Projects of worth: Exploring meaningfulness in videogame experiences

Videogames have become a ubiquitous form of cultural entertainment. Within popular culture, they are often seen as offering fun, thrilling or pleasurable experiences, and scholarship has tended to examine their negative aspects and effects on individuals, including addiction, increased aggression and stereotyping. However, there is an emerging understanding that has begun to focus on the positive aspects of entertainment media consumption. In investigating this potential of entertainment media as having the capacity to evoke meaningful experiences, scholars have come to adopt Aristotle’s philosophical notion of “eudaimonia”. Indeed, videogame scholars are beginning to investigate videogames as having the potential to evoke complex and reflective emotional experiences in players. This research thus continues on this intellectual trajectory by focusing on its central research question: How do videogames have the capacity to generate personal meaning? The research adopts a qualitative multimethod approach. It first investigates various disciplinary perspectives (e.g. philosophical, psychological and spiritual) on the concept of meaningfulness, before examining scholarship which considers how videogames might provide meaningful experiences in players. I then apply this collection of theoretical concepts in establishing a videogame design framework through which I develop a game prototype which aims to be meaningful via story and various design features. Finally, I produce an exegesis to critically analyse the creative practice of developing my prototype. My reflections suggest that, during my creative practice, meaning emerges as I enter specific mental states that allow me to reflect and contemplate on subjective thoughts and feelings which manifest in the creation of the prototype.