Emily Wong, Good Game [×]

The digital native of 2020 has grown up surrounded by technology and immersed in gaming culture. In a way, gamers frequently teleport their consciousnesses to inhabit and traverse diverse virtual interiors. However, while virtual space provides a place for people to gather for entertainment and social connection, paradoxically loneliness and depression are still rife in online space, as with behaviours such as exclusion and harassment.
Good Game addresses the growing need for mechanisms that reconnect gamers with “real life” social connection in this rapidly growing virtual community, by developing new modes in which some positive elements of gaming and virtual community can be drawn on. Have the unchecked agencies afforded by online gaming – and associated social platforms such as Discord[1] and Twitch[2] – desensitised us to the repercussions of toxic online behaviour on others’ wellbeing?
Good Game proposes a new relational interior that functions as a hybrid space that bridges the gap between gamers’ perception of online and offline reality. The proposal integrates with Discord inviting participants to connect IRL, in a programmed series of community-and game-driven ventures.
By providing gamers with a framework to build a community that resonates between virtual and real, Good Game intends to encourage a more inclusive social interior for young gamers both online and offline.
[1] An online social platform that allows gamers to communicate via voice/video comms and to share digital content
[2] A live-streaming site that is predominantly used by gamers to stream in-game content to public viewers