Högskolan i Skövde

This article presents a literature review of game research that focuses on the interdisciplinary, collaborative, practical and social aspects of game development. It investigates recurring research questions, topics and suggested purpose of current research in order to generate a coherent summary of the state of research and future possibilities. Due to the interdisciplinary, technical and creative nature of game development, it constitutes a broad and complex research field. However, as researchers often approach game development from a specific research field, the interdisciplinary aspects and complexities are set aside. This has created a substantial gap between academia and the game industry. Thus, it has been suggested that an overarching understanding of each element of game development, as well as their interconnectivity is essential to reduce the gap between academia and game industry, and generate research that is beneficial to both sides. The presented literature review focus on research that applies a more overarching approach, in an effort to explore and distinguish key factors and propose future research areas. Based on the gathered data, it is clear that the investigated field is still in an exploratory stage. However, comparison of recurring topics generated indications towards research areas that could potentially be of importance to both industry and academia.