The professional identity of gameworkers revisited. A qualitative inquiry on the case study of German professionals

PDF

DiGRA '11 - Proceedings of the 2011 DiGRA International Conference: Think Design Play
DiGRA/Utrecht School of the Arts, January, 2011
Volume: 6
ISBN / ISNN: ISSN 2342-9666


The phenomena of computer games and the plethora of game cultures have already been drawing attention of researchers for many years, whereas the people behind computer games – the gameworkers – undeservingly remained in the shadows until quite recently. The lack of information about this workforce and its professional identity makes this research object especially interesting. The analysis relies on a pilot study about the issue of the professional identity of gameworkers, which aimed to dig deeper with the means of qualitative research. During that project nine German gameworkers were interviewed and an attempt to give an in-depth description of their professional identity was made. The study shows that the respondents have a very strong coherence with their profession and perceive themselves as a part of their profession and the team/studio they work with/at. The most salient reason for this is the deep interest the respondents have in computer games (for both making and playing games).