It was decided that a digital research methodology would be required to support this research, given that research tasks were to include the examination of new and emerging games, particularly those that link to classic and modern literature, and display specific styles of gameplay and/or game development.  The accessing of information from recent gaming news articles, direct player forums, through first- and second-hand gameplay alongside digital research in specifics such as game development styles all meant that a digital research concept become part of the developmental research phase. It was expected that information would be generated through conference event attendance as well as through online subscriptions to regular academic and gaming publications such as The Edge gaming journal, and specific game and developer newsletters.  All these research elements fall under the digital research banner.

The digital research methodology utilised involved using as many varying sources and source material types as possible, checking provenance through cross-referencing, tracking claims back to original source materials wherever possible, and researching materials either supporting or refuting gameplay findings.  Where possible, research was to be supported through the present work and/or findings of research institutions such as the Amsterdam School of Data Science. Attendance at gaming conventions was followed up through the digital feedback routes laid out by game designers displaying their work at the convention; contact with Midnight Hub, the developers of the narrative puzzle game Lake Ridden, was made in this way.

An early decision having been taken to examine the work of organisations such as the Amsterdam School of Data Science and the Stanford Literary Labs in terms of data scraping, digital research and big data usage, it was the unfortunate result that this showed that little academic work is being completed in terms of social data analysis in gaming by academic research institutions.  Where research in this area did show significant rewards was in the more generic terms of data collation and the reciprocal usage of data both by game developers in terms of game server usage, and by players from the modding community looking to hack into gaming code to make changes. By its very nature, this is a difficult use to either ascertain or show, but heavily modded games such as Skyrim and Fallout 4 eventually led to the mods becoming so successful, and attracting so many new players, that access to a working mod toolbox was finally introduced by Bethesda themselves.Philosophically, this connected to earlier work completed by this author on the connection between social gaming groups and barter society, and gift culture as discussed using the theories of Marcel Mauss in chapter two.  It seems that data collated on gaming, particularly in terms of the larger MMORPGs, can be utilised both by companies and players, and it was this element of exchange that was utilised in terms of the broader research remit.

Next: Chapter One: Results of the Digital Research

Or return to: Index

Previous: Theoretical Approach/Methodology