Welcome to My Crib: Player Creativity in Animal Crossing

Abstract

Player creativity in commercial games is often framed through external measures rather than players' own accounts of creative experiences. In this paper, I explore how Animal Crossing: New Horizons (ACNH) becomes a site of situated, sociocultural creativity by conducting in-game, ethnographically-informed interviews with eight players during "island tours." I examine how players conceptualize creativity as a process of worldbuilding, negotiation with/against game constraints, and co-creation with both human and nonhuman audiences. My findings show that ACNH affords small-scale creative labor that is expressive and relational, shaped by the game's material and aesthetic conditions. By positioning ACNH as a meaningful site for understanding digital creative practice, this paper offers a qualitative account of in- game creativity grounded in player narratives and demonstrates the value of in-game interviewing for game studies research.