed using Twitch or DAZ (Johnson and Woodcock 2019a, 2019b). The entry of the aforementioned alternatives (MR, video games) into mainstream broadcasting during the pandemic was

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not appreciated by the journalists, even those who specialize in e-Sports. As we have stated, these alternatives did not last long. With traditional sports events returning to their normal schedules following the pandemic, mainstream media lost their interest in e-Sports (D’Anastasio 2022). Concomitantly, research on the growth of e-Sports waned and speculation about possible shifting of the weight between traditional sports and e-Sports all but ceased. This is not to suggest that e-Sports is unpopular and is not growing; on the contrary, it is flourishing. Based on this study, however, we believe it will remain a niche industry unless it develops an altogether more TV-friendly approach to staging events. Currently, its absence from mainstream TV hampers the development of e-Sports. To be attractive to TV broadcasters, e-Sports need to adhere to rigid timeframes, as TV scheduling will not allow the kind of extensions, delays, or postponements that are tolerated with streaming on the internet. Traditional sports events have a fixed time, which means they fit the schedule of mainstream TV. Our interviewees interpreted e-Sports’ lackadaisical approach to timing as a sign of unprofessional management and viewed this as its main barrier to competing with “real,” conventional sports. It could be argued that this approach is too rigid and misunderstands the nature of e-Sports and those who participate in it, especially since it is a distinct social practice. It might also be the case that its absence from mainstream TV is not particularly significant for its growth, as TV is progressively becoming less popular among young people (Gerken 2022; Elder 2016). These issues are beyond the remit of this study but are certainly worth placing on future research agendas. As should now be clear, our research debunks certain myths that arose surrounding the perceived connections between e-Sports and traditional sports during COVID-19, as embodied in the use of MR and video games as substitutes for traditional sports. As stated at the outset, many saw this “connecting” of e-Sports and conventional sports as a new trend, and even as proof of an inevitable merging of the two that was merely accelerated by the pandemic. Based on the views presented here, we argue this is not the case. E-Sports and traditional sports can certainly benefit one another by joining forces for purposes of promotion, business, and advertising. However, despite their obvious similarities, superficial and otherwise, the two are—and will remain—distinct in the minds of both players and fans. Any notion of a complete fusion of sports and e-Sports is, therefore, nothing more than make-believe. All this being said, we are aware of the limitations of our research. We interviewed only Polish journalists, but research carried out elsewhere could yield alternative findings and viewpoints. For example, in Asia— considered the cradle and center of e-Sports (Micky and Peichi 2021)— journalists’ observations and experiences could be altogether different. Notwithstanding these possible limitations, our respondents are all highly

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respected and well-informed insiders with considerable knowledge of the subject. The unique insights and perspectives they have offered certainly provide a useful starting point for future analysis of connections between e-Sports and traditional sports and their respective places in contemporary, post-pandemic society.

Funding Research is partially funded by the Polish Ministry of Education and Science as part of the research project “Humanistic and Social Aspects of Physical Culture” carried out at Józef Piłsudski University of Physical Education in Warsaw.

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10 Playing as the World Falls Apart: The Use of Video Games during the COVID-19 Crisis— the Case of Italy Arianna Boldi, Maurizio Tirassa, and Amon Rapp

The COVID-19 Crisis and the Role of Technology In the last few years, a large part of the humankind has been affected in different ways by the COVID-19 crisis, that is, the global public health emergency declared due to the spread of SARS-CoV-2 and the government measures that were implemented in most countries to contain it. Individual and collective everyday practices have been disrupted by the events, together with the economy, the international relations, and the rest of human life. Bengtsson and Van Poeck (2021) conceptualized the crisis as a “hyperobject” (Morton 2013), to emphasize the various ways in which the pandemic upended the material life and the most fundamental aspects of everydayness, as well as the impossibility to define its spatial and temporal boundaries. The public understanding of and concern for the crisis changed in one with institutional communication, which started minimizing the threat (De Rosa and Mannarini 2021) only to turn to a level of alarm never

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witnessed in decades, and finally claiming that no expectations for return to normalcy were possible. The coronavirus has been perceived as a pervasive, “invisible enemy” (de Rosa and Mannarini 2021; Shaw 2020). The crisis did not dismantle the world in a physical and “objectified” way (for instance, by destroying one’s dwelling or the cities, like a war or an earthquake would); rather, it silently introduced new social practices, transformed the meaning of the everyday spaces, and modified the routines people were accustomed to (Chatterjee 2020). The citizens’ ability to understand the ongoing threat was limited, and so was their personal experience of the emergency: most people were not called upon for any direct and active intervention to face the pandemic but were simply forced to stay at home patiently. Some people even claimed that this made them feel guilty in the face of the healthcare professionals who were at the forefront of the crisis (Kanemura et al. 2022). Despite this apparent inactivity, the situation required a considerable effort to adapt to the new circumstances and take up novel social behaviors (e.g., Lupton and Willis 2021). The massive modifications of everyday habits often had detrimental effects on the psychological and physical health of the citizens (Zhang et al. 2020a). In this chapter we focus on Italy, which was initially perceived as the epicenter of the European outbreak (Schnirring 2020). People living there faced a particularly uncertain situation as they were hit by the emergency at a time when information was still scarce, and awareness was low. Furthermore, the measures adopted by the government were among the strictest in the world (Horowitz 2020; Camporesi et al. 2022). In addition to the distress caused by the medical aspects of the pandemic (Rodriguez-Morales et al. 2020), Italians had to deal with the everyday difficulties caused by the state of emergency, which lasted more than two years, January 31, 2020 to March 31, 2022, and then was gradually eased. The first nationwide lockdown, which confined the vast majority of the population to their household from March to May or June (according to specific situation) 2020, and the additional lockdown periods implemented in the following months (Camporesi et al. 2022), disrupted collective life, profoundly altering everybody’s work and personal and social habits (e.g., Amerio et al. 2021a; Prete et al. 2021), as well as affecting mental health in several ways (e.g., Amerio et al. 2021b; Gualano et al. 2020). Of course, mundane activities did not stop completely and most people continued to work, carry out their daily tasks, teach and learn, and communicate with each other using digital information technologies (e.g., Caldeira et al. 2022; Haesler et al. 2021). This helped save and recover spaces of normalcy, however small and distorted. Long before the pandemic, plenty of studies highlighted the beneficial effects technologies could have for societal resilience, including mobile applications (Tan et al. 2017) and social media (Palen et al. 2018). People in Italy also began to rely more on digital

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communication tools during the lockdown to maintain social connections (Bastoni et al. 2021) and to find psychological relief from feelings of anger, loneliness, and irritability (Gabbiadini et al. 2020). Video games have often been looked at with suspicion, due to the documented harmful effects that may result from their excessive or maladaptive use (for a review, see King and Delfabbro 2014). Nevertheless, in these unprecedented circumstances, it seems that they have been viewed more leniently by both institutional actors and the public opinion. At the beginning of the quarantine, the World Health Organization (WHO) endorsed the #PlayApartTogether social media campaign launched by the gaming industry (King et al. 2020) to promote compliance with the “stay-at-home” mandate. As a matter of fact, people engaged in gaming significantly, and global sales of video games increased during the lockdowns (Broughton 2020). There is indeed scientific literature about the positive role of play (Kleinman et al. 2021; Riva et al. 2020) and its effect on psychological well-being (e.g., Barr et al. 2022). Prior research on gaming practices under exceptional circumstances focused mainly on the individual. Based on the studies conducted by Formosa et al. (2022) and Ballou et al. (2022) during the COVID-19 crisis, we know that certain psychological factors (like the need of social support) may significantly alter the players’ experience during difficult life moments. However, these studies did not consider in depth how this happens, that is, the role that certain video games and video game genres may have during a crisis. We will try to add to this discussion building on empirical data collected through an online survey that we distributed to players living in Italy during the first lockdown. The data are described and discussed in better detail in Boldi et al. (2022); here we focus on their significance in the context of the crisis, discussing them with reference to recent studies that contributed to the exploration of the role of video games during difficult life moments. Our main aim here is to outline new possible perspectives for the study of the psychological significance of gaming in the context of a crisis.

Video Games during the Pandemic The coronavirus crisis may be viewed as an all-encompassing phenomenon in everybody’s life (Bengtsson and Van Poeck 2021). On this premise, we expected to witness a change both (1) in the way players interacted with games during the lockdowns and (2) in the narratives with which they connected the experiences they lived in the virtual worlds with those they lived in the material world. To explore these transformations, we conducted a qualitative study from April 1, 2020 (one month after the beginning of the Italian lockdown) to May 3, 2020 (when the strictest

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lockdown measures were finally lifted). The study included 330 players who were administered an online qualitative questionnaire (257 males, 69 females, 4 nonbinary; ranging in age from eighteen to over sixty-five years). Participants were recruited from several Italian game forums like Everyeye, SpazioGames, and IGN Italia. Furthermore, we shared the link to the survey on several social networks such as Instagram and Facebook and via email sent to acquaintances; and, since a snowball sampling technique was fit to capture more casual gamers, we also asked them to forward the link to anyone they knew. A player thus was just someone who plays, regardless of other characteristics. We wanted to explore the everyday gaming habits of all kinds of people who happened to play: casual gamers might have become avid users during the lockdown, or conversely heavy gamers might have decreased their activity, due to a decreased desire or a change of interests or routines; others might have changed the preferred genre of games, or the meanings attached to play, and so on. The participants were asked to answer both closed and open-ended questions aimed to capture their subjective account of the crisis and describe: (1) their gaming habits before and after the beginning of the quarantine, namely the time spent playing, the genres and types of the games (single player or multiplayer) they played; (2) the context in which they were living during the lockdown, for example, their material situation, social life, working life, and so on. The answers were read through the lens of thematic analysis. In this chapter we summarize some of the most interesting insights that emerged from the study and discuss them in the context of recent research on video games and crises. Compared to what was reported in Boldi et al. (2022), here we focus more on the specific video games and video game genres chosen by the participants and how these impacted their “pandemic life.”

Psychological Effects of the Pandemic in the Italian Context Nearly all the participants reported alterations in their everydayness during the lockdown; these changes typically affected more than one “dimension” of existence, such as their experience of time and space, their emotions, and their social life. Research on the COVID-19 crisis has focused on the emotional reactions to the new circumstances and the overall impact on mental health (Xiong et al. 2020). Unsurprisingly, we too found that the affective life of a vast majority of respondents had been compromised by the lockdown, yielding distressing emotions like tension and alert, accompanied by overthinking, rumination, fears and worries, as well as states of gloominess characterized

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by sadness and lack of energy. As participants reported, this emotional turmoil was caused both by the idea of a frightening enemy, that is, the virus and the damages it could bring to the individuals and the whole society, and by the impossibility to deal with one’s emotions in the same way as before the crisis, like by hanging out with friends, finding comfort in a partner, playing sports, cultivating interests and passions, and so on. Sociality is another key topic investigated by recent crisis-related studies. From basic social interactions with acquaintances (Mondada et al. 2020) to romantic and sexual life (Federici et al. 2022; Myles et al. 2021), everybody’s social sphere was disrupted by the lockdown. Several participants (13.9 percent) in the survey remained completely alone during those months, but most (86.1 percent) lived with one or more housemates or family members. Nevertheless, all emphasized that the government measures forced them to keep a distance from significant ones like parents, siblings, and friends, which made them suffer from loneliness. To make things worse, cohabitation was not always positive, due to the lack of privacy or the worsening of already difficult relationships. We also found significant changes in the experience of time and space. Almost all the participants experienced time as slow and boring, or even empty and repetitive. Alterations in the perception of time in relation to emotional suffering are in fact common in cases of psychological trauma and major psychological threats (Holman and Grisham 2020). In the course of the COVID-19 crisis, the experience of a slowed passage of time was found to be related to feelings of boredom and sadness in a population sample in France (Droit-Volet et al. 2020), and to stress in the United Kingdom (Ogden 2020). Our subjects found it difficult to manage time as usual insofar as the national lockdown caused their daily activities and work routines to disappear. Moreover, with the suspension of many industrial and commercial activities, the closure of schools and universities, offers and services, recreational businesses, restaurants, and sport facilities, many of which doomed to never reopen, most participants found themselves working remotely or simply lost their job. As a result, they spent most or all of their time inside their apartment: a limited space that could quickly become physically and socially claustrophobic both for those who were alone and those who found themselves in forced coexistence with loved ones or more or less unknown people. That situations of this kind could generate suffering has also been highlighted not only by simple common sense but also by other studies conducted in Italy. Moretti and Maturo (2021), for example, found that the experience of domestic spaces was often altered and ambivalent in the inhabitants, who ended up considering home as a refuge and, as the same time, as a hostile environment. These novel conditions of life profoundly affected the participants, also modifying in several ways their approach to video games: most of them found

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that playing helped them adapt to and cope with the new life circumstances, thus revealing the richness of the opportunities offered by these tools.

Rebalancing the Emotional Life While before the COVID-19 crisis entertainment was a common reason for playing, during the lockdown the idea of gaming as mere leisure was overshadowed. Less than 9 percent of the participants reported “fun” as the main reason for playing video games during the lockdown, while more than 70 percent reported that it had been a major drive before the outbreak. The replies to other, less direct questions appear to confirm this evolution. Many participants consciously employed video games as a means to rebalance their emotional life disrupted by the crisis. Playing helped them refocus their attention on less worrisome events, relieving them from the negative emotions induced by their current situation. For some of them, the simple fact of playing could have a soothing effect, especially when it reminded them of similar previous experiences. One expressly reported that just manipulating the joystick was often enough to trigger feelings of calm and well-being. This can be understood in the light of the literature on Game Transfer Phenomena (Ortiz de Gortari 2018), whereby physical objects or events occurring in the game can lead the player to re-experience memories, thoughts, or different haptic sensations. Certain video games seemed more capable than others of helping reframe tension-related emotions and intrusive negative thoughts. This was reported by more than half the sample (54.2 percent). The main factors here appeared to be either the presence of an elaborate storyline or the offer of a work-alike routine in which the player can be stuck. This is especially the case of role-playing games like those of the Mass Effect saga (e.g., Mass Effect: Andromeda [BioWare 2017]), which entail a complex and deeply immersive world and have a sophisticated narrative that may deeply engage the player, as if they were “watching a movie,” as one participant (P263) put it. Strategy and management games cited by participants, such as Age of Empires (Ensemble Studios 1997), Rise of Nations (Big Huge Games 2003), Tropico (PopTop Software and Feral Interactive 2001), or Saint Seiya Awakening (Tencent’s TiMi Studio Group 2019), were often employed to the same effect. These types of games keep the player’s mind focused on a variety of tasks, like decisions to make, resources to collect, opposing forces to allocate, or problems to solve with limited resources (Zhang et al. 2023). Several participants (45.1 percent) were passionate about strategy games that hinge on the control of a nation or the shaping of a civilization, like the popular Civilization VI (Firaxis Games 2016) or Europa Universalis IV (Paradox Interactive 2013). Playing such games is an intense cognitive activity that encourages reflecting and acting in deliberate ways (Voorhees

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2009). Our participants reported that their mind was occupied with a world for which they were responsible. This required consistent care, planning, and foresight abilities; at the same time, these were all manageable tasks, which probably helped appease the anxiety generated by the external situation. This distraction effect is probably explained by the energy invested in the activity: effort commonly goes hand in hand with concentration, this may have provided a shield against mind wandering and (potentially negative) thoughts unrelated to the tasks at hand (Sörqvist and Marsh 2015). Moreover, the specific content of these games, often relating to the governance and welfare of a simulated society, may have offered a metaphorical context that could support the player’s feeling or hope that the real world was somehow under the control of a benevolent, well-meaning authority. Participants expressing depressive-like states, such as fatigue, sadness, and lack of motivation, appeared to choose games more on the basis of their ability to enhance their emotions than to foster feelings of comfort, control, or relaxation. Action or horror-themed games, such as Doom (Id Software 2016), The Last of Us (Naughty Dog 2013), or Resident Evil 6 (Capcom 2016), elicited intense emotions and bodily feelings and thus balanced the monotony and numbness of lockdown life. What these participants enjoyed the most was the “adrenaline rush” that came with an exciting game session. Indeed, there is literature (e.g., Bopp et al. 2016; Juul 2013) to the effect that players are not necessarily driven by enjoyment, which is only one possible facet of the complex gaming experience (Koster 2014). Sometimes players may seek out emotions that would generally be considered unpleasant, or not give up in the face of failure. So-called negative emotions evoked by games may be as appreciated as “pure fun” and are often accompanied by significant self-reflection. Video games allow for different uses and interpretations, so that the same game or game genre may be beneficial for some participants but not for others, or the same individual may change genre as the conditions change. In a few cases (7.2 percent), whole genres were abandoned, like open-world games, which in certain cases were probably dismissed because they require the investment of creative energies in the development of an avatar and allow for the free exploration of the game world. With the protraction of the state of emergency, which according to the government’s initial declarations shouldn’t have lasted more than a couple of weeks, many players became fatigued and unable or unwilling to devote as much cognitive efforts to the game world as they did at the beginning. This problem with “openworld” games was not captured by other studies, perhaps because of their timings: for instance, when Kleinman et al. (2021) distributed their survey the most restrictive measures had already been lifted in the United States, while we collected our data when Italy was in the throes of a rigid national lockdown. The different results are likely due to the different psychological states of the respective participants.

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Rebalancing the Social Life Video games offered a way to escape from the sense of isolation coming from the lockdown, the constrictive and possibly toxic sociality of the household, or both. Playing ameliorated the relationship with the housemates, encouraged the formation of social relationships online, or immersed and isolated the player from disturbing vis-à-vis interactions. Only seldom did digital games bring the household members together. This might depend on several reasons: different tastes; different time windows available to play; the socio-technological transformations that video games underwent in recent years, which yielded the gradual disappearing of the colocated experience of playing video games (Herodotou 2009). However, party games like Just Dance (Ubisoft 2019) or digital board games, that entail a colocated interaction among players, were chosen by only five participants, which hints at a lack of desire to play with the cohabitants. Whatever the case, playing mostly was a physically isolated activity. While this condition or behavior is generally traced to problematic gaming or broader difficulties in emotional regulation (Blasi et al. 2019), in the context of our study it was framed as a deliberate choice aimed at preventing or mitigating the interpersonal conflicts generated by forced cohabitation. Likewise, the quality of romantic relationships was also often negatively affected during the lockdown (Romeo et al. 2022; Donato et al. 2021). Conversely players were generally happy to connect with other people via the internet. Some took the opportunity to strengthen already established relationship, for example, they found moments to play together with friends and loved ones who were trapped elsewhere, with whom there was no such habit before the crisis; playing in this case was in some way a “substitution” for the evening spent together in a beer garden or at the movies. Others made new acquaintances or friends within the online communities they began to frequent. Sometimes, the change in social life was less pleasant: for example, one of our participants was a lady who used to play in presence with her granddaughter when they could spend some time by themselves; during the lockdown they had to give up this habit because the girl’s mother, that is, our participant’s daughter, did not want her to play on her cell phone. During the lockdown many Italians relied on digital technologies to maintain social relations and address their feelings of loneliness (Gabbiadini et al. 2020). The players who took part in our research used social networks and multiplayer games to feel less alone: a “stranger living on the other side of the world” could provide a sense of connection, as reported by, for example, P262. Even meeting or interacting with the nonplaying characters (NPCs) that populate digital worlds could restore a sense of communality. These results extend prior research on the importance of companions (i.e., NPCs that support and accompany the player during the game: Emmerich

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et al. 2018) in favoring the sense of immersion in the game world and the enjoyment that ensues (Tremblay and Verbrugge 2013).

Rebalancing Temporal and Spatial Boundaries Playing helped the participants deal with the temporal and spatial transformations that the crisis had generated in their daily experience. As for the former, survey data suggest that playing was also part of a strategy aimed to recover a feeling of control over the new, disrupted temporality. For example, it sustained the recreation of boundaries between work and nonwork hours and enabled the players to perceive the passage of time as more meaningful. For some participants the simple fact that, as one of them said, playing involves “a definite activity in a definite time” was enough to compensate for the loss of the temporal reference points separating professional and free time, which remote work had blurred. Especially multiplayer games provided a curb on overwork, as the participants felt that they had a commitment to their fellow players that could not be missed. This perception of the transitions between work time and free time was clearer when the participants played from a console or personal computer than from mobile devices. This was the same function that before the lockdown was performed by commuting or physically leaving the workplace. Casual games, which are mostly played on mobile phones both during work hours and on one’s way home, did not contribute to reinstate these transitions. This may indicate that people forced to work remotely often intertwined play with work: casual games are better suited for short breaks (Hsu et al. 2007; Reinecke 2009; Alexandrovsky et al. 2019) than for marking a caesura between different activities. Video games, especially those that foster a sense of immersion, were also used to fast-forward through the day: titles like The Last of Us (Naughty Dog 2013), Uncharted (Naughty Dog 2017), Death Stranding (Kojima Productions 2019), and The Witcher (CD Projekt RED 2007) were often compared to the immersive experience granted by other media, such as movies or books. Retro games and games that belonged to a distant past in their biography were chosen because they reminded participants of lost “positive” periods of their life, when they were free to play without any social or professional responsibility or stigma. This reminded us of the principles of Daydream (Jin and Nishino 2020), a retro-style serious game whose aim is to elicit nostalgia, believed to be beneficial to the player thanks to the retrieval of happy memories and feelings from the past. As for the spatial transformations, video games were used by several participants as tools to mentally escape their claustrophobic household. Most effective in this regard, for some participants, were games with a

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carefully designed environment, such as open-world or action-adventure ones, which allow explorative actions that are not necessarily connected to goal achievement. Games that simulate real life, such as The Sims 3 (The Sims Studio 2009), could help some players find a substitute for the significant places that normally grounded their daily routines and were no more accessible. Virtual spaces resembling real-world landscapes favored a sense of immersion and partially compensated for the impossibility to travel to faraway places. The characteristics of the environment are known to affect the player’s feelings of immersion and presence (e.g., Wissmath et al. 2010), and recent evidence suggests that a realistic virtual environment may evoke positive emotions (Newman et al. 2022). It was important, as expressed by some participants, like P13 and P319, to be able to mold the game spaces—as is the case with sandbox games like Minecraft (Mojang 2011) and Animal Crossing: New Horizons (Nintendo EPD 2020)—or to have multiple opportunities for action available. Minecraft (Mojang 2011) and other sandbox games may encourage the player’s self-expression and foster a sense of freedom from the boundaries of the “real world” (e.g., Ringland et al. 2017). Kleinman et al. (2021) found that games offering “virtual real-world” locations to be experienced were preferred during the lockdown, with the intent to substitute for reality. As we mentioned above, however, we found that these types of games tended to be abandoned when isolation was prolonged, and many participants became increasingly fatigued and depressed.

What Role for Video Games during a Crisis? The COVID-19 crisis has shaken up the nation in several ways, disrupting and subverting everybody’s “taken for granted world” (Gardiner 2000), which is made of the routines that regulate individual and collective life. Other respiratory outbreaks that occurred before the information technology era, like the flu pandemic of 1918–20 (so-called Spanish), those of the 1950s and 1960s, or even the recent SARS-1 and MERS, impinged upon society in vastly different ways. The potential role of information technologies in disaster mitigation and emergency response planning has been studied since the early 1970s (Stephenson and Anderson 1997). The research area known as “crisis informatics” has shown that information and communication technologies may help shape emergency-related activities, such as the exchange of crucial information, the professional training of first responders (Sanders and Rhodes 2007) or the coordination of operations (Palen et al. 2015). With the advent of COVID-19 the literature has focused on the use of social media, for instance with reference to the collective

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production, diffusion, and discussion of information (e.g., Pine et al. 2021; Zhang et al. 2021). So far, video games have remained underexplored in this regard, despite their diffusion and the importance they have in the lives of innumerable persons. Research efforts have mostly been directed toward the design and development of serious games for a variety of objectives, such as supporting the personnel who are institutionally called upon to intervene in an emergency (Stiso et al. 2015) or training the so-called formal responders (Toups et al. 2015). Another strand of serious games has been addressed to citizens, with the aim to teach them about crises (Gampell et al. 2020b) or to train them act appropriately in emergency contexts (Chittaro and Buttussi 2015; Chittaro and Sioni 2015). Video games are considered an innovative way to educate people who might be involved in a crisis (Gampell et al. 2020a) and to support disaster mitigation by reducing citizens’ vulnerability, which is supposed to stem from their unawareness and unpreparedness (Sudarmilah et al. 2019). Despite its advancements, this literature appears to conceive games mostly as tools that can be leveraged to facilitate control of threatening events and their effects on society. As these years have shown, however, a major crisis may look like nothing you can train the general population for: its precise nature, unfolding, and consequences may be too difficult, complex, and far-reaching to forecast and depend more on the measures taken by the governments than the preparedness of the population. To provide psychological support to the citizens during and after a stressful experience (Saltzman et al. 2017) may be at least as important as preparing them in advance for a crisis whose profile is likely very uncertain. This perspective broadens and transforms the scope, sense, and usefulness of video games, opening up to any type thereof, including also, if not mostly, commercial ones. The literature here is sparse and mostly interdisciplinary: however, there are both theoretical arguments and practical evidence that play can be helpful in treating distress caused by difficult situations. Video games offer several kinds of emotional and social benefits: they can help improve mood and relieve negative feelings (Bowman and Tamborini 2015; Reinecke et al. 2012), complement social needs (Vella et al. 2016), and provide a sense of belonging to counteract feelings of loneliness (Iacovides and Mekler 2019). While commercial video games are not primarily, or at all, designed with the user’s psychological well-being in mind, their employment in clinical interventions to address a wide spectrum of disorders is not uncommon. Game-based protocols have been implemented and tested for anxiety and depression (Kühn et al. 2018) and for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) (Colder Carras et al. 2018; Elliott et al. 2015). The latter is particularly interesting since the mental health of otherwise sane persons can be compromised when they become victims of unpredictable and stressful

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life-changing events (American Psychological Association 2013). Of course, video games are extremely diverse in terms of design features, background narrative, gameplay experience, duration, social interaction and so on, and therefore in terms of the mental states and emotions evoked in each user, so that each can be more or less suitable for integration into a certain therapeutic protocol. For example, first-person shooter games have been used with the same logic that underlies virtual reality exposure therapy (VRET) to desensitize veterans from frightening stimuli, namely by immersing them in a simulation which recalls the previous traumatic experiences; role-playing games (RPGs) may be useful in the psychotherapy of several conditions in the developmental age (Boldi and Rapp 2022). Our findings fully support this perspective, insofar as we found a strong relationship between the distinctive features of the games and the way the players utilized them in a sort of self-treatment. Other research suggests that virtual gaming environments should be considered “altered realities” (Rosegrant 2012) that give players the opportunity to not only temporarily detach themselves from a discomforting reality, but also re-enact feelings of distress in a more protected and nonjudgmental environment (Hicks et al. 2020). There are several examples of how specific video games may be used, for example, to psychologically “reconnect” with the world (Hicks et al. 2020; Guhde 2017). The narrative structure of games and the symbolic elements they are rife with can, each in its own way, promote a better life and better management of emotions (Gerhardt and Smith 2020). The participants in our study played more prominently, or conversely dismissed, specific games or types of games depending on how they were dealing with the crisis and its evolution over time. For example, games set in dystopian or apocalyptic contexts were abandoned from the very beginning of the lockdown, because they could overamplify certain features of the pandemic world or of the fears that it generated. The choice of a certain gaming experience, thus, is not only a matter of previous preferences, of individual disposition or of the availability or popularity of a title; instead, it is more strictly connected to the player’s experience of the crisis and its unfolding. Given the key role of such processes in human psychological life (Bruner 1990; Neimeyer and Mahoney 1996; Mahoney and Granvold 2005), the effectiveness of video games in supporting individuals has remarkable consequences for their employment during a crisis (De Schutter and Vanden Abeele 2010; Zhang et al. 2020b). Maintaining the ability to make sense of the world under difficult circumstances, like those of the COVID-19 crisis (Castiglioni and Gaj 2020), is crucial insofar as the disruption of the routines that structure and regulate most of our daily lives interferes with the process of meaning-making (Kelly 1955) and jeopardizes the ability to recover from distressing experiences.

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Conclusions In this chapter we built on both previous literature and our own work (Boldi et al. 2022) to discuss the use of video games during the COVID19 crisis, pointing out that, and how, commercial video games have helped people rebalance the profound life transformations engendered by the crisis. Research on the spontaneous use of video games during crises was scarce before the pandemic, while several studies have been conducted on this topic since 2020, investigating whether video games can be a valuable resource to cope with highly complex, pervasive, hyperobject-like crises. Recent literature has viewed playing video games as one of the meaningful activities that can offer some benefit during a critical situation (Mekler and Hornbæk 2019), provided that those involved are adequately shielded from its undesirable effects, like isolation or the triggering of disturbing traumatic memories (Elliott et al. 2015). However, a clear-cut universal answer to the enquiry about the benefits and threats of playing is unattainable, not only because of the platitude that not everybody likes to play, but, more interestingly, because games offer a myriad of opportunities and ways to play, that is a myriad of local affordances (Gibson 1979), which makes each interaction between a player and a game unique and tremendously complex. Each of us has a different set of resources available to cope with vexatious life events (Benight and Harper 2002) and is driven by individual motivations to play (Yee 2006), which can develop and change under complex circumstances. Therefore, it is no surprise that there is a lot of heterogeneity in how people have used video games during the COVID-19 crisis, as well as in how this affected their lives. In the face of some regularities in its effects, this situation has also emphasized individual differences, as it has affected citizens in different ways depending on whether they could count on a strong and supportive social network, a stable job position and a solid financial situation, a serene home environment, psychological resilience, on whether their job remained in presence, went online or was simply lost, and so on. In the same vein Ballou et al. (2022) concluded that gaming can effectively offset psychological needs, but that such positive effects appear to be experienced mostly by those who were previously satisfied with their daily lives. This draws attention to the uniqueness of personal experience and its role in fostering the effects of video gaming in difficult times. Yet we believe that the use of video games can be interesting to observe per se, and not merely to investigate its more or less positive effects on mental health. How people play under critical circumstances may reveal something about their individual meaning-making processes, experiences, and representations of threatening events, and ways to cope with them. Future research should explore in depth what factors may account for the individual differences in play and how they shape the experience of the crisis.

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One simple hypothesis, for example, is that more experienced players might benefit more than novices from playing in challenging situations. Because gaming has long been an active part of their lives, they are likely more aware of the complex effects that different games may have on them, and therefore more proficient at choosing a specific game for a specific purpose, managing the ways and times in which to play it, abandoning it for another one, or stopping playing altogether when the benefits diminish or harmful effects emerge. Our final consideration is about serious games, which have been the main focus of crisis informatics. We hope that these reflections can open up new challenges for researchers and practitioners studying and developing serious games aimed, with a healing intent, at those who are going through a crisis. In particular, we believe that these games should take into account both the specificity of each crisis and the uniqueness of each individual’s response to it.

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11 Reflection Inception: Creating a Reflective COVID-19 Game by Reflecting on the Pandemic Adam Jerrett

Introduction Game design decisions are often discussed in postmortems, industry presentations, and other post-release reflective content (Wawro 2015). This is typically undertaken by industry practitioners, rather than academics. Within academia, design-focused discussions are less common, with published research often prioritizing the results of the game’s associated studies. However, scholars have highlighted the design and development process as inherently beneficial to creators (Danilovic 2018; Rusch 2017). To adequately abstract such experiences into a game, developers must engage in reflective practice, as described by Schön (1983). Reflection on past events through “reflection-on-action” may inspire the themes of the game, while “reflection-in-action” occurs in a practical context during the creation process. This process is notably therapeutic for designers (Danilovic 2018). “Bleed” refers to blurring the boundaries between a player and their character during role play. Aspects of the game can “bleed out” and affect the player, or real feelings can “bleed in” and affect the role-playing experience (Stenros and Bowman 2018). “Design bleed” encourages designers to allow their lives to “bleed into” their game designs and explore topics often unaddressed by the wider games industry (Toft and Harrer

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2020). A notable focus of design bleed is finding a “golden moment” that organically resonates with the designer, as these games can resonate with players. Practically, the COVID-19 pandemic presents a unique “golden moment” for both designers and players. While people will have had unique experiences of the pandemic (e.g., governmental policies, the severity of spread/infection, levels of stress), it remains a shared experience that many can relate to. The success of media like Burnham’s documentary Inside (2021) shows that while depictions of pandemic life can be discomforting, partaking in such media can also be relatable and cathartic when executed correctly (McQuillan 2021). To further explore “design bleed” and the personal design process, this research details my creation (i.e., design and development) of What We Take With Us (WWTWU), a game inspired by my personal journey through the COVID-19 pandemic. Upon returning to work after a prolonged period due to the COVID-19 pandemic, various pandemic-related policies (e.g., maskwearing, social distancing) disrupted working life. Events like changing jobs, planning a wedding, and moving countries during the pandemic inspired me to use game design to help process these lived experiences, making the pandemic an obvious theme for the project. The process of creating a game during a pandemic about that pandemic is thus the focal point of the research. As such, the research question is: RQ: How does engaging in reflective practice during the development of a COVID-19-themed game during the pandemic affect both the decisions made during the design process and the designer’s emotional state? As detailed discussion of creative decisions is uncommon in academia, this research aims to provide a unique account of game creation in times of crisis, allowing game creators to benefit from lessons learned during WWTWU’s creation. WWTWU is a pervasive game—one played partially or fully in reality (Montola, Stenros, and Waern 2009)—that I developed as part of a PhD project on personal, values-conscious game design. It consists of a website (https://wha​twet​akew​ith.us), a Discord server (https://whatwetakewith.us/ discord/), and a real-world game room. The website serves as a standalone well-being-focused game with a series of tasks (Jerrett 2022), while the server and room enable player interaction with a game character that introduces COVID-19 themes, turning the game into a narrative-focused alternate reality game (ARG). The ARG ran from February to May 2023 and was ongoing at the time of writing. Studies detailing player experience and feedback are the focus of further research. The narrative unfolds on Discord and in the game room, following the story of Ana Kirlitz, a PhD student studying player engagement with

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WWTWU. Room players discover Ana’s office and interact with her through the game’s Discord, which server players interact with remotely. Ana’s story reveals her experiences during the pandemic, including her mental health struggles and the loss of her mother to COVID-19. Mechanically, players perform tasks such as tidying their space, expressing feelings through art, dancing, sharing stories, reflecting on well-being, engaging in self-talk, and re-evaluating their space upon completion. Tasks can be completed on Discord or in the game room, with the latter offering a physical space that complements the online Discord community.

Design Context Games in the COVID-19 Pandemic Games enjoyed significant sales increases at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic due to global lockdown measures (Schreier 2020). One game to benefit from such popularity was Animal Crossing: New Horizons (AC:NH) (Nintendo EPD 2020). This may have been due to its mechanics allowing vicarious play (Zhu 2021). Players could escape to an island full of vibrant characters, instead of being stuck alone at home. Friends could visit each other’s islands and socialize virtually, despite pandemic restrictions. Routines such as gardening, fishing, and landscaping were continued that may not have been possible otherwise (due to time commitments, local restrictions, etc.). In doing so, AC:NH provided an escape that many used as a coping mechanism (Pearce et al. 2022). Existing games also adapted to the COVID-19 pandemic. Folding@ Home (Pande Laboratory 2000) expanded its protein-folding functionality to study SARS-CoV-2 (Forti et al. 2021), while Plague Inc. (Vaughan 2012) made its downloadable content, The Cure, free from November 2020 to July 2022. The game’s subject matter, where players spread a global pandemic, often leads to increased popularity during health crises (Duffy 2020). The developers’ decision to focus on solutions like vaccination in The Cure was cited as an ethical choice during the pandemic (Vaughan 2022). Finally, the COVID-19 pandemic was the specific focus of A Solitary Spacecraft (Douglas 2020), a poetry game released in May 2020 that charts the developer’s first months in lockdown. It was lauded as particularly poignant upon its release, as noted by Brewster (2020): “I have seen so many think-pieces … about what we should be doing with our quarantine time … I’ve seen so many, and yet, none of them have resonated with me — too often they’re preachy or overwrought or (fittingly) miserable … I don’t feel that way about this game.” Such a response showcases the ability of

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pandemic-related games to resonate with players, thereby demonstrating “golden moments” (Toft and Harrer 2020) at play.

Game Creation for Personal Processing Game creation has previously been examined as a process that can lead to personal growth by finding meaning in design (Rusch 2017). To this end, industry professionals advocate for the abstraction of lived experiences into games (Personal Experiences as Games 2019). Doing so serves as a useful way for designers to explore and find meaning in both negative and positive personal experiences. Autobiographical game jams task game designers and developers to make games about their personal experiences (Danilovic 2018; Harrer 2019). Game designers often control the creative vision of the game by defining its narrative, mechanics, and aesthetics. Their ideas are then implemented by game developers, who handle technical aspects such as writing code and creating assets. Autobiographical game jams provide a useful opportunity for designers to transition to development, as such jams often encourage a focus on narrative content represented using simple tools like Bitsy, a webbased game creation environment (Harrer 2019). Game developers can similarly expand their skill sets by using their technical prowess to abstract real-world experiences in interesting ways. Participants find such game jams to be reflective and therapeutic (Danilovic 2018). Four elements make this possible: the social creation process (as is the case with game jams), the necessity for reflection to find inspiration, the abstraction of lived experience in a game, and the knowledge that resulted from development. Sampat (2017) similarly challenges designers to create games inspired by their real-life daily frustrations. To do this, designers must reflect on their lived experiences and do in-depth research about their frustrations to accurately create systems that abstract them. In doing so, the design process fundamentally changes the designer and aids meaning-making (Rusch 2017). Personal design is also meaningful. To Rusch (2017), design should not be player-focused, but rather focused on the designer’s process. Games exist as products of, and testaments to, the personal process of meaningmaking. Both the game design process and the game itself can be meaningful because they are personal. WWTWU represents such a design artifact, being both a reflective process for me and a design that “bleeds” into the game to resonate with its players.

Values-Conscious Game Design The lens of values can lead to a better understanding of how personal game design can assist personal growth. Artifacts have the belief systems of their

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creators embedded within them (Winner 1980). Inspired by this, technology designers (Flanagan, Howe, and Nissenbaum 2005; Fleischmann 2013; Grace 2010) argue that artifacts (i.e., games) have values embedded within them through the design process. These values can come from the ideas, design decisions, or what the artifact represents. Specific values, such as “connection” in Death Stranding (Kojima Productions 2019), may be explicitly embedded during design. Values can also be implicitly embedded through mechanics—in-game economies, as discussed shortly, are often based on capitalist market structures. Design frameworks, often named for the values they champion, also contribute to the understanding of values in games. Ethical game design frameworks are concerned with complex philosophical questions and player reactions to them (Schrier and Gibson 2010). The emotional game design focuses on eliciting specific emotions (Isbister 2016). Finally, empathy game design seeks to prioritize awareness of specific narrative topics (Belman and Flanagan 2010). These frameworks are some examples of “values-conscious design” (Flanagan and Nissenbaum 2014). Values-conscious designers intentionally consider the values that are implied by their design decisions. Identifying “invisible” values, that may have consequences for the player experience, can sometimes be difficult, as multiple contradictory values can, and often do, exist within the same game (Grace 2010). AC:NH, for example, embeds kindness by encouraging players to gift items to other characters and players. However, the players’ willingness to be kind is sometimes undermined by another prominent in-game value: capitalism. Much of the game is spent paying off various loans to a game character. Trying to balance repayments with the game’s otherwise prosocial values can create a dissonant experience (Vossen 2020). To avoid problematic value clashes, design can be “values-centered” (Jerrett, Howell, and Dansey 2022). Values-centered design involves the selection of a single value or a related set of values, which guides design decisions. This process results in games where mechanics, narrative, and other elements are aligned with the centered value. Death Stranding presents an example of such a design centered on “connection” (Kojima 2019). In Death Stranding, protagonist Sam travels to cities to reconnect them to the Chiral network (the game’s version of the internet). Building connective structures, such as zip lines, facilitates traversal. The narrative value of connection is mirrored mechanically by enabling multiplayer features once an area is reconnected, enabling player-built structures to appear in others’ games and be reacted to (e.g., “liked”). Thus, “connection” is embodied through narrative, mechanics, and social features. Recettear: An Item Shop’s Tale (EasyGameStation 2010) centers “capitalism.” Recettear, like ANCH, has players control a character in debt. The game’s narrative and mechanics are driven by capitalist values. Narratively, players inherit a shop that must be kept from closing by

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repaying a loan weekly through mechanics-driven profit-making activities like buying and selling goods and bargaining with customers. Failure to turn a profit ends the game. The focus on capitalism is further emphasized through the protagonist’s catchphrase, “Capitalism, ho!” Like these examples, WWTWU’s utilizes a values-centric approach that integrates its core values (discussed later) into both its narrative and mechanics.

Research Methodology Research-through-Game Design Game design research often examines games through multidisciplinary lenses (e.g., media studies, human–computer interaction), while game design practice focuses on the process of artifact creation (Coulton and Hook 2017). These perspectives are sometimes in opposition. Practice, however, remains a viable knowledge creation tool. Knowledge gained through application is a core benefit of the reflective practitioner approach: exploring processes and reasoning encourages professional growth (Schön 1983). The research-through-design (RtD) methodology enables such knowledge creation (Frayling 1994). RtD allows designers to make discoveries that would otherwise be impossible had they not engaged in the design process, and can therefore allow for games research through game design (Coulton and Hook 2017). Because knowledge arises from the design process, RtD’s findings can be inherently subjective, which can be methodologically problematic. Coulton and Hook (2017) argue, however, that subjective stories of experience— an important element of postmodern research—are a useful element of game design practice that should be adopted by researchers. The use of RtD in games research is growing. Howell (2015) discusses Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs (The Chinese Room 2013), a game created primarily as a commercial project. However, the RtD and game creation process also facilitated psychological research on the subversion of player expectations through design. Akmal and Coulton (2019) similarly documented the creation of an Internet-of-Things-themed board game with RtD. Reflection throughout the RtD process aided the game’s iterative design. The knowledge generated from such studies, though subjective, illustrates game design thinking in practice. RtD is a valuable methodology because it bridges the gap between practice and academia. This research, therefore, utilizes RtD to explore how design and its resulting artifact are affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. It translates practical discoveries from game design into valuable insights for creators, expanding the body of existing research-through-game design.

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Data Gathering and Analysis The primary data generated through the RtD process was the game’s design documents. A research diary kept throughout the design process provided additional data. Another useful data collection method was the game itself. WWTWU tasks the player with completing reflective tasks such as considering how they are feeling and actively reflecting on experiences from the past two years. Playing the game thus generates rich data about feelings and experiences that could be used to document the design process. As such, data generated from the author’s own playthroughs were used alongside the research diary and game design documents as the three data sources for analysis. The next section describes WWTWU’s design and development. The creative process is thereafter analyzed using thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke 2019). The thematic analysis includes familiarizing oneself with a data set, initial coding, theme identification, theme review, and the definition of broader themes for discussion. Presenting these broader themes from WWTWU’s pandemic-related creative process provides useful insights relating to design in times of crisis.

Designing WWTWU Design Methodology The game was designed using three theoretical frameworks: a set of questions for values-conscious designers; a values-centered design framework; and design considerations for pervasive games (Jerrett and Howell 2022; Jerrett, Howell, and de Beer 2022; Jerrett, Howell, and Dansey 2022). These frameworks can be combined to create a holistic design process where each framework guides a part of the overall design: the values, the systems, and the narrative. This process is shown in Figure 11.1.

Game Values The questions for values-conscious designers (Jerrett and Howell 2022) guided the project’s design philosophy. The designer’s values—community, well-being, reflection, and music—defined the game’s theme: WWTWU would be a well-being-focused game I could have played throughout the pandemic to allow me to feel better. To adequately center these values, research was conducted to explore how community, music, and reflection influence well-being and were influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Preproduction Phase Defining Values

Design Phase Making Decisions

Designer’s Philosophy/Values

Mechanics/Systems Design

What are my values? How do my values influence my design philosophy? What personal experiences can I make a game about? How will I design for bleed?

How can I highlight the user experience? How (un)important are the game’s systems? Should I include briefing and debriefing? Should I utilise ritual? Will there be safe spaces in the game that allow for reflection? How can I design interpretive tasks? Should I restrict language? How can I incorporate physical play? What choices can the players make? How can I frame these choices?

Game’s Philosophy/Values

Narrative Design

How will my game’s story and context represent values? How will my game’s systems represent values? How does my game’s presentation Imply values? How does my game represent the experience of others?

How can I create an authentic context?

What’s the point? Jerrett et al.’s (2022) Considerations for Values-Conscious Pervasive Games

Jerrett et al.’s (2022) Stepwise Value-Centred Design Principles

Where am I? Who are the players? What is happening? How will the players feel? How can the players learn?

Jerrett and Howell’s (2022) Questions for Values-Conscious Designers

FIGURE 11.1  WWTWU’s combined holistic design process.

It has often been assumed a sense of community, the game’s first value, makes one happier. Indeed, there is a strong correlation between social well-being and an individual’s sense of community (Coulombe and Krzesni 2019). Group therapy communities can also directly impact individuals’ well-being—social support provided by community members greatly affects well-being outcomes, such as increased spirituality and quality of life (Zamaniyan et al. 2016). The link between community and well-being was felt by many during the COVID-19 lockdowns imposed in some countries. Many people experienced greater loneliness during the pandemic, which highlighted the detrimental effects of social isolation. To combat this, interventions like maintaining social connections through technology, maintaining routines, and increasing self-care were recommended to mitigate negative effects (Razai et al. 2020). Music, the game’s second value, has often been linked to well-being, though its exact impact is difficult to pinpoint. DeNora (2016) explores music’s ability to serve as an “asylum” and refuge for people and can also support mood regulation. Listening to music on headphones in public can allow one to both be “alone” and mediate interactions with an environment. Listening to relaxing music in a bustling city, for example, may allow one to interpret the chaotic environment as something more beautiful. Music can also provide avenues for community building and anxiety treatment (Stige 2017). Traditional music therapy interventions (e.g., listening, singing, dancing) have been associated with increased well-being

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(Daykin et al. 2018). Community music therapy utilizes similar methods with a focus on the shared love of music within a communal space (Stige 2017). The impact of music on well-being, both through personal listening experiences and community engagement, is therefore significant. Personal and communal musical engagement for well-being increased for many during the COVID-19 pandemic through increased listening patterns and even impromptu balcony performances with neighbors (Cabedo-Mas, Arriaga-Sanz, and Moliner-Miravet 2021). Reflection, the game’s third value, is often discussed for its benefits to professional growth (Schön 1983). However, reflection also has a role in personal growth. “Restorying” (Kenyon and Randall 1997) asks practitioners to recontextualize and share their life stories to catalyze self-reflection and change—a concept that inspired Danilovic’s (2018) autobiographical game jams. Reflecting on these stories can have a positive effect on well-being. Arts-based reflection, using techniques like painting, can be an approachable way to reflect on and improve well-being when guided by reflective prompts (Watson and Barton 2020). Body mapping, for example, allows participants to reflect on and link struggles they are having to certain body parts, which are then represented on drawn outlines of themselves. Body mapping was used to study the impact of COVID-19 on student well-being and was found to be effective (Watson and Barton 2020). The findings highlighted the importance of self-reflection and the struggles of isolation, belonging, and well-being during the pandemic. WWTWU, therefore, focuses on reflection on/for well-being in response to these challenges.

Game Systems WWTWU’s systems design was guided primarily by practical considerations for values-conscious pervasive game design (Jerrett, Howell, and de Beer 2022). The two primary game systems are the website and its tasks, which focuses primarily on conveying the game’s central value of well-being, and the Discord server, which frames these tasks within a virtual environment commonly used during the pandemic. WWTWU’s tasks are completed by players in sequential order, with a personal music playlist accompanying certain tasks. The tasks are: . Tidy or organize the space you are about to play the game in. 1 2. Physically write down how you are feeling. 3. Express how you are feeling by stylizing the word you previously wrote. Surround it with reasons you feel this way. Decorate it with specific shapes, based on the emotion.

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4. Play the first song on your playlist and dance to it. 5. Reach out to someone in your life. Ask them to tell you a story from the past two years. Write your own story, recording yourself reciting it, then share that recording with someone. 6. Within a shared online community, think about your well-being and express what works/doesn’t work for you. 7. Sit somewhere, pick another song on your playlist, and listen to it. While doing so, reflect on your experience playing WWTWU. 8. Talk to ‘past you’ from two years ago by observing your reflection in, for example, a mirror or webcam. Say whatever comes naturally. 9. Find a song that resonates with you and add it to your playlist. 10. Print a picture from the internet that represents your experience with the game. Sign, date, and find a space for it in your workspace. If previous pictures from this task exist in your workspace, pick one, write today’s date on it, and take it with you when you leave. 11. Review and, if need be, tidy or pack away your play/workspace. Take the picture from Task 10 with you when you leave.

Crucially, the game’s tasks were designed in response to my own reflection on my pandemic experiences and considering what may have helped me throughout such a crisis period. To ensure the game design was informed by research, preliminary task ideas were additionally investigated within the existing literature. The game’s use of tidying as a ritual is informed both by my personal experience with an increasingly messy and neglected workspace during the pandemic, as well as its usefulness as a means of exerting personal control over my environment (Sorrell 2020). Tasks focused on interrogating emotions provided an outlet for me to do so—something I struggled with—while also providing necessary cognitive offloading (Sharp, Preece, and Rogers 2019) and artistic emotional expression (Fan, Yu, and Shi 2019). Music’s role in WWTWU is intensely personal to me—its presence often an antidote to my pandemic malaise that would also allow others to create their own personal connections with the game (DeNora 2016). Tasks involving sharing emotions with myself or others stemmed from the loneliness that I and many others often felt, despite social contact being of paramount importance for wellbeing during the pandemic (Razai et al. 2020). The importance of sharing also highlights the communal aspect of the game, inspired by the usefulness of group therapy (Zamaniyan et al. 2016). Most notably, WWTWU’s name was inspired by an oft-repeated motif in reflective pandemic-related resources, which encouraged considerations

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of the practices people wanted to continue (e.g., remote meetings), and ones they would prefer not to (e.g., daily commutes) (Cheung and VaughanLee 2020; South East Employers 2020). These were referred to as “what we take with us … and what we leave behind” (Cheung and Vaughan-Lee 2020). What did I want to take with me and leave behind from this crisis? These phrases became a mantra for what I hoped to portray within the player experience. The mechanical translation enabling players to leave something in the game and take something else with them as a memento of their experience was a truly “golden moment” (Toft and Harrer 2020) that echoes Romero’s (2019) work: the mechanic is the message. The game’s tasks then needed to be presented to players somehow. Inspired by existing online well-being games like You Feel Like Shit (Miklik and Harr 2016), the tasks are presented on a website. The website was designed to make the game context and interactions feel soothing: tasks are presented on a full-page layout that smoothly scrolls from one task to the next; the site’s color palette utilizes pastel colors that promote well-being; handwritten fonts suggest the game is a bespoke experience; information on fictional site authors refers to their well-being; and the website (see Figure 11.2) provides links to well-being resources. WWTWU’s focus on community necessitated a communal forum. My own increased usage of Discord aligned with increased usage trends of the platform throughout the pandemic (Reitman, Anderson, and Steinkuehler 2021). Discord was a large part of my and many others many pandemic experiences, making it a fitting communication platform for WWTWU,

FIGURE 11.2  The game website: “What We Take with Us.” © Jerrett, 2022. https://whatwetakewith.us (accessed May 15, 2023).

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FIGURE 11.3  The WWTWU discord: “What We Take with Us.” © Jerrett, 2022. https://whatwetakewith.us/discord/ (accessed May 15, 2023).

where the game’s two-year reflection period for some tasks aimed to situate player reflection within the pandemic. Using Discord (see Figure 11.3) as the communication platform aimed to further highlight the game’s pandemic connections.

Game Narrative WWTWU’s narrative (i.e., story, characters, etc.) would introduce autobiographical pandemic-related elements to create a personal game through “design bleed” (Toft and Harrer 2020). The narrative design was primarily guided by a values-centered design framework (Jerrett, Howell, and Dansey 2022), and focused primarily on linking all three aspects of the game together: the website, the Discord, and the room. Within the game’s fiction, Ana, the game’s protagonist, discovers and uses the game website as a well-being tool and charts her own journey through the pandemic on the Discord server. The results of this adorn the game room—her office that players discover, abandoned after Ana leaves it to return home after her mother’s death in December 2021. The narrative justification for the room’s existence is an important element of WWTWU’s design. WWTWU was initially conceptualized as an escape

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room game, due to a lack of research surrounding values-conscious escape rooms. However, the goal of escaping the room can interfere with players effectively reflecting on a values-conscious narrative within the space, which led to this mechanic being abandoned (Blot 2017). Instead, WWTWU alters the game format by keeping the fixed location of the game but eschewing timers, locked doors, and the goal of escape. Inspired by ARGs’ reliance on sequences to control information discovery and rewards (de Beer 2016), the room was based on the website tasks. As such, defining the inhabitant of the room, why they’d abandoned it, and how players would respond to that was of core narrative importance. The game room was specifically designed to showcase parts of Ana’s character not otherwise present on Discord: the room contains paraphernalia like books, albums, and notes she writes to herself, as well as allusions to her mental health (e.g., a well-being pamphlet) and her status in a new city (e.g., tourist brochures). Like the website, the room’s design also had to feel soothing. This was achieved using light-colored décor, potted plants, and a comfortable lounge chair for players to sit in while playing. Importantly, there were an array of pandemic-themed elements present in the room: a mask, hand sanitizer, and Ph.D. musings on a chalkboard all suggest that Ana’s office was abandoned during the pandemic (see Figure 11.4). Narrative design began by writing an overview of Ana’s story that outlined the game’s major plot beats that established her character and the narrative justification for each artifact (i.e., room, server, website). Many of Ana’s experiences intentionally mirror my own. Ana’s trepidation at relocating to Portsmouth reflects my own relocation to the city mid-pandemic. Her struggles with well-being, excessive mask usage, and persistent worry are reflective of my own experiences. Both Ana and I find comfort in specific musical albums and television programs. Ana’s academic concerns mirror my own Ph.D. journey. Finally, Ana’s mother’s death and its subsequent impact are reminiscent of my own challenges following the sudden death of my mother-in-law in 2016 and worries regarding my parents amidst a pandemic. Crucially, pandemic-related death is a life experience familiar to many during the pandemic and was something I felt necessary to include. Writing scripts that chronicled Ana’s monthly engagement with WWTWU from January 2020 to the present day throughout 2022 was an exercise in reflective practice, wherein I allowed my experiences to “bleed” into Ana’s story. The content from these scripts was recorded by an actor and is disseminated on the server as the primary way that players, both remotely and in the room, interface with Ana. WWTWU adopts the ARG aesthetic that “this is not a game” (TINAG) (McGonigal 2003). Within this aesthetic, game elements purport to be real: Ana is a real person with real stories doing real research. TINAG increases player immersion and was chosen to enhance players’ emotional responses to the COVID-19 game narrative.

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FIGURE 11.4  The game room, Ana’s office. Author’s own photo.

What Creators Can Take with Them Using the discussion of design above, alongside game design documents, my research diary, and reflective playthroughs of WWTWU, this section shares practical insights informed by the thematic analysis of the RtD process that aims to be helpful to other creators considering game creation in times of crisis. It is important to note that WWTWU, as with all game projects, faced specific problems during creation that required specific solutions. As such, while some of the insights presented in this section may not apply to every crisis-based or personal project, they are nevertheless valuable: game creation is about what we take with us and what we leave behind.

Design Frameworks Can Be Useful Design frameworks can be a contentious element of game creation, with some in the industry viewing them as unnecessary, while academia is eager to present them as useful. Ultimately, the frameworks that informed WWTWU’s creative process were practically useful. Questions from the values-conscious frameworks prompted reflection on and refinement of a

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values-conscious personal design philosophy, provided practical suggestions for pervasive game mechanics, and provided a framework for the game’s narrative generation. The frameworks were at their most useful when their prompts allowed for interpretation: “what’s the point” and “where am I” encouraged creative thinking, whereas “how can the players learn” or “restricting language” suggested specific approaches that did not apply to this project and were less useful. Creators might therefore consider highly conceptual frameworks, rather than prescriptive ones, for efficient practical use.

Crisis-Situated Development Requires Flexibility in Design and Implementation As it was initially designed as a room-based game, WWTWU’s initial implementation plans in 2021 were stunted by trying to design a real-world game in an ongoing pandemic. There were concerns about whether a realworld room-based game could even be deployed, given the UK’s frequently changing government guidance. Feasibly integrating game elements under governmental restrictions, or how new working arrangements (e.g., remote work) should be integrated into the creation pipeline, caused delays. This is not uncommon in the games industry—many games have suffered delays due to the complexities of flexible working arrangements in the current global climate, whether through the pandemic, global recession, or war. As a result, WWTWU took significantly longer to implement than projects of this scope typically might in a pre-pandemic world. Creators in similar crisis environments should be prepared for potential delays and adjust their design and implementation plans accordingly. However, it is crucial to remain optimistic about projects in these circumstances. At some point, the game will ship.

Mental Barriers Can Affect Game Development Trying to write a pandemic story while living through one was an intense reflective experience. At times, I struggled to remember their life from the past two years, as if the memories were clouded by trauma. Pandemicinduced anxiety also courted procrastination—thinking about the pandemic often induced a sense of lethargy, so a positive mental space was necessary to effectively implement the game. It is therefore of the utmost importance that creators tend to their well-being by, for example, taking breaks as necessary. While addressing such issues may come at the project’s expense, it ensures creators maintain a healthy work–life balance. This is especially true when dealing with sensitive or personal themes. The game will not ship if no one is left to complete it.

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Design Bleed Can Be Complicated Personal game design encourages “bleed” throughout the creative process (Stenros and Bowman 2018). While the outcome can be positive and uncover additional layers of meaning within the design—Ana’s steadfast belief in vaccination and the death of her unvaccinated mother, for example, intentionally reveals my values in this regard—it can also be emotionally confronting. I did not fully anticipate the extent of overlap between their personal experiences and the game narrative, nor how confronting “design bleed” (Toft and Harrer 2020) could be. Creators should therefore be aware of the psychological impact of creating personal experiences and ensure they maintain self-care practices.

Remote Work Provides New Collaboration and Professional Development Opportunities Casting a local actor to play Ana in WWTWU proved challenging. Therefore, buoyed by the pandemic’s normalization of remote working practices, a remote actor was cast. This allowed for collaboration opportunities perhaps less readily considered in pervasive games, given the genre’s focus on physical presence within experiences. However, remote work also necessitated the development of extra content to ensure production progressed smoothly, such as acting, directing, and briefing notes. Lengthy scripts were also condensed to keep the workload manageable for remote performance. Creating this additional content required the learning and mastery of unforeseen disciplines like acting, direction, and production. While this outcome is ultimately positive, creators should be aware that remote work may require additional, different skillsets when compared to collocated projects.

Iteration and Expansion Creates Golden Moments The importance of iteration within game projects, while common practice within the industry, could not be understated during WWTWU’s development. Task iteration occurred regularly. When initially playtesting Task 3, for example, it routinely frustrated me. Its original design had players draw a picture that represented their feelings, instead of simply stylizing their chosen word. As a poor illustrator, I found this difficult, and anxiety prevented me from wanting to share my work—the anthesis of WWTWU’s communal focus. Iterating on the task to lessen its reliance on illustration skills and instead focus on simpler shapes and various colors decreased the task’s complexity and lowered its barrier to entry, enabling its narrative assertion to ring true: “you are an artist.”

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The developed website and Discord also presented a unique pandemicrelated opportunity: they could be interacted with remotely. The game could be played anywhere—not just in the game room as was conceptualized in WWTWU’s early designs. This realization expanded the game’s scope, and importantly provided alternative ways to play in the face of possible pandemic restrictions. Allowing for multiple modes of play expanded the game’s potential audience in a manner consistent with its narrative, while also safeguarding the design against possible future crises. In a postpandemic world, creators may want to consider accommodating such worst-case scenarios. The here-described iteration process illustrates a search for “golden moments” (Toft and Harrer 2020). Task iteration allowed the game’s mechanics to eventually feel “right,” while the game’s expansion into a larger ARG with remote and real-world components was a low-cost approach to both futureproof the game’s design and expand its audience. These decisions achieved through iteration, implore creators to iterate on their games until the “golden moment” where everything feels “right.”

Creators Should Embrace Change in Their Games and Themselves The design/development of WWTWU underwent significant changes throughout its iterative process. This included mechanical changes (tasks), narrative changes (scripts), and structural changes (playing the ARG remotely on Discord, instead of merely in the game room). While these decisions were often pragmatic and made to further refine the play experience, embracing them ultimately positively influenced the game’s themes of well-being and community amidst crises. Embracing change further highlighted the game’s values. As WWTWU evolved, so, too, did I. Interweaving personal growth (e.g., getting married) and professional growth (remote-first production practices) into the design and development process created a bespoke personal project that is inherently more meaningful to me than other projects I have worked on. Sometimes games change, and sometimes people change. Acknowledging and embracing notable changes within any project or development team can increase the enthusiasm felt toward the project by those involved.

Solo Game Creation Can Be Challenging While WWTWU’s autobiographical nature made development mentally challenging due to factors like “bleed” (Stenros and Bowman 2018), negotiating my past experiences to represent them in game was made more

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challenging by the fact that I developed it alone. This meant that creative decisions rested solely on my shoulders—a sometimes-overwhelming experience at odds with WWTWU’s focus on community. This meant that similar pandemic-related loneliness was compounded by the isolation and loneliness also often experienced during solo game creation (Schreier 2017). Solo creators should be aware that personal game development can be difficult, and at times isolating, and seek support where possible. The creation and play of WWTWU calmed and focused me on some days and negatively affected me on others. Creators should therefore prepare for their approach to game creation (in this case, alone during a pandemic) to affect the experience. Despite the often-challenging nature of the game’s subject matter, the creation of WWTWU was ultimately fulfilling, which aligns with previously documented literature on the therapeutic nature of personal design (Danilovic 2018). Personal game creation is a revelatory experience that can often result in a “golden moment” (Toft and Harrer 2020) that makes both the creative process and the artifact itself all the more worthwhile.

Balance between the Necessity for Immersion and Effective Playtesting Despite the personal growth achieved through the creative process, concerns about player reactions persist. A key question is whether the heavy focus on the COVID-19 pandemic in the game will resonate with players, as revealed when friends and family refused playtesting invitations. Player willingness to play such personal games may be concerning to creators. However, it is important to note that, as Rusch (2017) suggests, the act of creating a personal game is the primary objective, with audience reactions being of secondary importance. Conducting public playtests also posed a challenge, given the adherence to the TINAG aesthetic and the one-time nature of ARGs. While the standalone game was designed for replayability, the COVID-19-themed narrative ARG was not, and thus could not be play tested. Designers should therefore balance the necessity of the TINAG aesthetic and its benefits for immersion against greater transparency that allows players to better understand the game and playtest it effectively. This is especially notable given early observations regarding TINAG in WWTWU’s ongoing deployment. Community building for the game has proven difficult, at least in part due to the aesthetics’ use, as potential players seem to be uninterested in assisting Ana, someone with whom they have no personal connection, by playing the game. Further discussion regarding the appropriateness of the TINAG aesthetic in modern ARGs is left for future research.

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Conclusion This chapter explicitly aimed to provide a unique research-through-designand-development approach to game creation by detailing the process behind WWTWU. With the ARG still ongoing, the lack of data from the game’s deployment, run, and stakeholder feedback is a limitation. However, it is important to recognize how fundamental to game design research data from the design and development processes is. This chapter forms part of a larger project wherein WWTWU will be deployed and studied as a pervasive game in future work. This research aimed to differ from postmortem-style reflections that are common in the games industry and the Discussion sections of academic literature. Instead, its research question sought to explore the impact of reflective practice during the development of a COVID-19-themed game during the pandemic on both the design decisions made and the emotional state of the designer. It did so by evaluating a game before its completed rollout. Various sources used in the RtD process documented WWTWU’s creation and showed how reflection on the pandemic informed the game’s mechanical, narrative, and structural design and iterations. Specific events (such as the necessity for remote work or the game’s expansion through iteration) highlight key insights for creators regarding the logistics of game development in times of crisis and the duty of care creators have toward their well-being. While creation was at times a harrowing process, it was ultimately positive, suggesting that personal game development has therapeutic benefits that outweigh its drawbacks. Personal game creation in times of crisis has to be creative (to handle potential restrictions), is occasionally crippling (when dealing with difficult topics) but is ultimately cathartic (because creators are more invested in their work). The broader themes drawn from WWTWU’s creation of flexible development practices, mental resilience, and awareness of one’s well-being should provide inspiration and insight to game creators aiming to create their own personal or reflective experiences in a world in a seemingly near-constant crisis.

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CONTRIBUTORS

Arianna Boldi is a PhD candidate in the Psychology Department at the University of Torino. She is a psychology and human–computer interaction researcher with an interest in the use of technology in the context of work and organizations, as well as in self-tracking and video games. Noel Brett is a PhD candidate in the Computing and Software Department at McMaster University. They are interested in the areas of critical algorithm studies, social systems design, queer game studies, and far-right games. They have published in the areas of far-right studies as well as in streaming studies. Other parts of their work aim to uncover how queer life and counterhegemonic ways of being can be proliferated online in worlds like VRChat and games like World of Warcraft through studying the relations of technology and the human. Stefan Brückner is a lecturer at the Faculty of Business Administration, Tokyo University, Japan. He completed his PhD with a thesis on cultural differences in player experience at the Graduate School of Media and Governance, Keio University. His main research interests lie in clarifying the changing role(s) of games in society and in theorizing the relationship between games and culture. Krzysztof Chmielewski (MA) is a senior lecturer of game design at the Kazimierz Wielki University in Bydgoszcz, Poland; a LARP researcher and game designer; and a producer of games for different platforms (PC/mobile/ AR, board/card, live games, gamebooks). He is also an R&D specialist in experiential learning and gaming solutions. Hugh Davies is a postdoctoral research fellow at RMIT in Melbourne, a media researcher, and a curator. He studies games, screens, and digital culture in the Asia Pacific region. Since 2020, he has coauthored two books on video games and sits on the board of the Chinese Digital Games and Research Association (Chinese DiGRA).

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Juho Hamari (DSc Econ) is a professor of gamification and leads the Gamification Group at Tampere University, Finland. He and his group have published seminal works on topics such as gamification, virtual economy, and social networking services. Lobna Hassan (PhD) is an associate professor at LUT University, Finland. She is an alumnus of the Center of Excellence in Game Culture Studies at Tampere University, Finland. She holds a PhD in information systems and business administration from Hanken School of Economics, Finland. Prior to that, she received her bachelor and masters with high honors from the German University in Cairo, Egypt. Dr. Hassan conducts research pertaining to accessibility and inclusion in games, gamification, and e-participation. She has published in reputable journals including User Modeling & User-Adapted Interaction and the International Journal of Information Management. Webpage: https://lobn​ahas​san.com. Larissa Hjorth is a distinguished professor, a digital ethnographer, and a socially engaged artist in the School of Media and Communication at RMIT University. Hjorth has two decades of experience leading mobile media projects to explore innovative methods around intergenerational connection, intimacy, games, play, loss, and death in the Asia Pacific region. Michał Jasny (PhD) is an assistant professor at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Józef Piłsudski University of Physical Education in Warsaw, Poland. His research interests include sociology of sport, e-Sports, and gaming culture studies. Adam Jerrett is a lecturer at the University of Portsmouth in the School of Creative Technologies. As a game studies researcher, he is particularly interested in pervasive games and the way games can break out of their “magic circles” to truly affect the lives of their players. He is also interested in the importance of values in games and the use of specific values in game design. Bastian Kordyaka (PhD) is a postdoctoral researcher at Universität Bremen, Germany. He is a psychologist and a researcher, and he obtained his PhD in 2021 from the University of Siegen, Germany. He is among the world’s leading scholars in toxic behavior in multiplayer online games and e-Sports, and he has published several peer-reviewed studies on the topic in outlets such as Internet Research, Computers in Human Behavior, and ACM Transactions on Social Computing. Dr. Kordyaka’s current research interests

CONTRIBUTORS

271

broadly relate to human online behavior and the antecedents of observable negative outcomes such as toxicity. Débora Krischke Leitão is an associate professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Québec Montréal (UQAM) and holds a PhD in social anthropology from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS). She is associated with the Homo Ludens Research Group (UQAM) and the Center de recherche Cultures, Arts, Sociétés (CELAT— Cultures, Arts, Societies Research Center), working on the themes of digital media, body, consumption, gender, and sexuality. Samuli Laato is a postdoctoral researcher at Tampere University, Finland, and an educational technology developer. He received his PhD in autumn 2021 from the University of Turku. He has been involved in research activities globally with, for example, the Turku School of Economics, the University of Namibia, Rochester Institute of Technology (USA), and Ajou University (South Korea). In his research, Samuli wants to understand how various technologies influence human behavior and how technologies could steer human behavior into a beneficial direction. Jakub Majewski (PhD) is an assistant professor at the Kazimierz Wielki University in Bydgoszcz, Poland. His research interests include role-playing games and cultural heritage, game storytelling techniques, game industry history, among others. He is also a game developer with two decades of experience and a portfolio of about forty diverse games. Dobrosław Mańkowski (PhD) is a researcher at the Institute of Sociology at the University of Gdansk. Mikko Meriläinen (PhD) is a postdoctoral researcher at Tampere University Game Research Lab, working in the Centre of Excellence in Game Culture Studies, funded by the Academy of Finland. In his work, Meriläinen is currently exploring youth gaming cultures, adulthood and masculinities in digital gaming, hostile online behavior, and miniaturing. Jérémie Pelletier-Gagnon is an assistant professor in digital cultures studies at Université de l’Ontario français (University of French Ontario). He defended his thesis on “Playing in Public: Situated Play at the Intersection of Software, Cabinet and Space in Japanese Game Centres” in 2019 and recently coedited the book Japanese Role-Playing Games: Genre, Representation, and Liminality in the JRPG (2022).

272

CONTRIBUTORS

Amon Rapp is an assistant professor in the Computer Science Department at the University of Torino. He is a human–computer interaction scientist with an interest in self-tracking and wearable devices, behavior change technologies, intelligent agents, and video games. Maria Ruotsalainen (PhD) is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland, and research coordinator at the Centre of Excellence in Game Culture Studies, funded by the Academy of Finland. Her research focuses mainly on gender in competitive gaming. She has also researched gender in game more generally, gaming, Nordic populism, hate speech, and populism and masculinities. Piotr Siuda (PhD) is an associate professor at the Institute of Social Communication and Media at the Kazimierz Wielki University in Bydgoszcz, Poland. He is a member of the AoIR, DIGRA, and the Polish Society for Social Communication. His research interests include gamer communities, e-Sports, media sports, and dark web communities. He has published in reputable journals, including the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, Games and Culture, the International Journal of Cultural Studies, and Leisure Studies. Webpage: http://pio​trsi​uda.com. Sasha Soraine is a PhD candidate in the Computing and Software Department at McMaster University. Their research focuses on the intersections of game design and human–computer interaction, specifically examining the design of gameplay challenges in terms of human cognitive and motor abilities. She aims to use this work to empower game designers to evaluate game accessibility during the early stages of design. Maurizio Tirassa is a full professor of work and organizational psychology in the Psychology Department of the University of Torino and a cognitive scientist with an interest in psychological facets of technology use. Gabrielle Trépanier-Jobin is an associate professor in game studies at the School of Media of University of Québec Montréal (UQAM) and the codirector of the research group Homo Ludens (UQAM). Her main areas of expertise include game studies, media sociology, and gender studies. Her current research focuses on player immersion; diversity, equality, and inclusion in the gaming industry; as well as social and environmental awareness through play.

INDEX

Note: Figures are indicated by page number followed by “f.” Endnotes are indicated by the page number followed by “n” and the endnote number e.g., 20 n.1 refers to endnote 1 on page 20. AbleGamers 88 Activision (company) 30 Activision Blizzard (video game company) 144 addiction see game addiction Age of Empires (game) 228 Akmal, H. 25 alternate reality game (ARG) 246, 257, 261 amateur Professionals 186–188 ambient sociability 79 American Psychology Association 4 Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs (game) 250 Among Us (game) 4, 97, 98 analysis process 184 Anderson, L. 61 Andrade, L. A. 161 Animal Crossing: New Horizons (AC:NH) (game) 18, 59 affordances 61 appropriation of 61 competition in 189 data analysis 65 disappointment with 194 epistemological approaches 61–64 escapism, need for 72–74 identity expression 75–79 methodological approaches 61–64 outlet, need for 74 in “party play” mode 68 players participation in 67 productivity need 74–75 rest, need for 71–72

social accessibility 99 social interaction in 65–71 technical accessibility 98 toxic behaviors 180 uses of 60 Arcane (TV series) 198 Aristotle 80 arts-based reflection 253 Asahi Shimbun (newspaper) 133, 143–145 Assassin’s Creed Odyssey (game) 103 Assassin’s Creed Valhalla (game) 88, 103, 118 Australia 5, 18 autoethnography 61–63, 89 value of 90 “bad news” 131, 148 Baer, M. 157 Ballou, N. 225, 235 Balmford, W. 16 Barr, M. 18 Baszucki, D. 16 Bednarek, M. 148 benefits of games 136, 137, 139, 147 Bengtsson, S. 223 Bhattacharya, A. 157, 166, 168 Bigl, B. 132 BILD (newspaper) 133, 144, 148 Boellstorff, T. 21 Boldi, A. 8, 225, 226 Bond University (Australia) 3 Bonenfant, M. 79 bookmakers 208, 211, 212

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INDEX

Braun, V. 135, 136 Brett, N. 8 Brewster, K. 247 broadcasters 206, 208 Brückner, S. 7 business 49–50, 138 Canada 62, 118, 185 “Canada Emergency Response Benefit” (CERB) 81 CanIPlayThat? 88 Cao, S. 132 Caple, H. 148 Carr, D. 89 Casual-Competitives 188–190, 193, 198 casualization 185 casual players 188 Caughey, J. 16 CD Projekt Red (video game company) 116, 118, 119 Chen, D. 161 China 79, 130 civic engagement 28 Civilization VI (game) 228 Clarke, V. 135, 136 clubs 9 financial losses for 208 coding process 183–185 collective autoethnography 62 Colley, A., J. 157 Collins, E. 80 Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human (Boellstorff) 21 community music therapy 253 Community Sift (software) 30 Competitive practices 193–194 computer-assisted textual analysis 68, 72, 75, 76 computer game 134 Copeland-Stewart, A. 18 Copenhaver, A. 132 coping mechanism 92–93, 168–169 in traditional sports media 207–208 coplaying of digital games 41 Coulton, P. 250

Counter-strike: Global Offensive (game) 210, 212 COVID-19 pandemic 1, 2, 17, 20, 23, 32 in Canada 62 and Casual-Competitives 188–190 in Finland 41 games in 247–248 in Italy 226–228 playing habits during 166–169 in Quebec 62 technology during 223–225 video games during 225–226 Cox, A. 80 crime/delinquency 138 crisis informatics 232 cyberbullying 180 Cyberpunk 2077 (game) 118, 172 cycling 204, 209, 210 D’Anastasio, C. 27 Danilovic, S. 253 data processing 184 Davies, H. 5, 6, 16, 20 DAZ 216 Dead Space (game) 89 Death Stranding (game) 249 DeNora, T. 252 describing games/players 138 design bleed 245, 246, 256, 260 de Souza e Silva, A. 158, 161, 171 Dezuanni, M. 30 digital babysitter 46 digital ethnography 22 Digital Ethnography: Principles and Practices (Pink) 21 digital game development 111, 116 digital literacy 28–32 digital media 2, 51 Digital Media & Learning Initiative 22 digital safety 28–32 Discord 25, 45, 65, 166, 246, 247, 253, 255–257, 261 Disney Infinity (game) 16 distraction 49 Doom (game) 229 Dota 2 (game) 204

INDEX

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drop in academic performance 145 Dunham, J. 166, 169

Fray, A. 113, 114, 117 Frith, J. 27

EA (company) 30 East Asia 111 educational games 46, 87 Ekapeli 49 Ellis, L. A. 167, 168 emotional game design 249 emotional life 228–229 entertainment 87 Epic Games (company) 30 ErityisSanat 49 escapism 49, 60, 72–74, 87 e-Sports 102, 131, 132, 137, 145, 186–188 online viewership 2 popularity of 204 problems of 211–213 skepticism 213–214 vs. traditional sports media 5, 8, 208–211 ethical game design 249 Ethnography and Virtual Worlds (Boellstorff) 21 Europa Universalis IV (game) 228 Europe 5, 7, 9, 111, 113, 130 Evans, L. 27, 28 everyday practices and habits 48–49 exercise and movement 167–168 exploration 168

Gabbiadini, A. 157 game accessibility 88, 91, 101 game addiction 138, 139, 144, 145, 147 Game Developers Conference’s (GDC) 120–122, 124 game difficulty 101 gamer identity 191–192 “games as a service” (GaaS) model 187, 188 Games Jobs Direct 123 gaming community 186 gaming disorder 79, 130, 131, 138, 144, 145, 147 gaming practices 190–191 gaming rules 45–48 gaming strategies 95–97 Gee, J. P. 81 gender identity 77 generalizable qualitative theory 181 German TV news 131, 132 Germany 7, 129, 130, 133, 138, 139, 143, 146–148 newspaper and period 133 search algorithms, articles 134 Gibson, J. 61 Girling, R. 28 Global North 5, 9 Global South 5, 9 “good news” 131, 148 Google 183 GoogleMeet 18 gratifications theory 60–61 grounded theory 181 group therapy communities 252 Gurevitch, M. 60

Facebook 22, 42, 53, 72 family dynamics data, gender differences in 2 everyday practices and habits 48–49 gaming and 42–45 themes of 43 Ferguson, C. J. 132 FIFA series 204, 210–211 financial problems 145 Finland 39, 41, 51, 53, 90, 168 football 204, 206, 209–211, 214 Forbes (magazine) 28 formal and informal learning 28 Formosa, J. 225 Formula 1 204, 210 Fortnite (game) 3

Haas, H. 60 Hady, S. 116 Hamari, J. 7 Hanging Out, Messing Around, Geeking Out: Living and Learning with New Media (Ito) 22 harassment 180 Haraway, D. 63

276

Hardcore-Casuals 183, 186, 190–195 Hassan, L. 6 health 28, 168–169 He, W. 132 Hjorth, L. 5, 6, 16, 20, 158, 161, 171 Holt, J. 205 Hook, A. 250 Howell, P. 250 identity expression 75–79 immersion 87 Ingress Prime (game) 156, 157 Inside (film) 246 Intel Extreme Masters Katowice 2020 212, 216 International Game Developers Association (IGDA) 88 International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems 138 internet 208, 212, 214, 217 Internet-of-Things 250 interpretive inductive theory 181 iPad 26, 46, 91 Italy 224 psychological effects of pandemic 226–228 iteration process 260–261 Ito, M. 22 Japan 129, 130, 133, 138, 139, 146–148 newspaper and period 133 search algorithms, articles 134 Jasny, M. 8 Jenny, S. E. 206 Jerrett, A. 9 Johannes, N. 18 Jonasson, K. 205 Jones, J. 114 Jumareng, H. 168 Katz, E. 60 Keith, C. 117 Ke, X. 205 KH Coder (software) 63 Kim, Y. H. 205 Kleinman, E. 229, 232

INDEX

Kordyaka, B. 7 Kristanto, D. 18 Laato, S. 7, 168 Laferriere, J. 118, 119 large-scale events 4 Larian Studios 119 The Last of Us 1 (game) 96, 229 The Last of Us, Part II (game) 88, 100, 101, 103, 118 League of Legends (LoL) (game) 179– 181, 185, 204, 210 casual playstyle 180–181 hardcore playstyle 180–181 League of Legends Wild Rift 181 Leaver, T. 166, 168 Leitao, D. K. 6 Linden Lab 3 Little Big Planet (game) 16 live-action role-playing games (LARPs) 4 Livingstone, S. 28 location-based games (LBGs) 7, 8; see also Pokemon GO academic studies on 156–165 challenge for 155 in-game changes 167 live-service 158 locative elements of 167 players’ physical activity 168 research agenda 173 social interactions 166 lockdowns governments responsibility 166 impact of 117–121 López-Cabarcos, M. Á. 204 Lourenço, A. 22 low vision 88, 90, 91, 103, 104 Lua (programing language) 20 Lucas, K. 61 Majewski, J. 7 Mańkowski, D. 8 marketing 3 Mass Effect: Andromeda (game) 228 Maturo, A. 227 MAXQDA (software) 134, 135 McGonigal, J. 79–81

INDEX

McKernan, B. 131, 132, 146 Meriläinen, M. 6 MERS 232 Messenger 24, 65 Messenger Kids 24 Microsoft 88 Minecraft (game) 3, 16, 18, 19, 44 Mitrofan, O. 132 mixed reality (MR) 204, 215, 217 mobile games 91, 193 mobile phones 2, 9 Moretti, V. 227 multiplayer games 93–95 experiences of 97–100 Munyikwa, Z. 120 Nansen, B. 24, 32 Naughty Dog (video game company) 118, 119 Nery Filho, J. 161 Netflix 198 new labeling system 186 news media 131–133 newspaper articles 130; see also specific newspapers before and after Pandemic 139–145 consistencies 139–145 period of 133 positive and negative codes 142 search algorithms for 134 selection and collection 133–135 thematic categories 136–141 newsworthiness 131, 148 New York Times (NYT) 132, 133, 138, 143, 148 Nintendo (company) 30 nonplaying characters (NPCs) 59, 70, 79, 82, 230 Nookazon 72 Nook.market 72 Nookphone 65, 66, 82 North America 5, 9, 111 Nowocieñ, R. 114 obesity 132 O’Donnell, C. 116 Oka, T., T. 147 outlet 74

277

Pascal, B. 80 Pearce, C. 81 Peaty, G. 166, 168 Pelletier-Gagnon, J. 6 People’s Daily (newspaper) 132 personal game creation see solo game creation personal game design 248 physical and mental well-being 166 Pineiro-Chousa, J. 204 Pink, S. 21 place and space relationships 169 Plague Inc. (game) 247 #PlayApartTogether campaign 18, 79, 144, 225 Play between Worlds: Exploring Online Game Culture (Taylor) 21 playbor 102 players’ health 82, 169 player-versus-player (PvP) 156, 187, 190, 191 playing habits, transformation of 166–169 PlayStation 47, 91 PlayStation VR Worlds (game) 93 playtesting 262 point of interest (PoI) 156, 158, 159, 170 Pokemon GO (game) 2, 4, 7 dissatisfaction with 159 in-game changes in 156 in-game revenue 158 in-person socialization 169 physical activity for 169 players’ reluctance to revert 169–171 progression-focused design of 171 social experience for 167 Poland 203, 210, 212 post-pandemic game developments 121–123 post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) 233 pre-game decision strategies 101 pre-pandemic game developments 113–117 reluctance to revert 169–171 productivity 74–75

278

INDEX

professional players 187 projective identity 81 Przybylski, A. K. 18 psychological approach 61 psychological effects, pandemic 226–228 psychological well-being 130, 225, 233 quality-of-life 156 quarantine 129, 143 Quebec 62, 66, 68 Rapp, A. 8, 89 real gamers 192 real games 192 Reality Is Broken (McGonigal) 80 realness 191–192 pandemic changes 192–195 Recettear: An Item Shop’s Tale (game) 249 Red Dead Redemption 2 (game) 196 Reddit (website) 63, 72, 181–183 remote work see work from home (WFH) remote working parents 47 research questions (RQs) 156–158, 162 research-through-design (RtD) 250, 251, 263 Resident Evil 6 (game) 229 rest 71–72 Ribeiro-Soriano, D. 204 Richardson, I. 16, 20 Riot Games (video game company) 144, 188, 198 Rise of Nations (game) 228 Roblox (game) 3, 5, 6, 15, 143 age and gender of players 20 children participation in 22 economics of 28 menu interface of 19 participants of 23–24 popularity of 16 reporting players, process of 29 safety and privacy settings 28 social space in 24–28 spatial experiences of 16 success of 16 Unreal Engine or Unity tool 20

role of parents 138 role-playing games (RPGs) 4, 26, 27, 194, 234 Romero, B. 255 ROSES method 158 The Routledge Companion to Digital Ethnography (Hjorth) 21 Ruotsalainen, M. 6 Rusch, D. 248, 262 Saaty, M. 166–168 Saint Seiya Awakening (game) 228 Saker, M. 27 sales growth 3 Sampat, E. 248 SARS-1 232 SARS-CoV-2 infection 39, 203, 223 Schlegelmilch, C. 132 Schön, D. A. 245 Schreier, J. 116, 118 Scopus research 158, 160 screen time 45, 51 Second Life (game) 3 self-isolation 166 serious games/gamification 138 Shadow Cities (game) 157 Sherry, J. L. 61 Simmel, G. 65 single-player games 92–93 Siuda, P. 8, 207 skepticism 213–214 Skype 3 sleep loss 145 smartphone 91, 132, 157 social accessibility 99, 102 social distancing 129, 143 social interaction 65–71 social isolation 145 sociality 227 socialization 49, 87, 94, 166–167 social justice/political correctness 138–139 social media posts 90, 158 social play 166–167 social threat 132 socioeconomic status 53 A Solitary Spacecraft (game) 247 solo game creation 261–262

INDEX

Soraine, S. 8 State of Online Gaming 2021 31 Statista (company) 18 streamers as accessibility facilitators 102 Suddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) 133, 143, 144, 148 Suits, B. H. 81 Taylor, T. L. 21, 81 Teams 18 technical accessibility 98 technology, role of 223–225 Telegram 166 Tetris Effects (game) 93 theory-crafting 185, 186 Thiborg, J. 205 Third, A. 28 “this is not a game” (TINAG) 257, 262 Tirassa, M. 8 tournament organizers 208 toxic behaviors 180 traditional music therapy 252 traditional sports coping 207–208 and e-sports 208–211 transparency 185, 186 Trépanier-Jobin, G. 6 trolling 180 Tropico (game) 228 Tsai, H.-H. 61 Twitch 3, 63, 187, 216 Twitter 6, 22, 42, 53, 63, 64, 79 Ubisoft (video game company) 103, 114, 115, 119, 121, 124 Unddit 183 United States 7, 18, 78, 113, 118, 129– 131, 138, 143, 146–148, 185, 229 newspaper and period 133 search algorithms, articles 134 Unity Technologies 117 USA Today (UST) (newapaper) 133, 138, 148 US newspapers 130, 139, 144–146 values-centered design 249 values-conscious game design 248–250

279

Van Poeck, K. 223 video games 130, 134, 209 in news media 131–133 during pandemic 225–226 role for 232–234 Vincke, S. 119 violence 132 virtual learning environments (VLEs) 3 virtual market management 4 “virtual office” software 114 virtual reality exposure therapy (VRET) 234 vision loss see low vision VR games 93, 94, 115 Vuorre, M. 18 Waber, B. 120 Wagner, C. 205 Walking Dead: Our World (game) 155 Wang, I. 113, 114, 117, 118 Wang, S.-C. 61 Weaver, D. 146 well-being 28, 45, 168–169, 252–253 WhatsApp 65, 68, 166 What We Take With Us (WWTWU) (game) 246, 247, 250 changes in 261 design bleed 260 design frameworks 258–259 design methodology 251 development 259 discord 256 holistic design process 252 implementation 259 iteration and expansion of 260–261 music’s role in 252 narrative design 256–258 playtesting 262 remote working practices 260 solo game creation, challenges 261–262 systems design 253–256 values 251–253 website 255 wholesome games 191–192, 195–197 Wholesome Gaming philosophy 195–198

280

INDEX

wholesomeness 198 Wiederhold, B. K. 16, 19 Williams, D. 132, 146 Willnat, L. 146 Wirtualne Media 206 The Witcher 3 (game) 196 work from home (WFH) 113–124 new collaboration 260 professional development opportunities 260 World Health Organization (WHO) 2, 15, 18, 79, 113, 138, 144, 145, 155, 203, 225 Wuhan 74, 203

Wu, J.-H. 61 Xbox Adaptive Controller 88 Yahoo News 147 Yomiuri Shimbun (newspaper) 133, 143–146 You Feel Like Shit (game) 255 YouTube 4, 25, 75 Zhu, L. 18 Zoom 3, 18, 143 Zwift 209–210 Zynga (video game company) 144