How playing as each other might bring us together
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2017-10-26
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en
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Games are a promising tool whose value to influence notions of the self and the world should not be
underestimated (Mul, 2015, p. 181). In contemporary societies, the integration of foreign cultures in
multicultural societies is often met with much opposition (Appadurai, 2002, p. 44). Games might
affect cultural awareness through the identification with foreign cultures. This thesis seeks to explore
the value of games in multicultural societies by researching the identification in games with foreign
cultures. The research uses a combined approach of autoethnography and ethnography to
investigate how game audiences experience identification. Such an approach is lacking in the
developing field of game studies (Shaw, 2013). Identification will be analysed by combining narrative
identification with interactive identification. This research shows, amongst the most important
findings, that games, due chiefly to interactive identification in combination with narrative
identification, have a unique potential to be a communicative tool for cultural awareness. Games
affect the audience’s cultural awareness through the identification with cultural gameplay
mechanics, the discussion between the self and the role-played character and the personal narrative.
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