Playing with Perceptions: Reducing Mental Health Stigma through Proxy Experiences in Video Games
Insights and Recommendations from Self-Identified Gamers Using Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice (2017) as a Case Study
Keywords:
Serious Games, Video Games, Mental illness, mental health, Stigma, De-Stigmatization, Empathetic Game Design, player experience, player immersion, Transmedia Storytelling, Multimedia Content, Hellblade: Senua's SacrificeAbstract
This study explores the potential of commercial video games as interactive tools for reducing public stigma surrounding mental health issues (MHIs). It draws on the perspectives of self-identified video game players in Selected Country[1]. Using a mixed-methods approach, participants were first engaged through an online survey (n=50), followed by an in-person playtests of Hellblade, Senua’s Sacrifice (2017) and semi-structured interviews (n=7). Participants provided in-depth demographic data and overall supported the concept of destigmatisation games. They emphasized that effective stigma reduction games should prioritize engaging narratives, immersive gameplay and player autonomy over didactic educational messaging. While continued collaborations between developers, mental health professionals and individuals with lived experiences of MHIs formed the basis for Hellblade authenticity and ethical representation of MHIs, participants advocated that expanding the scope of collaboration with additional key related groups could provide further improved perspectives on the totality and wide impact of long standing MHIs onto society overall.
This study provides three key areas of guidance from discussions with this gamer group for developers who have the goal of creating impactful de-stigmatization games:
(1) Know your target audiences by understanding the diverse identities, habits, and preferences of both gamers and no-gamers that shape their engagement with both video games and online mental health content;
(2) Design a compelling, research-grounded game that balances immersive gameplay with authentic, sensitive portrayals of MHI experiences;
(3) Deliver your game and its message through a multi-platform engagement strategy to reach not only core gamers but also lapsed players and broader, non-gaming audiences to achieve the goal of widespread public MHI stigma reduction.
This research contributes valuable insights into potential design and dissemination strategies that developers could consider for their video games to function as even more impactful tools for mental health advocacy and MHI destigmatisation.
[1] Country name removed as per Blind Review
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