Show Me Your World An in-depth analysis Chinese Animal Crossing: New Horizons players regarding their sociability and the values internalised.

The fast-changing mediascape is changing how people entertain, how people virtually interact with each other, and how they would present their own identities. This research aims to investigate the sociability of, and the values internalised by Chinese players in the case of Animal Crossing: New Horizons. The most relevant findings in this research are based on the theoretical understanding of community, sociability and values. These three theoretical concepts are all derived from the 19th century and have developed into the virtual realm, and the serve special roles in gaming industries. Hence, how sociability contributes to the internalisation of values in Animal Crossing: New Horizons is the aim of this research. It is designed to answer the question: How do Chinese gamers jointly socialise to contribute to the values embedded in Animal Crossing: New Horizon in its community? A thematic analysis was conducted to investigate how the sociability and values relate to each other in the gameplay and daily interactions among Chinese Animal Crossing: New Horizons players. A mixture of 7 interviews and 200 online posts were collected as data. with the two kinds of data supplementing each other, considerate findings were investigated. The analysis has brought about findings that depict the sociability of these players and the values they have internalised. The analysis of sociability has shown that most players would socialise with each other out of practical reasons related to money and rare objects. Additionally, they would also interact to deal with loneliness and check on each other’s progress. Besides, Chinese player still prefer to interact with their close friends or play alone. Moreover, most findings showed that the interactions and communications among players are mostly weak and fast. On the other hand, values related to capitalist ideologies were heavily manifested in the analysis, and this is led by the practical desire for money and rare objects in gameplay. Moreover, the Asian collectivism idea in China has led to a tendency of conformity among Chinese players. This could also result in inertia of interaction at the ending stages of Animal Crossing: New Horizons gameplay. Lastly, findings also indicate that the players stress the value of freedom, considering Animal Crossing: New Horizons as a single-player game. This has resulted in a reflection of their true identities in the gameplay, including the real identities and the fabricated ones.