This paper explores video game documentaries as a method for researching online gaming communities. We begin by framing documentary filmmaking as a practice-based approach, a creative form of video ethnography, with the film serving as the focal output. Our analysis draws on a close reading of four recent video game documentaries that highlight European voices, alongside insights from our own fieldwork. We focus on the affordances of this approach in capturing embodied, affective, and performative aspects of play that text-based ethnography may struggle to convey. The selected films also offer different stances on the agency of both participant-protagonists and researcher-director. In light of these observations, we propose a multimodal research output in which the documentary film takes center stage.
AndradeT. (2010). A Chinese farmer, two African boys and a warlord: Toward a global microhistory. Journal of World History, 21(4), 573–591. https://doi.org/10.1353/jwh.2010.a413984
2.
AquiliaP.KerriganS.VerdonJ. (2018). Creative practice research in filmmaking and screen production. Studies in Australasian Cinema, 12(2–3), 86–88. https://doi.org/10.1080/17503175.2018.1539283
3.
AslingerB.HuntemannN. B. (2013). Introduction. In HuntemannN. B.AslingerB. (Eds.), Gaming globally: Production, play, and place (pp. 91–99). Palgrave Macmillan.
BarbierE.CausseG.L’helgouac’hQ. (2023). Knit’s Island. Les Films Invisibles.
6.
BergB. L. (2001). Qualitative research methods for the social sciences (4th ed.). Allyn & Bacon.
7.
Blizzard Entertainment. (2004). World of warcraft. Online Game. Blizzard Entertainment.
8.
BoellstorffT. (2021). Paraethnographic film: Virtual enactment and collaboration in our digital selves. American Anthropological Association. Visual Anthropology Review, 37(1), 8–30. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/512046md.
9.
BoellstorffT.NardiB.PearceC.TaylorT. L. (2012). Ethnography and virtual worlds: A handbook of method. Princeton University Press.
10.
BoltB. (2007). The magic is in handling. In BarrettE.BoltB. (Eds.), Practice as research: Approaches to creative arts enquiry (pp. 27–34). I.B. Tauris.
11.
BruzziS. (2006). New documentary (2nd ed.). Routledge.
12.
CandyL.EdmondsE. (2018). Practice-based research in the creative arts: Foundations and futures from the front line. Leonardo, 51(1), 63–69. https://doi.org/10.1162/LEON_a_01471
13.
ColeA. L.KnowlesJ. G. (2008). Handbook of the arts in qualitative research: Perspectives, methodologies, examples, and issues. Sage Publications.
DraxB. (2022). Virtual cultures in pandemic times. Draxtor(TM).
16.
GallowayA. R. (2006). Gaming: Essays on algorithmic culture. University of Minnesota Press.
17.
GeertzC. (1973). The interpretation of cultures: Selected essays. Basic Books.
18.
Gregory, K. (2020). The video camera spoiled my ethnography: A critical approach. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 19. https://doi.org/10.1177/1609406920963761
GlaserB.StraussA. (1967). The discovery of grounded theory: Strategies for qualitative research. Sociology Press.
21.
GriersonJ. (1996). First principles of documentary. In MacdonaldK.CousinsM. (Eds.), Imagining reality: The Faber book of documentary. (pp. 309–331) Faber and Faber.
22.
Gylfi MagnússonS.SzijártóI. M. (2013). What is microhistory? Theory and practice. Routledge.
23.
HänschV. (2021). The anthropologist's video camera as stage: Forced displacement and production of audio-visual witnessing in Northern Sudan.The Cambridge Journal of Anthropology, 39(1), 37–54. https://doi.org/10.3167/cja.2021.390104
24.
HeathC.HindmarshJ.LuffP. (2010). Video in qualitative research. Sage Publications.
25.
HungA. C. Y. (2007). Video games in context: An ethnographic study of situated meaning-making practices of Asian immigrant adolescents in New York City. In A. Baba (Ed.), Proceedings of the third international conference of the digital game research association (DiGRA) (pp. 248–253). JAPAX.
26.
JokinenJ.LuukkainenP. (2023). The gamer. Documentary. Napafilms, Corso Film.
MalinowskiB. (1922). Argonauts of the Western Pacific: An account of native enterprise and adventure in the archipelagoes of Melanesian New Guinea. G. Routledge & Kegan.
29.
MIT Open Documentary Lab. (n.d.). Docubase [Database]. MIT Open Documentary Lab. https://docubase.mit.edu/.
30.
MorganR.GameA. M.SlutskayaN. (2019). Qualitative research through documentary filmmaking: Questions and possibilities. In CassellC.CunliffeA. L.GrandyG. (Eds.), In the Sage handbook of qualitative business and management research methods. II: Methods and challenges (pp. 329–344). Sage Publications.
31.
NicholsB. (2016). Speaking truths with film: Evidence, ethics, politics in documentary. University of California Press.
32.
NicholsB. (2017). Introduction to documentary (3rd ed.). Indiana University Press.
33.
OECD. (2015). Frascati manual 2015: Guidelines for collecting and reporting data on research and experimental development. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
34.
PetrarcaD. M.HughesJ. M. (2014). Mobilizing knowledge via documentary filmmaking—Is the academy ready?McGill Journal of Education/Revue des Sciences de L'éducation de McGill, 49(3), 561–582. https://doi.org/10.7202/1033547ar
SwalwellM. (2021a). Introduction: Game history and the local. In SwalwellM. (Ed.), Game history and the local. Palgrave games in context (pp. 1–15). Palgrave Macmillan.
42.
SwalwellM. (2021b). Heterodoxy in game history: Towards more ‘connected histories’. In SwalwellM. (Ed.), Game history and the local. Palgrave games in context (pp. 221–233). Palgrave Macmillan.
43.
TaylorT. L. (2006). Play between worlds: Exploring online game culture. MIT Press.
44.
Van Maanen, J. (1982). Field work on the beat. In J. Maanen, J. M. Dabbs, & R. R. Faulkner (Eds.), Varieties of qualitative research. Qualitative research. Sage Publications.
