Mental Health, Illness, Crunch, and Burnout: Discourses in Video Games Culture

Abstract

This study investigates how video games culture addresses mental health and illness. Through a discourse analysis of eighty-three articles from four popular video games news websites, this paper describes the primary conceptions of mental health and illness as created in games culture. The study also targets how the news articles address the notions of burnout and crunch time in the games industry and how they relate to mental health and illness. The findings reveal seven thematic categories for how games journalism discourses address mental health and illness, with over half of the articles showcasing issues of game character portrayals. Only seven of the articles described burnout and crunch time as being related to issues of mental health and illness. An analysis of the findings suggests an overemphasis on both celebrating and critiquing video game portrayals of mental illness and an under-emphasis on advocacy and work-related issues in the games industry.