changing my “gamer girl” ways

BCM215 | Changing my DA Idea

I started my Game Media Studies Digital Artefact with the idea of starting a Gaming Blog – that was highlighting my research and game play into Bootleg Disney Games. I was going to also accompany my play time with research into the copyright issue these games hold – how are they able to operate online without consequences or legal action for Disney themselves. I liked that I had something Disney based to look at, I also liked that it wasn’t just the game play I was doing for my DA but the research aspect as well. But after looking into the DA I found that even if the material I first looked at looked like it held abundance, I still felt limited. With the ongoing uni semester and the initial burst of excitement when choosing my DA I felt lost again. So I had to rethink my digital artefact.

I thought, what’s something I already spend time doing that I can incorporate into this assessment. Well at the beginning of the pandemic like many others, I purchased a Nintendo Switch and the game “Animal Crossing” to fill my sad empty days. When I first received the game I wouldn’t put it down, I had to constantly live in that world. Even my online consumption on social media was Animal Crossing related. Way to design my island, how to dress how to collected different things for my island. And then all of a sudden I saw I had “finished the game” – the credits rolled. I messaged my peers I knew were playing the game as well, I was so confused – from everything I had seen online it looked as if the game never ended. But it was then explained to me that the game didn’t really end but it did – the objectives were gone and now it was kind of this free space to build on your own. It reminded me of a game I was all too familiar with, The Sims. The contrast with that digital world was that the game went on and on because you were still given objectives.

This lead me to the idea for my new DA – comparing and contrasting the digital worlds of both Animal Crossing and The Sims. I will still be documenting my experiencing on my blog – Gamer Gorl Hannah – And I will also still be including the research aspect as well. What is behind this – why are people attracted to these digital world. Why do we find such joy in escaping our own world to go into this fabricated one. I also will be looking at my gameplay in a creative aspect. A creativity and design framework – As a designer I was also interested in The Sims for the fact I could design and redesign the different living spaces – you could build a model of a house in minutes. And Animal Crossing shares this same aspect, you can customise and design you island however you like, and do this over and over again. This is what sparks my interest in these games, the ability to start over again and again – designing your own little world.