Situational Analysis as a Method for Qualitative Inquiry of Games

This paper proposes situational analysis, a method originating in grounded theory and post-modern social science, as a qualitative framework for studying games. Its central argument is that the method responds to three persistent challenges in game research: the dynamic and composite nature of games, the heterogeneity of existing analytical approaches, and the analyst's ambiguous position as both player and external observer. Rather than relying on predefined game ontologies, situational analysis treats the play situation itself as the unit of analysis, using situational and relational maps to examine components and the connections among them.

The method is developed through a case study of three remote tabletop Dungeons & Dragons sessions conducted on Roll20 and Google Meet. The author constructed six situational maps and nine relational maps, refining them iteratively until they stabilized. In its expanded form, the situational mapping identified more than 130 components spanning material, spatial, temporal, socio-cultural, discursive, and human and non-human actor categories. Among the findings, discourses such as cheating and "help-desk" behavior, along with human roles such as narrator, audience, guide, and referee, were shown to shape play largely indirectly, qualifying or modifying relations among other components rather than acting on them directly. The analysis also surfaced an unexpectedly influential "silent actant," a sleeping child whose presence altered location, lighting, and participation, and it traced how the character sheet shifted from a non-human actor into a technology-mediated interface over the campaign.

The author presents situational analysis as an exploratory, open-ended, and processual method whose primary contribution lies in making the assumptions of game analysis visible. It is offered as applicable to both analog and digital games, though explicitly as an early-stage tool rather than a finished framework, and the paper deliberately leaves a full assessment of its contribution to game studies for later work. The accompanying reference list situates the approach within foundational work on grounded theory, situated knowledge, and established game analysis frameworks.