Playing Is Not the Only Way: Leisure Identity Positioning and Game Cultural Agency

Abstract

This study explores players that have stopped or reduced their playing, how they narrate their leisure identity, and what that reveals about their game cultural agency. Reflexive thematic analysis and pluralistic narrative analysis were used to analyze the interview data of 22 lapsed players of both digital and analog games. Lapsed players narrated their leisure identity through three themes: still part of the community, playing is not the only way, and general interest remains. Themes reveal that lapsed players are still attached to wider game cultures from many points of contact. However, the primary activity of playing has switched places with the secondary activity of other kinds of game cultural participation, enabling the interviewees to maintain a foothold in the leisure activity they enjoy.