I had my first full-on thesis proposal/comprehensive exam meeting on Thursday. All in all, it went relatively well. Ok – to be honest, it was a lot better than I had expected, and only have some minor tweaking on my actual proposal, and a decent-sized (but very doable) edit on my secondary comp paper. One of the things I thought I had squared away was my ‘research method’, as methods is something that I have an interest in; probably drilled into me by all my methods courses [and a few others] that always challenged us on why the methods we are choosing are necessarily the best ones to get the research task at hand done. Justification of method indeed.
So, for my doctoral research, I am working with a theoretical framework that I developed in my MA which attempts to define the necessary relationships that occur in order for a “hybrid” identity to be formed (an identity that belongs neither wholly to the player, nor the player-character on screen, but an identity that exists between them that is developed through the gameplay and other elements). I am now using this framework as a template to evaluate the process of identity construction in various genres of video games that are necessarily distinct from MMO’s. One of the goals here is to evaluate in which ways my framework (developped through mmorpg play/study) changes based on the type of game being played (and all the things that go with it), which ultimately leads to varying processes and forms of identity. I will not get into the “why” just yet, but that being said, I had chosen my research methods quite stringently, based on my sociological training of course.
Since my work relies heavily on my pre-existing framework, the analysis will be based on both the framework and personal gameplay experience (of character development, player choices etc) along with more technical elements (game design elements). One thing I never thought of though, coming out of sociology – is to record all of my gameplay. However, my advisor (from a cinema department) uses recorded gameplay extensively – and it makes sense for the research/work that he does. I just never thought about using it myself. At first, I could not imagine what use it would be other than to document the fact that I did it, and on some levels, the “play experience” analysis will not be ‘obvious’ through the recording. However, the more I think about it – the more I am thinking about anthropology and not film studies [perhaps a mental block … perhaps lack knowing any better]; the more I think that it could be an interesting project on a personal level to record my gameplay, to track the development of expertise through gameplay, and how that influences my framework (something I hadn’t even thought of as part of my overall project).
To be honest, the more I think about it, the more excited I am! If only I can get through the next week (conference prep, out of town company and a heavy workload at EA), I am really excited to start working on this!! (Always a good thing when it comes to your dissertation ;-)).
Oh – and for my colleagues who already record their gameplay, any equipment suggestions (brand, etc.) I know I need a dvd recorder, but any suggestions from those in the know would be great!
kellyboudreauphd.ca 
I must admit I don’t record my gameplay sessions. I think I have phenomenal memory for this kind of stuff, and still I know it isn’t enough and that it would be better with recordings, but I can’t justify buying a dvd-recorder and piling up piles of DVDs that I’ll probably throw away in 5 years without ever looking at them.
It was not my intention to record my gameplay – it was a request made by our advisor, as he wants play excerpts, images in the final edit… so we shall see =). It is a method that I have never used for various reasons, one of which is that memory is a trained tool (in respect to ethnographic research) and I often use other forms of memory collection such as play journals etc.
While I had a hard time accepting the fact that this was asked of me at first, I could hardly see the connection of an inner experience being documented through film – which essentially, does not capture the player experience in the way that I conceive it – outside of the player interaction that activates game elements – which is the only thing that I can see being “recorded”, in the end, I am never closed to new methods – even if they end up being redundant or useless in the final stages of analysis, you always get something out of a process, if only to know for a fact that it is not the method for you – for that particular research question. At least that is my opinion =)