Thematic Analysis and Identification of the Challenges and Development Strategies of Local Digital Games

Today, digital games have become a comprehensive, wealth-creating and culture-oriented industry and have been able to establish their position as an industry/art media and in fact the eighth art by using technical and artistic elements, psychology and sociology. As a cultural and creative industry, the digital games industry has also had a significant impact on the economy, culture and education. This study was conducted with the aim of identifying the challenges and local development strategies of this industry in Iran. In this research, by collecting library data, conducting in-depth and structured interviews, and using the thematic analysis method, the local development challenges of this industry, as well as solutions to overcome these obstacles, were identified and extracted, and in the next stages, these factors were reduced and categorized the basic, organizing, and all-encompassing topics and. Finally, the mentioned factors were evaluated and refined by analysis of the opinions of industry experts. The lack of knowledge of game makers in the field of issues related to production management and game project management were identified as the main challenges, and on the other hand, networking and attracting the participation of existing elements in digital games, empowering and developing the capabilities of game-maker experts, and also strengthening the supervisory and developmental responsibilities of governmental and regulatory institutions, were defined and classified as the most important policies for the development of digital games.