Master Thesis:
Meaning-making processes in successful commercial games
My master thesis, that I conducted from February until July 2023, revolved around how progress and knowledge could be made for games that want to have an impact on their players, and through them on society. Serious games and gamification has been a research topic for years, however a weakness was recurring: the main educational gain that the developer wanted to create is often extremely prevalent. Because of it people will only play the game if they seek this gain themselves. Commercial games do focus on this deepfelt experience that is thus missing within serious games, however it was yet unexplored if the experiences the players got had an impact on the world outside of that game. A knowledge gap was found.
I set out to investigate if, and if so how, known successful commercial games with deepfelt experiences have an impact on the player's real life and behaviour, and what can be identified to aid future development of games. The games investigated, Disco Elysium and Dark Souls, were chosen on their renown with multiple awards and the impact that they had on their genre with their critical perspective on that specific genre. The analysis was then backed up by the meaning-making theory which revolves around how an individual perceives themselves within the world around them, and the potential conflict that can arise if they experience something that conflicts with that view. A qualitative thematic analysis was performed with data from online sources as reviews and video essays, and was complimented by an online questionnaire.
The results were very positive as multiple themes were found in which the players and the analysis highlight that the game was at the base of personal growth. The themes were also versatile in type of meaning as they showed growth in fronts as joy, empowerment, and connection to society. More importantly however is that within these two games the themes are all connected to the immersion that was created in the game and how they link to the real world, an aspect that is replicable into game development.
There is a large potential found in the immersion of games and creating a connection between the game world and the real world through that immersion, however how the resonance between that deepfelt immersive experience in the game and the real world establishes is unexplored. And thus an extremely useful area of knowledge for creating meaning-making processes within players is waiting to be explored...
Below you will find the entire thesis and can explore the different kind of themes that were found, as well as the many interesting directions for further research and key game aspects that allowed for all of these processes.