Whose Vibe is it Anyway? Negotiating Definitions of Cozy Games

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2025-01-07

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2641

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While many games that are now widely considered ‘cozy’ games, such as Animal Crossing and Stardew Valley have been on the market for close to a decade (or more), cozy games as a genre have gained in popularity over the last several years. This can be seen not only in the number of titles that have increasingly been given the label of ‘cozy game’ by game designers and marketing teams, but also in how players describe them. But what exactly are cozy games? How are they defined, by who, in what context(s), and for what purposes? From design elements to vibes, this paper will explore a range of definitions found through the perspectives of design literature, games and mainstream media, and players on Tik Tok. It demonstrates that what makes a game ‘cozy’ is widely variable, socially constructed, and often personal, despite the best design intentions.

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Games and Gaming, cozy games, fan culture, game design, player studies, tik tok

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10

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Proceedings of the 58th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences

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Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

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