Digital Thriving Project

Digital thriving in online gaming refers to the intentional design of virtual environments that promote well-being, accomplishment, belonging, and meaningful relationships among players. This concept emphasizes creating gaming spaces where individuals and communities can flourish, feeling safe, respected, and connected.

The Digital Thriving Playbook is a comprehensive, research-backed resource designed to assist developers in creating online spaces that promote well-being, accomplishment, belonging, and meaningful relationships among users. This playbook offers practical guidance, methods, and insights to foster thriving digital communities.

Established through a partnership between the Thriving in Games Group (formerly the Fair Play Alliance), and the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop, with support from the Riot Games Social Impact Fund, the Digital Thriving Playbook aims to make it easy for anyone to design online spaces and games that help individuals, groups, and communities truly thrive in today’s connected world.

To effectively utilize the Digital Thriving Playbook:

• Explore Core Concepts: Understand foundational topics such as accessibility, belonging, collaboration, and well-being to inform your design approach
• Implement Proven Methods: Apply tactical techniques like the CGI Framework for DigitalThriving and the RPM Method for Social Satisfaction to enhance user experiences
• Learn from Examples: Review examples that showcase digital thriving in action to inspire and guide your projects

The Digital Thriving Playbook will continue to grow to include more of the amazing work being done in this area. If you are a designer, developer, creator, or researcher with a best practice to share, we invite you to consider contributing to the playbook.

Learn more about the playbook’s design in this fireside chat at the Digital Thriving Summit held at Riot Games on February 25, 2025, moderated by the Joan Ganz Cooney Center’s Executive Director Michael Preston featuring Kimberly Voll, PhD (CEO of Brace Yourself Games, TIGG co-founder), Natasha Miller (Senior Research Scientist II at Blizzard Entertainment, TIGG board member), and Weszt Hart (Head of Player Dynamics at Riot Games, TIGG Board Member).