Player Connected: Understanding player orientations to videogame environments

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'Player Connected' will develop an understanding of formed by players to environments in videogames. This PhD will expand on the dissertation completed as part of my MA course which explored connections formed by players to the videogame environment in Animal Crossing: New Horizons (Nintendo EPD, 2020). This research highlighted the ways players exhibit characteristics of "at-homeness" (Seamon, 1979, p.69) whilst dwelling in environments in Animal Crossing: New Horizons (Nintendo EPD, 2020). In 'Player Connected' I hope to further explore the concept of dwelling within videogame environments by adapting the work of theorists such as Ingold (2000, 2011) and Merleau-Ponty (2002) and exploring what is described as "bodily knowledge" (Moores, 2018, p. 129). It is important to note that whilst I aim to explore this concept further, I am aware of [understanding definitions of virtual vs physical and overcoming this] This research will take a participant-led approach, giving participants freedom to discuss games and consoles which they find most relevant. This method will reduce bias and hopefully provide a wide range of data across multiple games and consoles to develop the understanding of factors which contribute to player connections to virtual spaces. Previous areas of videogames research have been criticised for segregating videogame players from mainstream culture and placing them as their own separate subculture (Shaw, 2010). This overlooks the experiences of those outside of the white, cis-gendered, straight male identity commonly associated with "geek" culture (Shaw, 2010, p. x). Instead, this research will look at the role of the videogame within society through the adoption of a non-media-centric media studies approach (Moores, 2012, 2018; Morley, 2007). This approach situates media technologies and their uses within the larger contexts in which they operate through examining the ways media technologies are embedded within routine practice and the day-to-day. This research not only asks who is playing videogame and the outcomes of that, but how, where, when, who with and why. By adopting this approach this research will instead look at videogames in culture, thus cementing videogame studies as a crucial area of both media studies and cultural studies.