The Interactive Pasts Conference 2: Jakub Majewski
1Video presentation for the Interactive Pasts Conference 2, October 8-10 2018, Center for Sound and Vision.
Jakub Majewski (Bond University, Australia)
The Adventuring Anthropologist: Notes from a Study of World-Building in Skyrim
Virtual archaeology and anthropology are concepts that need little introduction in the context of the Interactive Pasts conference. In the past, several scholars have discussed, either as playful experiments, or as educational exercises, the application of archaeology and anthropology to virtual worlds, including The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (2011). Such studies typically explore the contents of the game worlds in question, for example examining their internal consistency from an archaeological perspective. In this paper, the author reports on a study of Skyrim where the aim was not an analysis of the game world, but rather of the game’s world-building methodology and toolbox. The study employed an autoethnographic approach taken from the ethnography and anthropology toolkit. An autoethnographic journal was employed to track and analyse the author’s virtual visit in the world of Skyrim, noting the places, people, and worldly elements encountered along the way. These results were subsequently expanded using additional resources to document parts of the game not encountered during the study. The world-building role of the disparate world-building elements was examined to provide guidelines and recommendations for future cultural heritage projects. The autoethnographic approach was found to be well suited to the study of such game design elements. Indeed, a core world-building approach in Skyrim appears to be the conveyance of lore (world information) in a manner that forces the player to take on the role of a participant observer within the world.