Brand and Community: Responsibility, Intentional Design, and Agency in the Video Game Industry

For this project, Jenn Rickert will work with the game company Certain Affinity in order to develop an understanding of best practices for game development in the modern era. More and more, society is accepting that the virtual world is often as real as the physical world in the minds of its participants. To this end, we will explore the complex relationships between gamer, game developer, and game, by merging existing industry experience and an interdisciplinary academic approach. Using this research, we will develop preliminary best practices for Certain Affinity’s game design and management goals, while simultaneously offering Jenn Rickert the insight and datasets from an industry perspective on this subject, not otherwise as readily available from existing academic works. Jenn Rickert and Certain Affinity share interest for innovating within the game development industry from the ground up, with emphasis on holistic and responsible game design.

Faculty Supervisor:

Neil Randall

Student:

Partner:

Certain Affinity Games Canada, Inc.

Discipline:

Sociology

Sector:

Professional, scientific and technical services

University:

University of Waterloo

Program: