Creative Gaming: Making Sense of Malaysia’s COVID-19 Movement Control Order Through Animal Crossing

The period of Movement Control Order (MCO) has had a significant impact on the physical and mental health of Malaysians, leading many to seek comfort from video games. This study aims to go beyond the hedonistic allure of video gaming by exploring players’ eudaimonic pursuits or sensemaking. Within the sociocultural framework of creativity, this study argues that Malaysian players generate meaning through creative gaming to buffer against the negative effects of the MCO lockdown. The method employed is a qualitative textual analysis of gaming paratexts produced and published in a local gaming Facebook group during the MCO. The popular Nintendo’s Animal Crossing: New Horizons (2020a) is the game in focus. The final dataset included 93 gaming paratexts from 71 unique players. The findings indicated that through creative gaming, Malaysian players made meaning of the pandemic in three ways: adapting to a new temporality, depicting the public health emergency, and dealing with the lockdown absurdities. The findings highlighted the significance of creative gaming as meaning-making to sustain players’ well-being from pandemic precarity. The study is relevant in showcasing a conscious way of video gaming for the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals of SDG3 Good Health and Well-being. Keywords: Creativity, video game culture, COVID-19, Movement Control Order, Malaysia.