KEY
Bold:	Interviewer
Regular:	Respondent
[ ]:	Uncertain word(s)

Interview with [anonymised].  By the way I’m already recording, just so you know.  Great, so perhaps what we’ll do is, I’ll just explain a little bit about the interview and stuff and then we’ll go into it. 
As you know we’re doing this research project about games, gaming and gamification.  So basically what we’re doing is we’re interviewing groups of people, be they players, researchers, educators, policy makers, whatever; one of the activities anyway, interviewing them to get their different sort of views and perspectives on their own activities about games and gaming, and gamification, but also about the situation more generally, let’s say in the community, in society in general, just to try and get sort of the different perspectives and different ideas about gaming so we can perhaps fashion some different paths or scenarios or something for taking things forward.  
So yeah, so we’re doing these interviews which are recorded, they’re going to be transcribed and then they’re going to be analysed.  They’re going to be made anonymous, so they will be available online through the website, no one will ever go to them, but they have to be there for contractual purposes, for the European Commission, but they’re made anonymous, so that’s okay.  
Yeah, so what we’ll do, we’ll work it this way basically.  What we’ve done in the project, we’ve sort of outlined some general themes that we’re investigating, okay.  So what I’ll do I’ve got some slides, so I’ll just show you a slide of that general theme and I’ll ask you some things and we’ll talk about things related to that theme.  
Then at a certain point I’ll show you a second slide which will have some like key words on it and these are different sort of key words, ideas that have come up during the project around that topic, so we can look at those together and sort of see if we’ve already discussed them and if they bring to mind other things that we want to talk about, or that you would like to add and stuff, we can do that.  So I’ll just sort of present those to you as we go through the interview.  
Yeah, that sounds good.  
And as far as the interview itself goes, it’s just relaxed in the sense that, I mean it’s not a journalistic interview, so you don’t have to perform or anything, so you can just take as much time as you like, you can change your mind, you can add things, strike things as you like, you can stop me to ask me stuff whenever you like, if you need clarification or you have doubts or anything.  You can actually not respond to anything that I ask you to, that’s fine, okay; and at the end when we’ve done, at the end I’ll give you some space so you can ask me some stuff, or make some comments about what we’ve talked about, or about the interview.  
Right, we can now get down to it, so I’ll just put up the screen share and you should be able to see at this point the first slide.  Can you see it there?
Yes, I can see it now.  
Great.  So [anonymised], what I’ll get you to do to start off, if you can just say your name, who you are, what you do, a bit about your background, your age and a bit about your game playing experience and habits and so forth. 
Okay, sure.  My name’s [anonymised], I’m a twenty year old Northern Irish student living in Cambridge UK.  I was born in Northern Ireland and I’m currently studying film and TV production at Cambridge.  I’m working as a gymnastics instructor and yeah, I’m just about to go into my third year of uni now.  
I’ve been playing video games since I was very young, I remember the first game I had was a, like a Pokémon Yellow on Game Boy Colour, I played Game Boy games, Nintendo, throughout my whole life.  I played games when I was in the car, when I was being driven or anything, like anytime I was waiting I was always playing a game, and as I got older I started playing a few more console games, I had a PlayStation 2 and that was my main like, when I was at home that’s when I was playing, and when I was out and about I was playing my Game Boy and DS, and I stopped playing DS after a while and just focused more on, like my PlayStation 2; like I’ve got a massive collection, I still play those games now.  
I had a PlayStation 3 that I shared with my brother, I did enjoy them and there’s a lot of things about new-age games that I enjoy but there’s a lot of, there’s all things about when games were more simple I think, I prefer the storytelling tools that they used, like not necessarily say, they’re good graphics or bad, but I think that’s definitely my style of video games.  
Right, okay, good.  So more or less, just approximating how often would you say, or how much do you play?
I’d probably say I spent about four or five hours a week right now, just because in uni I’ve been a little bit busier than, definitely when I was younger, coming into summer and I’m about to head home where I’ll have my PlayStation 2, my PlayStation 3 and I’ll be working for two months, so, like when I went home for Easter I play a lot more.  I’ve been playing a lot more Steam games as well, just because I always have my laptop on me, and I’m always doing other work and stuff on it.  Like I play a lot more games on there.  
I was never really into online games, but I want to start doing that a bit more, so right now I’m limited, but yeah I’ve started playing a lot more like online and I’ve been thinking about buying a PS4 for that purpose of playing next gen stuff online with my friends.  So I don’t know how that’s going to change, but right now it’s a lot of playing my DS, play small like games on a PS2, but yeah. 
And what, if you could sort of classify it or define it, what sort of games would you say you played mostly?
FIFA, RPGs, a lot of RPGs, I’ve always liked puzzle games and only in the last maybe five or six years started playing some more, like FPS games.  I was never really interested in that, though I played a few puzzle solving, like shooter games, but I only recently started like trying like CS-Go and the Call of Duty stuff.  So action adventure definitely, but I would, the game I would always come back to would be a really well-crafted, like RPG, really immersive sort of games.  
You call them immersive games, what would you say makes those games immersive?
Well some of my favourite games like, there’s a game called Ultimate Spiderman on PS2 and by today’s graphics it isn’t brilliant, but it was built with a really simple game mechanic of the web swinging, which hadn’t really been done in any previous games, and like Spiderman games, and it was probably 3D, even if the graphics weren’t brilliant, it was the first game I really felt like Spiderman, swinging through the city, or when, I remember Zelda Ocarina of Time came out, the music and the storytelling just made you feel like you were going back in time and you were really doing these things, and I guess that’s probably why I didn’t really get into, like shooter games until recently because I never really feel immersed in them, because they’re social and like, yeah I’m competitive and I like playing with my friends and they’re fun to play, but on my own I would never play like a Call of Duty story mode or anything, like because I just don’t feel as immersed in that.  I think I like getting, like the games I play are sort of fantasy, but like superhero games and stuff like that, it’s so different than what like reality is, and it’s different than movies, well I love movies as well, I’m studying, I’m a film student.  But the whole idea of control over that medium, or control over like a fantasy realm or something that’s from reality is really appealing and that’s how I feel immersed in it, because you’re controlling where the character goes, what they do, or how a scenario unfolds.  
Right, so would you say then that your sense of agency within that world, that narrative world or the fantasy world is something that’s key to your enjoyment?
Yeah, absolutely, once a game starts feeling like old and there’s nothing left to do – so I play some of the Grand Theft Auto games on PlayStation 2 and I’ve played the new one as well on PS3, and the story mode was over, it felt really empty to me and so I stopped playing after that, whereas games that I’d replay over and over because of the story and how I like get invested in it.  Like my favourite are games that are pretty story-heavy, like driven games that I would replay, not just for game mechanics, but yeah, because of how you sort of fit into that role. 
You mentioned two ways of playing basically, sort of on your own being immersed individually and also together with other players if you’re doing something like a FPS or something.  How do you – what are the different ways that you connect with other players?  Is it through being together, physically together and playing, or?
Yeah, so I never really played – my brother was never into video games, only with my little sister, so when I was younger I’d only play games when I went to a friends’ house, like against them, otherwise, or I’d play with them at my house.  When PS3 came out, I didn’t pay it much attention, I had a few games that I bought, but I never really went into online playing ‘til I guess coming to uni, our other roommate has a PS3 and got me into a few more games that we play online, and when I got, like started playing with my Steam account a lot of my friends had, you know, played CS-Go on Steam and other than that – like at uni I guess a lot of people come round to like the house often, or friends round, they still play like PlayStation 2, so go off with them, but right now, yeah that’s why I want to buy a PS4 because the PS3 is fine, but like it’s moving on and a lot of my friends that are really having fun with new games coming out, that’s, like that online experience is something I want to try and it’s not really there as much with older consoles now. 
So that’s the way you think things are headed, that these new, the new versions of the platforms and the consoles and that are headed more for an online experience, social experience?
Yeah, I mean I think it’s definitely –the feel of play, a land party, like if friends come over with their laptops and we’re sitting around each other like playing, I think that’s a different experience than playing online which would be more casual.  I don’t think people always want a really social experience, like now everyone’s going to get up, you know, every single time and all go to the same location to play, but if everyone’s home and at their computer, that’s, yeah a little bit more casual.  But like, I would still massively prefer at times, like how fun it is to do a social thing, but I think, I don’t know if that’s like a really shared belief.  Like I think people do enjoy that, but when it’s so easy to do it online, I can’t imagine that won’t just continue to increase in popularity.  
Okay, good.  Well I’ll just move onto the next slide here, so I’ve brought up these, the slide with some of these key words, and as you can see we’ve covered a few of these, the platforms, and which games, how much time, your experience, other players, game types, oh what about money?  
I guess I would, when I was younger birthdays, Christmas were how I got money to buy the games, or people gave me games.  I guess, and then that’s maybe why I held onto those ones until I started working, like I’ve only started to think about a PlayStation 3 now because I’ve started getting more money.  I’m thinking, like when my parents bought me a PlayStation 3, like me and my brother, like thinking, oh man, that was like a few hundred pounds, like this is sweet, we might as well get some games for it.  Like now, like I know that if I worked for a bit I can save enough money to get a PlayStation 4, which like in the last few years I would never thought about spending like that much of my own money.  
Now that is becoming easier but I guess, like kids are still like getting hold of PlayStation 4’s, like if I was ten, I would ask for one for Christmas, and like, so I don’t think it’s just coming with – well games are really expensive now as well.  Like the big ones that come out, like they used to be around thirty-pounds I remember for a new game, like on PlayStation 2, like a really like current one, and now you can get like sixty-pounds, like DLC comes into it as well, which people – like the whole reason that the new Star Wars Battlefront 2, that I didn’t, you know, get really excited about it was because of just how much money I would spend to get all the DLC, to actual storyline, which is why I played it on PlayStation 2.  
But now that I’ve, you know, I’m getting like a little bit more money, I can definitely see how that would, you know, I think it’ll change, I’m definitely not going to buy games that I don’t want, I don’t think.  Like, I think that was the case when I was younger and I had like limited money, when I would buy a game I would know that I really wanted it, and like that, I think that’s why I have a good experience with games, whereas I want to keep that up, I don’t want to just like buy a game and see if it’s good.  I listen to a few podcasts and like, and watched like E3, you know, press conferences when they come up, so I try to keep sort of on the ball, and you can usually tell like what does really well in the shops and what gets priority.  But yeah, as I get older I think it’s going to be easier to buy the games that I want but I don’t think I’ll ever just, you know, so you don’t own it. 
Good okay.  So let’s move onto the next general theme now, the next slide, which is games and the individual.  So we’re thinking now about what sort of influences, impacts the games, and game playing could have on the individual, and their game playing experience.  You mentioned earlier things like the motivation you get through narrative, through immersion and so forth, those sort of aspects.  
Yeah, well obviously it can work as like escapism, like everyone, like I think that’s the main reason why it’s so exciting, especially like with kids; when I was bored and there’s not much to do, that’s a great way to spend your time because of how much you feel a part of it and that is really healthy, there’s also the puzzle solving aspects, not necessarily just puzzle games but like a lot of the RPGs that I play, like the same reason why, when I teach gymnastics it’s a lot about problem-solving and at that age when minds are still developing as well through like being younger, the idea of problem-solving being natural through movement is like similar to, if you can make problem-solving feel natural in a game that’s really beneficial as well, you get a release when you’ve actually completed something which when you first see it isn’t, you know, completely clear, but using like skills that you’ve learnt through a game naturally and feeling like that character and how they would react in a situation it feels natural that it flows well, and I think that’s really good.
Do you mean the effects, like positive effects the games to have on me?
Well it could be both, positive and negative as well.  Some people, I don’t know, I guess you’ve heard of some people talking about potential or imagined negative impacts that games might have.
Like I mentioned escapism, that can always be healthy, like if someone is far to – I guess everything does come in moderation and like I think games aren’t so dangerous that they can snare you to become addicted so easily and then addictive personalities become addicted to anything, and because games are such a positive experience and people can get a lot of joy from them, I think that’s a dangerous way of using it, because if someone, you know, really isn’t happy and just spends all of their escaped then they’re not dealing with the reality, which is dangerous.  But someone who, you know, I don’t think games are too dangerous that that’s a common place thing, especially like recent games; I’ve never really liked, the reason why I never felt immersed in Call of Duty games, it’s just because that it never appealed to me, but I remember like, even when I was younger, my parents like not liking the ideas of those games because they were scared that it was violence.  And I guess those never really appealed to me, so I don’t really see that aspect of it, but in like the same way, like video game violence is, are not because it’s violent, but because of the situation.  
So I think you just sort of have to be mature about it and view the video game as a video game, a lot of people don’t and they start thinking of it like reality, like that’s the point where it gets dangerous.  But for someone who’s able to regulate how they view reality I think that’s fine, yeah, there you go, I haven’t thought about that for a while.
Right, so you’d say it depends on a certain sense on how balanced a player might be if they have difficulty dealing with reality, or balancing out their─
Yeah, I mean I think it can, it doesn’t necessarily just have to go down that road, like if people are struggling with things, I think absolutely games will help, I think it’ll make you feel, like you were saying about problem-solving, it doesn’t like – like a distraction from problems is fine, like if people are completely ignoring their problems and spending all of their time, that’s the very dangerous side of it, but if you’re, you know, studying for exams and you’re feeling stressed like it will genuinely make you feel better to play thirty-minutes of like a game, you’re relaxing and release endorphins, and of course that’s a healthy way to escape necessarily, as long as you are able to not over-indulge.
Like a lot of my mum’s frustration when I was younger was when she’d like call me for dinner and I would say, yeah, yeah, I’m coming, I’m coming, five minutes, five minutes, and I had to save and in my mind it was impossible that she didn’t understand how important it was that I had to save, but you know, obviously that’s a very light example of it.  Like I understand that it can have its dangers, but you know, I don’t think it’s particularly a problem, well a lot of it is a problem, but not, you know, very relevant, at least to me. 
Okay, fine, good.  Okay so let’s have a look at some of the – now we’ve moved onto the next slide with the key words that have come up, some of those that have come up around games and the individual and you’ve mentioned a few there, the question of addiction, immersion, engagement and you also talked a lot about the cognitive areas of things like problem-solving and attention and so forth.  What about collaboration and competition, how do you see that?
I was just thinking like literally the past few days about how I am competitive just in the broad scheme of my life, how that can be helpful and how it can be negative if people become too cocky and stuff.  But in terms of video games I don’t know if that’s a big part of what sculpted me to become competitive, but that was always like something I did and I have become, I think, quite healthily competitive.  
Like it’s not in, as simply, like not a physical way, like I’ve been competitive in other aspects of my life, and I haven’t always been physical; I didn’t start doing gymnastics and free running and all that until the last few years of my high school.  So, but I was playing video games all my life and I think it just, yeah I naturally was always competitive, I wanted to beat games, like I didn’t, like I liked being presented with the task of them and if they were fun to do that was even better.  
I would play games though that probably now I wouldn’t play as much, because I’ve got like more stuff going on now.  I wouldn’t just play a game to beat it, I now think about, like the games that revisit, I really, really loved, whereas when I was younger and I had loads of free time I was like, oh okay, a good way of spending my time is beating this puzzle, like a game, and I think that is good, it’ll help your mind continue to look at problems and that will teach you how to keep your head in real life situations or to focus on a goal.  
I think the idea of long-term satisfaction as well, of knowing like – like in Pokémon if you want your Pokémon to be strong, you have to spend a lot of time, you know, earning your points and that can be looked as game mechanic which is, you know, just to make you spend longer doing it, but it like makes you realise that if you work harder it’ll pay off.  You know, and even if people don’t, as kids, don’t make that immediate like connection on a conscious level that just teaching you, yeah if you work for it things will pay off.  
I think, I don’t know if I became like in interested in sports because of that, I don’t know if that’s a big reason.  I think I’ve also become like a fan of exercise and sport because I am competitive and that’s a big part of my life.  
It’s interesting you say that because talking about this competitive, the two sides of the competitiveness in video games and sports activities, because the other key word there is physical activity which some people see in different ways with regard to video games, how do you see it?
Yeah, there’s a big stigma about like video games, like anytime it’s shown in like satirical or like comedy show you see like a fat man, like long hair, disgusting, playing a video game and I was thinking about that the other day, like a lot of people who would be referred to as nerds and stuff used to be a lot less, a lot more niche, whereas now everyone plays games, games are very popular. 
There’s absolutely people at that other end of the spectrum, there are always people who won’t look after their physical health and they’ll use video games as an unhealthy vice and spend all their time in this.  They, I can see how they would make that connection through, for whatever reason, oh life isn’t fun, I can spend my time having fun in a video game, which is very unhealthy and would lead you to not be physically active and lead to further and further problems.  
So I see how people make that connection but I do think that if like – like I was always brought up to do sport, I never had a negative connotation with it, I just had never found a sport that I was really, really into, until I did – but I was always not against it.  I think a lot of problems with people who use video games unhealthily, might not necessarily come from video games.  If a child is like brought up very, you know, like instantaneous gratification, they can always get what they want, video games will also appeal to them in that sense, in an unhealthy way which is unhealthy, doesn’t do sports and when they don’t want to, like when they feel tired they – I’m not saying it’s probably like the parents’ fault, but like children develop in a certain way and I think people, like in the same way that like people can have additive personalities to anything, that – yeah. 
Okay.  Good, I think at this point we can move on to the next general theme, which as we see is, applications of the games, in the sense of, okay we’ve talked so far about games as a form of entertainment and so forth, there are also other areas in which games are applied to different areas for different specific purposes and outcomes and things.  Do you ever, or have you ever played games with specific purposes, other than entertainment or for other purposes?
Yeah, I’ve, when I was at high school I studied Spanish, which I didn’t really like as a subject, but I was keeping it through, because I like Spain, I like going there, and I’d worked on a few, like teams in Spain, I really like it; and when I left school I still wasn’t really into Spanish, I knew I wanted to go back in the future so I wanted to keep up with my Spanish and I heard people talking about like apps, one called Duolingo, done it for a while, and it really helps me like keep up.  I think it can also help people learn, like I tried it on French, like other languages to see, but like it really helped me just to keep up with my Spanish, because if I’m spending a lot of time not talking to anyone, or not practising; like when I was in school I was constantly writing essays so even if I wasn’t brilliant I was always practising, whereas now I just sometimes don’t get an intake of Spanish, so twenty minutes a day doing that really has a positive effect.  But at the same time, I’m not sure – the vast majority of gamers who are into gaming I can see how they wouldn’t be as motivated as that, by that. 
Sure.  
I don’t think that’s everyone’s cup of tea.  I think if I wasn’t as interested about it, if I didn’t have as big a need to do that, like because I, of why I want to go to Spain.  I mean I could learn any language I want with Duolingo, but I don’t, because I don’t have a desire to do it.  So most people are like lazy, but I remember when, on the DS when those puzzle games were coming out, like Doctor something’s brain training, I heard of a few people playing them and like really enjoying them.  I tried them once or twice and they were okay but I, when I was younger I don’t think I ever would’ve picked that up, but I can see now how if I wasn’t, like in a few years if I wasn’t at uni or I wasn’t doing mental sort of tasks and I wanted to, you know, keep that up that’s why I would do it, absolutely.  So people, I think, they need an objective. 
Fine, so if I understand you correctly, when you’re thinking of these types of games, things, the sort of games people have called either serious games, or games for learning, educational games and so forth, you seem to think that it’s, the initial motivation that you have for learning something, that takes you to the game rather than the game itself creating the motivation. 
I think it depends on what the game is marketed as, but a game called Brain Training that was simply puzzles never appealed to me, just because when I was younger I didn’t really care about that.  There were people in my class, my friends that did that, they were into that, but I didn’t, whereas if a game came out, like I don’t know if I really played many when I was younger, but if there was a game that I knew genuinely would have beneficial effects and help me like learning things.  I don’t think I played many games now that really teach me, you know, much about, like actual subjects, but more about problem-solving in that way.  But I’d definitely play, if it was fun enough I would absolutely do it, but it depends on what, like what is the game.  
Like if it’s just, if it’s simply you’re learning from this, like I would see this in school and the same aspects that I didn’t like, like sitting in maths, I knew I was learning and it was beneficial for me, and I would note that, but I think that a lot of people who play games are people who are pretty, you know, I don’t know how to say it, like just kind of, short attention span maybe.  
I was thinking, you were mentioning there Duolingo, which is, I think it’s like a sort of gamified sort of environment right, where they’ve added in things like points and badges and leader boards and stuff like that. 
Yeah, yeah. 
Have you ever tried any other forms of gamification like that?
I’m not sure now, well when I was doing my driving theory, for my driving test, the app that I had was, you know, like I went through that it was easier than like going over the book.  And then, you know, in the hazard one you watch a video and it’s like playing a video game where you have to do that, and you’re just sitting there.  But then there’s VR experiences that I would really love to do, like there’s – I’m a vegetarian and there’s ones I’ve heard of, which show people all the stuff, and I can see how, for me, I would like look at that, okay that’s, it’s pure looking at, like it’s fun, but it’s actually going to have benefits of showing people these things, and like, even though it’s a biased view, like you can have that for anything.  
Like my granddad works with the company Spar, it’s like a newsagents or whatever, but like in some bigger ones where they’re like grocery stores, they’re not going to do it like anytime soon, but for VR you could show people like where the food came from, you could show people that it’s Fairtrade and like all these things, like there are educational purposes.  I think VR’s a big place that gaming is going, so for actually giving you the experience of what it’s like to do things, like, and being educational in that purpose, like you could, even your home you could be present at a science experiment or witnessing something that, you know; and a lot of people, I think, in culture are becoming visual learners because I think people are, you know, our attention spans are becoming shorter and people are move akin to instant gratification and gamification in that sense.  It could be very helpful in a school environment or university if you could go to a lecture. 
Sure.  Okay, good.  So I’ve just put up the next slide here, with some of the key words that have come up with applied games and application of games.  So we’ve mentioned things like school and learning, and serious games, supportive dimensions and gamification.  There’s also earning with games. 
Okay, yeah I’ve never, I don’t, I’ve never spent money on games, like there’s an app called Clash of Clans, that wasn’t even a very fun game but I played for months and I spent about twenty-pounds on it.  I don’t know when you could earn with games and like, what sort of scenario do you mean?
Well it could be things like eSports for example, or You Tubers stuff like that. 
I’ve got a few friends, they use betting apps and stuff like that, or on their phone and my friend was talking the other day he’s invested in Bitcoin.  I think I can, I’m usually not, like quite switched on to like things like that, of knowing.  I don’t think I’d be good at, you know, investing or keeping my ear on the pulse because I’m too, I don’t think I’m just, you know, I think I’m too lazy for that.  But I’ve got friends who do, I’ve got friends that like bet regularly and they watch the stats and it’s not just about thinking, who’s going to win, they – like my friend was telling me about it and saying, just how you can use the system of like looking at statistics and absolutely, it happens and like I’m sure all these bigger skills that I don’t know of. 
While we’re on this subject actually, this could have some ethical implications, we’ll move onto the next general topic, which is ethical issues.  So thinking about, I don’t know if you’ve experienced in your gaming, your game play experience where there are some ethical dimension that has come into it, that may have attracted your attention, or concerned you, or you’ve heard about people debating about ethical issues in gaming and games. 
Yeah, there is, I remember a big scandal when the most recent Grand Theft Auto came out, there was a scene where you have to perform torture, and I remember hearing about it beforehand and I’d bought the game as well, and I remember just like thinking to myself, like oh I can see where people are coming from on that.  I could say the game did happen in a way, at the end, even though you are immersed in doing that activity, which like I didn’t enjoy doing it, but afterwards it progressed the story, the character has a conversation afterwards where he, you are playing as if torturing, where he mentions the torture isn’t effective and explains why it actually doesn’t help, it fits the narrative because your character is meant to be quite crazy and like a gangster and like a bad person.  It puts – so it’s good character development for him, you do learn about that, and I remember people just being so worried and how that affects you and like being scared that you’re putting children, it’s an eighteen rated game, so if children were playing it, which I know, like children will always get hold of things, like I was able to get eighteen games before I was eighteen.  Like, you know, it’s not like rare, but I do think that’s important, like games are rated for a reason, and that game was played with the intent that someone eighteen years old plus would hopefully have, you know, be mature enough to understand that situation with the intent that it was given.  
I think there are games that are, that I wouldn’t be able to defend.  There was one that came out in the last few years that I remember hearing about where it was a suicidal man that you play as, who thinks that he’s possessed by the devil and your whole goal is to kill as many people as possible, and people will justify that and say, oh it’s just a game, it’s like, it’s being entertaining, you’re not doing it in real life, but I don’t see any part of that narrative, like helps, you know, a gamer become better in any way other than like, I don’t think the new games normalise violence, but I think, you know, as far as that does normalise, I don’t think that should ever be presented as a normal objective.  But, whereas I’ve, you know, I don’t disagree that putting in torture in that game was, you know, a bad move, I understand where it comes from and I also, I think like, if one’s used well and you know what’s going to happen before you do it, you can skip missions in the game.  
I remember one, there’s a Call of Duty game, when it came out and you have to murder people in an airport and it gives you an option beforehand that you can decline and not actually do it, but you know, that’s still in the game for no reason you have to do that, and it progresses the story because they then double-cross you and you were an undercover agent as well, and the whole aspect of that scene was to show you that it was all pointless or whatever, but I think context is really, really important and games act as your broad scheme they can show you the experience of anything and not all of those experiences, you know, are good for a person.
There was one thing you mentioned that was interesting about GTA, talking about playing, this very like hard-core sort of negative if you like, character, who does the torture and so forth; and you also mentioned about the RPGs at the beginning then, so it’s got this thing, there’s this idea of taking on a particular identity, or a different identity from your own personal identity perhaps, experimenting with identities, do you see that as having something that could have ethical issues connected with it?
Yeah, I mean, I think that also, it’s just a broad scheme, like I could bring it back to like film for a bit.  There’s an aspect of film which is like broadly explored where you make your main character a blank slate, Harry Potter, Luke Skywalker and, there was another good example, they’re made a certain way, they’re made to be relatable, so that they’ve got very big characteristics.  When I play games, like a lot of the ones that I really, really enjoyed as a young kid were like superhero ones, or ones where you felt, like fantasy ones where you were playing as a hero, because their characteristics are very vague.  What you learn from them is that they’re honourable, they’re good and they’re doing things for a good cause. There’s not even, like in some cases, like Superman games where that’s the only objective your character has because it’s the right thing to do, and I’ve always liked those games, because they make you feel like a hero, but they were very vague.  
I think Grand Theft Auto, when I was – I never played that when I was younger, so I don’t know if that would’ve had an impact on me.  I think, I absolutely, like all the things I like now because of what I was, like even when I read comic books when I was younger, I think that made me probably want to, you know, that made me like gymnastics because I felt like I was doing something superhuman or whatever, it’s aspects like that that maybe they did have an effect on why I did that, or become the way – so I don’t know if I’d played more violent games, but I think it depends on how characterised they are.  
So in Grand Theft Auto you’re really becoming exposed to like these ideologies and I think Rockstar do a very good job in their characterisation that they don’t paint them in a way that’s trying to convince you that they’re right.  Like, the characters are satirical but, you know, when you’re playing like a war game and the real context is, these are your enemies and you have to kill them because they’re the bad guys.  Like that can, I guess, if your brain is still developing, like if I’d maybe played that when I was younger I can see how that would teach you that in some instances there’s no other option but to do this, which to someone who isn’t in war, is never a healthy way to be thinking. 
And I never liked those things I guess, I was never like a real like pacifist or anything when I was younger, I always like, I’ve been playing rugby my entire life, I was never like, didn’t like violence, I never liked things like Call of Duty because it seems so simple to me that like that was the only draw as to who the character was, everything’s so broad.  But also like, I didn’t like how maybe realistic it was and I don’t know, I prefer that when I, I was playing a game and I hit an enemy the – well I guess that’s teaching kids that if they, like they can get points if they hit enemies, but I would prefer to see a star come out of my enemy and collect it knowing that I was progressing the game, the focus is on the game as opposed to actually, like in Assassin’s Creed, like which is still a game I really enjoy, you follow the characters and then like murder them, it’s for a good cause maybe, but it’s still pretty vague and I guess those games can be fun, but I think I, I was exposed to when I was younger and I think it’s the best way that – well I don’t know if it’s the best way, but it’s maybe the easiest way to avoid people maybe who do have addictive, or tendencies that pick up on the people that they’re admiring in this game, like I see how that can be dangerous. 
I’ll take you back a bit when you were talking a couple of points, you made parallels with films, okay.  I was thinking that, there’s now, as we now all see at the time, with the film industry and the film realm, there’s a lot of attention to identity in films, the identity of characters, who they represent, if they’re representing different genders, different races, different sexual orientations, and so forth, and there’s a lot of talk about it, how much of the different ways, different identities are presented in film.  How do you feel that pans out in video games?
The same reason that my favourite films are ones I feel like I can relate to personally, like I prefer that to escapism.  I mean they can still be escapism in a way, but if it’s got a hint of reality it helps you feel more, you know, like it resonates with you a lot more.  Even with characteristics, not even with, you know, colour or like race, orientation, if there’s a characteristic that you see in a character when you watch them and you think, oh my goodness that’s like me, you can resonate more with it.  And so, also the games that I like to play the most are like usually male driven games; I’ve played several female orientated games and did not, I didn’t really care, I definitely prefer to play as males.  
One of my favourite games Portal, you play as a girl but you never see her because it’s from an entirely first-person view.  I never saw that character as a boy, I always knew it was a girl, but I think I, I have in the past like looked at a game and thought, oh, you know, it doesn’t look as good and it’s a female character.  So I already am not interested in it, but I now know that like it’s going to be slightly harder for me to resonate with it.  But when I’ve played games that I have enjoyed that are females, it’s interesting, because you probably don’t see her at all, but I have, I’ve played games where you know that you’re playing as a girl, and I have been so immersed in what their story is, in the same way that, I like a lot of films that resonate with me, but a lot of films that are really great show you something new that you don’t know about, the experience of life and a game can do that as well.  I’m trying to think of like, of any specific games I’ve played as a girl, that’s probably the biggest one to me of, I do think that people want more, they want to be, I can’t think of the word, they want their race or gender, or orientation to be like shown in the mainstream and they want games like that so they can, you know, resonate with them.  
I think that is absolutely a good idea, like I know that I understand how I’m lucky to be the key demographic of a lot of games, and so, so many games are key to my demographic.  But you know, when I was younger probably one of my favourite games ever was Prince of Persia and you’re playing as the Prince of Persia through Persia, and I thought he was the coolest guy ever, he was good at free running and it was a well-crafted game, and that didn’t bother me, also he was like, you know, still a man; unlike, I’ve never played a game that was so differently, I’m played games that aren’t as humans, but I’ve never played a game that was a human that was so, so, so different to me, because I haven’t heard of one that’s sounded interesting enough, or I just haven’t, you know, yeah, that’s really it. 
Okay, good.  So let’s, I’ll just bring up these key words in the next slide that have come up related to those ethical issues.  So we’ve mentioned I think a lot of those with things like violence and aggression and identity and diversity and stuff.  There’s also monetisation, do you think there’s an ethical dimension to that as well. 
I think the games that use monetisation the best do it in a good way.  Saints Row I enjoyed for the writing, much more than the immersification of the character in a situation.  The writing is funny, so when they do like product placements, I think it’s been done well in the same way that – I think it can be harder in movies because it has to be so subtle and, but also like for DLC, like things like that, I think when you buy a game it would be great if it comes as its own package, like it can have add-ons, but if you need the add-ons for the full package, Star Wars Battlefront is my example for that.  If that had come out with all the DLC as a full game, including some of the DLC that’s only coming out in the next two months, which looks like, you know, would’ve been the best part of the game, if it had come out as part of the game – I think that is unethical.  I don’t like being squeezed for money that, even though it’s a great experience, if you sold it for as much money as the DLC will cost people probably wouldn’t buy it.  
But I also know that with a lot of work in games becoming harder and a bigger scale that like, you know, companies want to make money back, but I think they already do on such a scale that, things like that is unethical.  
Good, okay.  So let’s now then move onto the next general them, which is games in society, so thinking about the sort of influences, or impacts that games, game playing and gaming you think could or might have, or will have on society in the future?
Well I think games are becoming much more commonplace, the world is becoming in general more accepting of things, and whereas on a lot of like old TV and movies a nerd character is often associated with like playing a lot of games and that is looked as a negative characteristic.  But I guess people over time have actually realised, there’s so many different types of games and they’re so broad that like there is almost, like there is a game for everybody; it’s like music.  It’s not thought of as a weird thing that some people do, I’m not saying everyone plays games, but I don’t think there’s really anywhere I’ve, anyone I’ve met that I wouldn’t look down upon more because they played games, and I don’t think, like in society, well obviously in different societies it’s different, but especially in the UK, I don’t think like, you know, cool people can still play games, celebrities play games, like rappers play games and they live stream them, celebrities, like YouTube people make a lot of money off playing games.  
So it’s not, I don’t think it’s become, you know, looked down upon I think it’s going to become more and more normal and I also, I think with our society becoming more instant gratification, like people will be playing more games as, I don’t think, as opposed to like films, I don’t think it’s going to overtake it, but I think the whole going – I think society, maybe I’m biased, because I am a film student, but I think that it looks as though people are spending a lot more time wanting to be entertained by things and spending time out of reality, which I don’t like the idea of; I like the idea of it pairing with what you feel like as a person and taking that into real life, so that when – like I still play Assassin’s Creed because the free running is good, even though I can do that in real life, not on such a scale, but like, I’m not doing that to escape because I am sick of, you know, I want to progress the way, styles of thinking that I like to do in my normal day that I think will continue to like, but like not everyone would have that point of view, or the thing that someone thinks about.  
So I see how it does become dangerous and if people are spending all of their time, you know, just watching binge TV or playing a game until it’s completed, non-stop without interacting with real people, people will be appealed, like that’s appealed to some people, like the idea of just switching off for that long, people will like, and I think that’s, yeah dangerous if it keeps going that way.  I think it probably, but I also think people are becoming switched on more to when things like that do become dangerous and I think the way that games are made and people are making them, the people that review them and the people that play them are getting a better understanding of how to play games safely.  
Like people know that it’s dangerous to become addicted to things, so you know, like if people are noticing the signs of that, like if I had a child and they were spending all of their time playing in their room I wouldn’t let them just do it, in the same way that like if they weren’t talking to anyone because they were too shy, I would do things to like help them, you know, just encourage them and help them see why gaming isn’t everything.  And you know, sometimes like it does, it would take people around you to do that, but I think people realise the danger of games, they are becoming a better form of entertainment, which isn’t a bad thing, but when some things are a better forms of entertainment people might prefer it to how their life feels. 
Okay.  Good, so I’m just putting up the next slide here with some of the key words that have come up with games and society.  You were talking about social impact and social implications there, what about the cultural side of it, do you think there’s a cultural angle in the way games may have influenced, or are influencing or society?
I think that – well as people spend more time playing games and watching TV people understand what good games are more and more.  If a game came out now, that came out like ten years’ ago would be heralded as the best game of its time, like I think that’s, I don’t know how that really – yeah, I guess we’re becoming more impressed by them, so it’s easier to – people want good games, good games, games are becoming better, people are playing, that’s why I think it’s becoming more popular, they are [in our culture 0:58:23], I’m sure it’s really just like, I mean you hear references about it because they’re getting better and they’re more popular, more people like to play them, so it’s becoming like a thing to talk about on TV.  It’s becoming something to talk about in, you know, I don’t know, do you mean like, is it between different cultures? 
I guess a lot of big games are American produced and I know there are, there’s Swedish games that I’ve played that are fantastic, but I don’t know, I know that a lot of American games are popular, you know, out of America and it’s more of a niche thing to see, you know, I don’t think I’ve played many French games.  Like I know perhaps some companies come from all over the world, but the games that I play have usually been tailored to my kind of audience and if I was making a game I would do the same.  
But, well like – yeah, like I don’t really keep on top of what other countries’ games are, I know there’s probably some fantastic ones, just because of the amount that are in English, or are easier for me to get, that’s what I continue to do, and maybe in, someone from France loves playing French games, but maybe because how popular Call of Duty is, or they’ll just play games like that, I’m not sure if I, you know, they [1:00:24].
Okay good.  So now if we just move on to the last, let’s say the conclusive part of the interview, we ask everyone that we interview if they have any particular suggestions to put forward to different, let’s say different groups, different players in games and gaming, and gaming communities, such as players, but also developers, researchers, educators, policy makers, whatever, parents, whether they have any suggestions that they would make based on your experience and how you see it, whether you would offer some suggestions about how to either avoid problems, or ways of taking games and gaming forward.
I think in terms of bringing gaming forward I think the biggest that, it has been picked up on by production companies and they are doing, but it really is important that people catch on, is to listen to the audiences and the same with films.  It’s obviously, like supply and demand and if you make what people want, so like right now, people don’t want just like – I think the newest, the Call of Duty trailer, the new one was World War II, which is a stark contrast to the one which was the future and that video on YouTube was disliked, like vastly in like percentages.  People hated it, it wasn’t well received, so the next thing they did was, further things in the future, it’s the past and people love it.  Listening to your audience is brilliant. 
I think in terms of understanding gaming of how it can be dangerous is, in the same way that there’s a bad stigma around free running when people think that it’s daredevils who are vandalising property and stuff, I find it pretty hard to have a genuine conversation with some people about how, you know, it can be positive and all the great things that can come with learning through movement and problem-solving and trying to be respectful through it, but some people just don’t want to hear that, and the same way with video games.  I think a willingness to learn about the thing, about the actual motif is pretty important.  I think people who complain a lot about video games, I think people have absolutely got, you know, reasonable problems with them that we need to address and learn about and work on for future games, but a lot of people that would just say, oh someone’s spending a lot of time playing video games, they must be unhealthy, they must do this, but when there are a lot of people who play a lot, on a lot of the video games, but also make sure they spend time being healthy and with jobs, or school or family and also do enjoy it as a way of relaxing, maybe more so than other people would like to spend time going out for drinks, or going out to eat with friends, some people would prefer to do that, and I think that’s, there needs to be an understanding of not everyone sees it as black and white.  Some people see it as a waste of time, and they think anyone that does it is wasting their time, and I think people need to just understand more about the things they have problems with, but also that gamers understands that we can’t just do whatever people want and that it can be dangerous in the aspects there is. 
So who do think, what sort of particular groups if you like of people do you think could do most to help break down those sort of stigmas that you’re talking about?
I think if games, like I did – there’s games that I would be able to defend honestly and think that I could put across a good defence that I would never be able to show to my grandparents as like, you know, I think Grand Theft Auto is a good game and it helps us learn about how in reality things don’t necessarily go like that, and to understand that.  But I don’t think that means that people who don’t understand just don’t get a voice on it, I think that if games were, it’s done now cleverly in some cases, but if games continue to be well, like well-marketing I guess, you know what you’re getting with it.
Like if a game comes out with something scandalous I don’t see how that would ever not be a scandal to the people who will take it like that, but I think in society we’re working towards people who don’t just jump to conclusions as much, like that’s becoming a very unpopular thing to do, because it gets people in like a lot of, now I think culture’s very keen on pointing out people when they’re wrong and stuff, and also defending like when games, controversies come out, there are places to hear both sides of the story.  
So like it’s good that, when people will have genuine problems, like you know, they will be able to hopefully learn more about it, if the game developers can, not necessarily that they have to explain everything they do, but make their intent clear with context and the new developments, and people in general to try to be understanding is the best you could sort of ask for.  But if you can make it as easy as possible for people who aren’t necessarily going to be understanding, to understand then that will be good.
Great.  So I’m just showing there some of the different groups that have been mentioned in terms of different sorts of suggestions, made for taking games forward and just to conclude, as I mentioned at the beginning we’d like to give you a chance to, if there’s anything you want to add, or to comment on, either about what we’ve been talking about, or about the interview itself, you’re free to ask anything. 
Yeah, on there, there’s two key words through the sides that I didn’t comment on, that I then thought about afterwards.  So there’s one, sports therapy, and I don’t necessarily know, I’ve never used video games to gamify action recovery and things, but when I wanted to learn free running there are several apps that I paid for that were, as if they were video tutorials, they’re happy to put them out, their own apps of how they, you know, give tips on certain tricks and I would buy every extension for all the different moves, because, of what it was for me, and that helped my sports and stuff like that is available on YouTube, but the fact that you could unlock these different things and it was sort of, if it was like a hard thing to get, it was a hard thing to obtain and it was maybe how niche that was, that also appealed to it, it was like, oh I’m getting this special advice from my favourite athlete, not a lot of people are getting this, like as an objective, like that’s not necessarily gamifying it, but on apps and stuff like that, that helped me with that and that can be helpful.  
So then when you mentioned groups, parents, although I did mention, absolutely, I think one of the biggest ones; but I [1:09:08] where I think parents are responsible for a lot, because I work with children.  I see my friends, I see the parents at the gym where I work, a lot of the kids I work with are from, like one right up until like twelve, and a lot of what we teach them, parents, like child classes is about how attentive they need to be in their development of exercise.  So like a lot of the parents when they’re sitting in there, there’s a glass window, they sit beside the kids there and the kids are in there doing sport and some of them don’t look up the entire time, and all the kids want, when I’m teaching them on the inside, all they ever say is like, oh I’m just going to go and see if my mum wants to watch, or like, they want their parents to see them do it, like that’s what excites them about it.  
So I’m in a stage right now where I think parents are really important to the development of a lot of things, and especially to the new games.  I know that if I have kids I would be very careful of like what I let them play, at what ages.  I think my parents were always pretty strict on that, I don’t have, like the most strict parents in the world, but if I was fifteen I was never going to play an eighteen.  
I think I got an eighteen when I was seventeen, from like my friends and things, but like having parents who regularly hit that sort of thing, kids will always want to be rebellious and stuff, but helping children understand why a bad game isn’t worth playing, and it’s not just that, oh it’s bad, don’t do it, but helping children understand, oh that’s about this, we don’t want to play games like, we don’t do that in this house.  I think that’s an important aspect of gaming, and parents can have a lot of sway around – like if my dad had told me when I was like twelve, like he’d play games with me sometimes, it was like when he read one of the last Harry Potter books, he wouldn’t read a chapter to me because it was too gory when I was younger, and like not all parents would do that, and I can see how people would see that as strict, but like for a young child, if I was playing a game and my dad said, oh the next level’s really scary, if I was young enough I think I would, and it genuinely would’ve been too scary, I think that I would at least, you know, heeded that advice a bit, and thought okay.  
Not every child will do that, but if they understand why, like when I was young I didn’t want to be particularly scared by anything, like I wouldn’t have wanted to be in fear and if a game has actually scared I wouldn’t have wanted that.  Like I never really got into horror movies until I was older, for the same reason, like now, but I would never let, like if I had a fifteen year old child I would never let them watch an eighteen movie.  So I think that’s a big aspect, and kids will do stuff without thinking things through, that’s just the way children are sometimes, and even like some adults aren’t very good at regulating that.  But parents can provide help in that area. 
Right, [anonymised]ua, it’s interesting you’ve mentioned that specific case of your work in the gym and the parents behind the glass and perhaps not participating, or not signalling their participation in their kids’ activities, and when you talked about parents and games, you mentioned mostly about filtering, like keeping them away or warning them or protecting, but do you think there’s also that, there’s also scope for that sort of active, some way participation or acknowledgement of parents in their kids’ game play?
Yeah, especially for, I mean I would always have like friends that I could play with, like when I was younger like before online and stuff, like when I was really young, before online was a bigger thing, it would be a rare thing that you would get to come round to your house to play with a friend.  So if my sister or my dad, or my mum, would play – like my mum would never play, my brother hated games, my sister played sometimes, but my dad would sometimes play with me on some games, not all, like I understand like what’s not his cup of tea, but like there’s snowboarding games and a few games that I would always, like he would play with me at times and I really enjoyed that, and like if my dad wanted to play in the same way that I would play a co-op game with one of my mates, like if my dad was up for it, I would one-hundred percent would play with him.
But I do think like in different cases it’s different, like I – there are friends of mine whose parents I’ve played video games with, like my mates would play FIFA with their dads and stuff, that would be normal, but I wouldn’t necessarily play a game with my mum, or my dad wouldn’t play, like stuff as much, because maybe they’re not interested.  I imagine there’s games that if my dad really spent time trying to get into he would absolutely love it.  I don’t think it’s like a necessity, I’m not saying parents absolutely have to, you know, to find what games they like so they could play with their kids, but that is something that if you can share that with your kid, in the same way that if you and your child have a same sport that you both enjoy, that helps you like bond with that and also you have a respect there.  
Like when my dad was like, like when I was younger my dad would play football and stuff, I would listen to what he would say about football, because he was better than me and I wanted to like learn how to be better.  My sister, like any time she has played video games, like she would listen to what I say, she would still ask for help and stuff, and there’s, like it comes with respect.  I think it’s a good aspect, it’s not necessarily something that all parents would have, would have to do as a, you know, as just a rule, but it absolutely could be beneficial. 
Okay, great.  Well unless there’s anything you want to add to that now, or if there’s anything else you want to ask me about, I think we can-
I think I’ve rambled on about a lot of subjects. 
No, it’s great, there’s a lot of really, really interesting stuff in there, I think it’s going to be really good when we sit down and start analysing the interview and stuff.  There’s a lot of really interesting stuff in there. 
Yeah, that’s all I have today. 
Okay, well [anonymised], thanks so much for-
It’s my pleasure, sorry again for being late.
Absolutely no problem.
Thanks for taking time to listen

And I hope I get the chance to meet you in person some time.  Either up in Cambridge or either down here in Genoa if you ever get the time to come and visit.
Yeah that sounds great.  The amount of times I have said that I want to come and visit sometime. I am sure there’ll be another crossing of our path at some point.  
I forgot to add, just to let you know that I think I mentioned at the beginning, but just in case I didn’t, I’ll be sending you now, pretty soon a certificate of participation in the project activities and with that some links-
If I just print that out, the thing that you sent to me before, and take a picture of it.
Yes.  
I remember saying to myself yesterday that I need to remember to do that as well.  I can print that out just at uni and send a picture. 
Yes,, whatever, the photo was fine if you could just sign it, yeah print it out and sign it, and take a photo that’d be fine. 
Yeah.  
I’ll send you the certificate of participation and the links to it, and also I want to mention to you that when we finally manage to finish the analysis and we release the report about what’s come from the output from the interview round then we’ll let you know that that’s come out so you can have a look. 
Did I ask you, I can’t remember if I asked you specifically, you can decide to have your name included in the list of people that have been interviewed for the project, or you could decide not to have it included. 
Yeah, I’ll have my name, might as well. 
Okay, so we’ll put that in and we’ll send you the link when that finally comes out, probably the end of summer, if we survive to that point (laughs).  
I’ll get the picture to you as soon as I can. 
Great, cheers.  Thanks [anonymised], bye. 
Bye.