New STRATEGIES Research: Understanding games as a site of utopian resonance

Public Reflections on Games as Sites of Utopian Resonance

The games sector is the largest popular medium globally, shaping culture, entertainment, and social imagination on an unprecedented scale. While games themselves have been studied as a medium capable of inspiring visions of the future, they exist within much wider media ecosystems and player communities. Reviews, video essays, podcasts, and other public reflections play a major role in how games are experienced.

A new article from researchers within the STRATEGIES project, Understanding games as a site of utopian resonance, explores how these reflections function as spaces for societal thinking about utopia. Unlike previous research, which has focused on the content of games, this study highlights how conversations around games can themselves act as a site of orientation toward possible futures.

Building the framework

The paper brings together three key theoretical strands:

Utopia as method — understanding utopia not as a distant ideal, but as a way of imagining and critiquing the present.

Resonance — the idea of meaningful, affective echoes that connect cultural experience with lived life.

Orientation to action — how these resonances can point toward social reflection, design choices, and real-world futures.

Research approach

The team analysed public reflections on four popular games with utopian elements: Kentucky Route Zero (2020), The Outer Wilds (2019), the Animal Crossing series (2002-2020), and the TTRPG actual play, Friends at the Table: Twilight Mirage. The team coded reviews, podcasts, and video essays to identify recurring themes. They found that people often engaged most deeply with:

Worldbuilding — the logics and possibilities of the game worlds.

Language and narrative — how meaning is constructed through dialogue and storytelling.

In-game community — how players imagine and evaluate social dynamics.

Findings: resonance and orientation

The study shows that these reflections are tied to a variety of affective resonances — hope, critique, dissonance, and inspiration — that link directly to broader cultural concerns. Crucially, these resonances don’t remain confined to the games: they orient both further game design and wider societal discourse, shaping how players and publics imagine alternative futures.

Why it matters

Games are not just played; they are continually reflected on, discussed, and debated.

These reflections are intrinsic to the medium and central to its cultural role.

Taken together, they offer a valuable site of utopian resonance where futures are imagined, critiqued, and oriented toward action.

This research underscores the societal value of public conversations about games, showing that the discourse around them is just as important as the games themselves.