A course I am really happy to have been part of this year was the course “Research in Collaboration: theories, methods, practices and ethics”. This course have not only presented me with tools to tackle what I believe is a problem with games research, but also given me an arena to reflect over my practice. Interested? Keep reading for more info!

Collaborative research has through the course been used as an umbrella term for research conducted in collaboration with non-academic stakeholders. Reading through courses I could take at Malmö University, that was precisely what caught my eyes – the prospect of methodologies and practices in engaging and working with non-academics for a shared research endevor. My experience with games research, at least when it comes to “games for entertainment”, is that a lot is done within the walls of academia and rarely becomes useful for practitioners in the games industry.

Throughout the course I was presented with differentiating views and ideas regarding collaborative research. While almost all of these discussed big problems in the world like social injustices, healthcare, citizen participation, and enviromental issues, I felt that these methods could be used and extrapolated upon. So for the essay of the course, I wrote about the gap between game development and games research and how, given the chance, Collaborative Research could introduce new ways of conducting research within the field.

Want to understand what I mean? Please, do read the paper below!

The Paper