Animation in children’s gameplay: collaborative action and sibling play

ABSTRACT This study documents siblings’ gameplay in detail. Animation has traditionally been seen as a part of game software, but this ethnographic study shows how siblings animate play when talking to game characters as if they are alive, deploying a number of conversational resources for animating talk – response cries, name calling, and “talking back” – fueling and embellishing play. Gameplay thereby involves collaborative action and shifting alignments, both with game characters and with elder or younger siblings. The findings show that animations form parts of children’s emerging gameplay expertise and collaborative action, extending prior work on the architecture of play.