Paper short abstract:

The author discusses the cross-border experience of serious computer games used in research. Design of a research game tests the argumentation "everything exists equally” (I.Bogost), practically it answers the question of what a sociologist has to go for the partnership with a computer game.

Paper long abstract:

The report discusses the problems of computer game and scientifical practice integration. The computer game as smart technology is presented by the author in the light of flat ontology (M. Delanda, Q. Meillassoux, G. Harman, I. Bogost, A. R. Galloway). The combination of game and science, in the author’s opinion, is possible if it is recognized that a computer game has a set of affordances that cannot be reduced even for research purposes. In this sense, the game acts as the operator or partner of the sociologist in the empirical data gathering. The research game is one of the variants for the development of science games, along with citizen games and gamified online surveys. The term “ludo-epistemologies is used today to justify the tendency for the convergence of the game, the actions of ordinary people, and the production of knowledge. The empirical case discussed in the article is a research game, the creation of which began in 2020 by the efforts of sociologists from St Petersburg University. The research aim of the game is to collect data on the national attitudes of gamers using the Bogardus social distance scale. Based on the experience of creating a game scenario, the author considers the obstacles and compromise that a scientist has to overcome to combine game mechanics and research techniques.