Interdisciplinary Game Development: Situating the Professional Expertise and Skill-Building among Danish Game Workers

This PhD research project (Autumn 2024– Spring 2027) explores interdisciplinary game development from within game development teams in Denmark. It will consist of three qualitative case studies in Danish game studios and education through which I apply ethnographic participation to develop grounded and context dependent results. Overall, I undertake research across game design praxeology, organizational science, and sociology of work to analyse the working and learning environment of game makers in its socio-economic context: How are interdisciplinary work forms and competences cultivated among newcomers for working in the Danish game industry? The primary objective, then, is to examine how newcomers to the Danish game industry are trained for interdisciplinary work and contextualize such expertise from within studio workplaces and Danish society. Like any case study, my project will provide rich contextual descriptions of challenges that newcomers face, and inform debates on game education curriculum and policy in Denmark