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Title
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(Pandemic) Playing for fun, playing for meaning: : a personal essay on how digital games evoke hedonic and eudaimonic experiences during the Covid-19 pandemic
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Author
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Abstract
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| The year 2020 – and probably a decent amount of 2021 as well – has been dominated by the emergence and global spread of COVID-19, a respiratory infection illness caused by the SARS-CoV-2 type of coronavirus (World Health Organization [WHO], 2020). To combat this pandemic, governments around the world implemented several measures to maintain physical and social distancing between people, including organizing sports and cultural events without an audience or even cancelling them, and limited or no access to restaurants, (movie) theatres, shopping, and other social venues. As such, people are spending more time at home, searching for alternative activities to engage in. One of those activities is playing digital games, which has seen an increased popularity during the pandemic. Next to their increased popularity, digital games have also been found in previous research to offer players an extensive range of experiences that can help players cope with issues that are very present during the Covid-19 pandemic, including stress, loneliness, and negative emotions. Recently, an important distinction made in entertainment research is that of hedonic (e.g., pleasure, fun) and eudaimonic experiences (e.g., meaning, self-reflection, nostalgia, elevation). Based on several case studies (including games such as Doom Eternal, Horizon: Zero Dawn, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and Call of Duty: Warzone), this essay provides a reflection on how playing digital games and why specific gameplay moments led to both hedonic and eudaimonic experiences that helped me as a player cope with the pandemic. |
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Language
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English
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Source (book)
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Well played retrospective : the past, pandemic, and future of video games, value and meaning / Davidson, D. [edit.]; et al.
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Publication
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Pittsburgh, Pa.
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ETC Press
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2021
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ISBN
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978-1-329-65061-9
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DOI
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10.1184/R1/16699579
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Volume/pages
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p. 93-105
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Full text (Publisher's DOI)
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