Parties and Play: How Single-Player Games Use Partying and Party Games

What is it about?

Parties and partying show up in many single-player video games, but they haven’t been studied much. In this paper, we explore how parties are shown and used in games. We looked at 22 games to find patterns and answer our research question. Parties in these games often refer to scenes from movies, TV shows, or familiar party games from everyday life. Our analysis revealed several common themes: parties used as a background setting, parties as places for characters to socialize, and parties as settings for sexual encounters (with subthemes like random hookups, mini party games, and games leading to sex). We also found themes of watching others at parties and organizing a party as a challenge for the player.

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Photo by Mitchell Orr on Unsplash

Photo by Mitchell Orr on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Understanding how parties and partying are shown in single-player video games helps us see how games reflect and shape real-life social situations. Parties are often moments of emotional tension, relationship building, or risky behavior in stories—from movies to TV—and games borrow these familiar ideas. By looking at how games use parties, we can learn more about how they deal with topics like sex, social interaction, power dynamics, and even player choice. These scenes can also reinforce or challenge cultural norms about behavior, relationships, and gender roles. Since players take an active role in games, how they experience and influence party scenes can tell us a lot about how games build meaning differently from other media. Despite this, parties in games haven’t received much academic attention—so this study helps fill that gap and opens up new questions about how everyday social life is simulated and shaped through play.

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