Video games take players on a trip through ancient battlefields, to mythic worlds, and across gal... more Video games take players on a trip through ancient battlefields, to mythic worlds, and across galaxies. They provide players with a way to try on new identities and acquire vast superpowers. Video games also give people the chance to hit reset – to play again and again until they achieve a desired outcome. Their popularity has enabled them to grow far beyond their humble origins and to permeate other forms of popular culture, from comic books and graphic novels to films and television programs. Video games are universal.
In 100 Greatest Video Game Franchises, editors Robert Mejia, Jaime Banks, and Aubrie Adams have assembled essays that identify, assess, and reveal the most important video games of all-time. Each entry makes a case for the game’s cultural significance and why it deserves to be on the list, from its influence on other games to its impact on an international scale. In addition to providing information about the game developer and when the franchise was established, these entries explore the connections between the different video games, examining them across genre, theme, and content.
Though in existence for only a few decades, video games are now firmly established in mainstream ... more Though in existence for only a few decades, video games are now firmly established in mainstream culture all around the planet. Every year new games are produced, and every year new favorites emerge. But certain characters have become so iconic that they withstand both time and the shifting interests of players. Such creations permeate other elements of popular culture—from graphic novels to film—and are known not only to dedicated gamers but to the general public as well. In 100 Greatest Video Game Characters, readers can learn about some of the most popular and influential figures that have leapt from computer monitors and television screens and into the public consciousness. The entries in this volume provide general facts about the characters as well as explore their cultural significance.
This volume is a collection of 18 original essays that, woven together, make a central claim: as ... more This volume is a collection of 18 original essays that, woven together, make a central claim: as a consequence of the new driving logics of globalization, transnationalism, and the digital age, all late-modern institutions and forms of association and affiliation are coalescing under the banner of new identities. These logics have unsettled the processes of the social integration of modern subjects into late-modern institutions. The modern subject is being remade and reproduced in a context in which the relations between government, society, the individual, and market forces have undergone profound transformations and reorganization. As such, critical/cultural theory is needed to address these transformations in a way that moves beyond dystopian or utopian frameworks, and instead point to the particularities that make this moment (un)livable. Hence, this volume is divided into four sections in which contributors map these new, volatile developments across the domains of disciplinary history, technology, the body, and neoliberal programs of cultural and economic globalization.
Survival has always been intersectional-raced, classed, gendered, sexed, (dis)abled, and colonize... more Survival has always been intersectional-raced, classed, gendered, sexed, (dis)abled, and colonized-and if we are to survive this twenty-first century, we need scholars with the experience and training to be at the forefront of the field of communication and critical/cultural studies. Hence, the field needs to take seriously the production of organic intellectuals, which means making space for and supporting scholars who operate at these intersections. Taking the politics of survival seriously means considering the politics of intellectual production: not just who we cite but who we publish, hire, promote, and retain. This forum is a step in that direction. ARTICLE HISTORY
Casual games disrupted the games industry, but not in ways commonly believed. What if we left beh... more Casual games disrupted the games industry, but not in ways commonly believed. What if we left behind the hardcore vs. casual games dichotomy to reveal that casual gameplay and casual game development have extended the neoliberal and neocolonial logic of the industry? Casual games, in terms of design and industry practices, remind us that there is nothing inherently liberating about play. Rather, the design and development practices of casual games should be understood as an extension and acceleration of neoliberal and neocolonial logics. Casual gameplay and casual game development pull us within processes of cruel optimism. These deeply political economic processes endanger free play and creativity and therefore are obstacles to the flourishing of gamers and game developers as free subjects. In this neoliberal and neocolonial game market, cruel optimism is enticing because casual gameplay and game development emerge as powerful actors and practices in a context where the state has globally failed in the distribution of hope.
FROM THE INTRO OF THE BOOK(Sharon Tettegah and Safiya Noble eds.)
Ergin Bulut and Robert Mejia ... more FROM THE INTRO OF THE BOOK(Sharon Tettegah and Safiya Noble eds.)
Ergin Bulut and Robert Mejia explore the “serious games” movement as an affective expression of “communicative capitalism.” In this chapter, they suggest that serious games “transform complex social problems into enjoyable experiences that often work to naturalize the primacy of capitalism over alternative political economic systems.” Through an analysis of the discourses of the game “Deliver the Nets,” they demonstrate how playing games of this nature make the political conditions of poverty, and the economic and social policies of neoliberalism, virtually invisible. By engaging positive emotions and good feelings through serious games, multiple dimensions of global crises are rendered more difficult to intervene upon.
In the aftermath of the 2016 election of President Trump, a veritable cottage industry of opinion... more In the aftermath of the 2016 election of President Trump, a veritable cottage industry of opinion pieces, blogs, and articles emerged overnight, most of which seemed to agree that only the post-truth could explain how a racist, misogynistic, neo-nationalist member of the economic elite could win a presidential election. This article, in contrast, is inspired by Barbara Christian’s injunction that we question why a given statement, concept, or theory is now acceptable when before it was not. Operating in this spirit, we critique post-truth critics for neglecting the material tradition of ideological criticism in favor of epistemological explanations for understanding post-truth literature; we then offer two case studies—American drug policy and housing policy—to illustrate the racial amnesia required for claiming that only now do we live in a post-truth era.
In this paper, we argue that EVE Online is a fruitful site for exploring how the representational... more In this paper, we argue that EVE Online is a fruitful site for exploring how the representational and political-economic elements of science fiction intersect to exert a sociocultural and political-economic force on the shape and nature of the future-present. EVE has been oft heralded for its economic and sociocultural complexity, and for employing a free market ethos and ethics in its game world. However, we by contrast seek not to consider how EVE reflects our contemporary world, but rather how our contemporary neoliberal milieu reflects EVE. We explore how EVE works to make its world of neoliberal markets and borderline anarcho-capitalism manifest through the political economic and sociocultural assemblages mobilized beyond the game. We explore the deep intertwining of behaviors of players both within and outside of the game, demonstrating that EVE promotes neoliberal activity in its players, encourages these behaviors outside the game, and that players who have found success in the real world of neoliberal capitalism are those best-positioned for success in the time-demanding and resource-demanding world of EVE. This thereby sets up a reciprocal ideological determination between the real and virtual worlds of EVE players, whereby each reinforces the other. We lastly consider the “Alliance Tournament” event, which romanticizes conflict and competition, and argue that it serves as a crucial site for deploying a further set of similar rhetorical resources. The paper therefore offers an understanding of the sociocultural and political-economic pressure exerted on the “physical” world by the intersection of EVE’s representational and material elements, and what these show us about the real-world ideological power of science fictional worlds.
The left and right are currently suffering from a crisis in political imagination. This is well u... more The left and right are currently suffering from a crisis in political imagination. This is well understood regarding the right, as rallying cries such as “Make America Great Again” make explicit the nostalgic desire for a return to an idyllic past that never existed. Journalists, academics, and political pundits have been quick to point out that whatever peace and prosperity existed during this idealized past was built on the backs of women, people of color, indigenous Americans, immigrants, conscripted military personnel, and others. These points have been widely made and it is not the purpose of this piece to rehash the evidence supporting these claims. What is less recognized, however, is that it is increasingly clear that so too does the left wish to return to an idyllic past that also never existed: an era of the truth.
My contention is that the “post truth” is just another concept in the long history of propaganda ... more My contention is that the “post truth” is just another concept in the long history of propaganda research that inadequately takes account of the fact that propaganda seems to work well on some populations and not others. To rectify the inadequate explanatory power of the “post truth,” I urge media theorists to take seriously the critical race theory concept of interest convergence and the rhetorical concepts of narrative probability and narrative fidelity to understand why we must stop referring to the “post truth” as anything other than the cultural logic of late racism.
The Intersectional Internet: Race, Sex, Class, and Culture Online, 2016
I argue that the field of media and cultural studies, with its unique approach to intersectionali... more I argue that the field of media and cultural studies, with its unique approach to intersectionality informed by the work of British Cultural Studies and Black Feminism, offers a powerful analytic for intervening upon issues of global health. The first orientation, from British Cultural Studies, encourages us to recognize the confluence of forces that affect the meaning of a message as it travels through the circuit of communication. This means that our understanding of digital technologies, such as the internet, must offer an account of the material infrastructure that undergirds its operation, for this is just as much its meaning as the ephemeral content that flows across its network. The second orientation, from Black Feminism, compels us to understand the confluence of forces that affect one’s relationship to systems of communication and power. This means that we must recognize that the experience and effects of global desire, pleasure, anxiety, and suffering operate unevenly across race, gender, class, and national lines. To make this case, this chapter is organized according to three case studies that serve as exemplars for understanding the epidemiological impact of media production, usage, and disposal.
Although digital games capture our society's imagination and produce a public discussion mostly i... more Although digital games capture our society's imagination and produce a public discussion mostly in relation to events of mass violence, the ways in which play has been put to work for serious purposes (such as education, military training, budgeting, job applications) have barely registered in critical analysis. This is unfortunate for we have argued elsewhere that video games can operate within the context of "communicative capitalism." As it pertains to video games, we argue that the game design can erase our social memory and obscure the political economic environment of which gaming is a part.
On March 17, 2010, the United States Federal Communications Commission identified broadband as “t... more On March 17, 2010, the United States Federal Communications Commission identified broadband as “the great infrastructure challenge of the early twenty-first century.” One month earlier, on February 10, 2010, in anticipation of the FCC's announcement, Google announced its intent to build ultra-high-speed broadband networks across the United States to serve as a model for overcoming this challenge. Since then, Google Fiber, as it is called, has succeeded in being recognized as a model for other communities interested in establishing ultra-high-speed broadband infrastructure. This article serves as an analysis of the political economic consequences of this particular configuration of broadband infrastructure, and argues that Google Fiber operates as a mechanism of flexible capital whereby the emphases on short- over long-term relationships, meritocracy over craftsmanship, and the devaluation of past experience in favor of potential outcomes are embedded in the institutional and technical infrastructure of ultra-high-speed Internet.
The Play Versus Story Divide in Game Studies: Critical Essays, 2015
This chapter is an attempt to reorient our ecological ethics surrounding video game play by repos... more This chapter is an attempt to reorient our ecological ethics surrounding video game play by repositioning the ecological consequences and impacts of video game technologies and processes as internal to the ludic design of contemporary digital play. The aim is to illustrate why it is impossible to continue looking away regarding the ecological consequences and impacts of digital play; to illustrate the entanglement of the ecological contexts of the production, consumption, and disposal of video game technologies to such an extent that one must confront the conditions of their ludic pleasure or become conscious of the fact that they have chosen to look away—to endorse the suffering of another upon his behalf. To better illuminate the entanglement of the ecological contexts of video game technologies and processes, it is necessary to: first, explain, and reconfigure the foundational game studies concept of the magic circle as a material construct as opposed to merely an ephemeral thing, as conventionally understood; and second, discuss the ecological effects of manufacturing the data processing units required of contemporary video gaming consoles so as to illustrate how this materialist conception of the magic circle undergirds the narrative pleasures derived from the experience of video game play.
This article analyzes Free Rice within the context of “the rise of the ludic sublime” where video... more This article analyzes Free Rice within the context of “the rise of the ludic sublime” where video games are hailed as the solution to highly sophisticated political problems. As part of what we call practices of “philitainment”, Free Rice, we argue, functions within the political domain of what Jodi Dean has termed “communicative capitalism” and therefore both captures resistance and actually solidify global capitalism. Ultimately, this case study of Free Rice reveals ways in which practices of philitainment signals the proliferation of a convergence between the technological sublime and neoliberal politics through which the disinvestment of the state from social problems is legitimized and reproduced through a reconfiguration of citizenship in terms of techno-consumerism.
The contemporary video game industry is a complex hybrid encompassing a mixture of Eastern and We... more The contemporary video game industry is a complex hybrid encompassing a mixture of Eastern and Western business and cultural politics to a degree unseen in other media industries. As such, the medium operates as a unique archive for understanding the ebbs, flows, and fusions of contemporary global politics. Engaging this archive with an awareness of its transnational origins is necessary, for contemporary culture increasingly operates on a global scale: state politics and cultural imaginings are often organized around and informed by international events. It is in this vein that we offer the case study of the Biohazard (Japanese) / Resident Evil (U.S.) franchise as a potent site for understanding historical shifts in first-world perceptions of global epidemics. Biohazard / Resident Evil is a compelling site of analysis, for it not only engages contemporary first-world anxiety about third-world global epidemics through a unique fusion of Japanese and U.S. infection metaphors, but also documents significant post-9/11 shifts in the politics of infection itself. The pre-9/11 Biohazard / Resident Evil narrative is heavily inflected with Japan’s ambivalent relationship to scientific progress in that the source of the epidemic is that of scientific research gone amok: an evil corporation is attempting to create a military-grade, genetic super weapon. The post-9/11 Biohazard / Resident Evil storyline, however, pushes this scientific anxiety to the background, and transforms its narrative in correspondence with the U.S.’s discourse of War on Terror: terrorists are plotting to infect the West. Tracing the fusion of this transnational history offers a compelling perspective in which to understand how contemporary first-world understandings of epidemics is being shaped by the histories of U.S. and Japanese biopolitical anxieties and desires.
Project LifeLike refers to the efforts to create a ‘realistic avatar supported by an intelligent ... more Project LifeLike refers to the efforts to create a ‘realistic avatar supported by an intelligent engine capable of online learning’. In essence, this means the encoding of the intelligence of presently living individuals in order to preserve the persons’ epistemological structures beyond their ontological death. To do this, the team must distil those ‘humanistic’ elements that are deemed essential to the human experience, and thus this process reconfigures the very concept of the original itself. Hence, I argue that Project LifeLike constitutes an epistemological cooptation of the ontological project of life, whereby the technological apparatus of the body is effaced in favour of the epistemic projections of the mind.
The author contends that mobile technologies can reconfigure our experience of public places, and... more The author contends that mobile technologies can reconfigure our experience of public places, and can be used to “purify” public places of “undesirable” elements. This reading discusses movement as a productive practice; explores the historical relationship between technology and mobility; provides a theory of mobile practices; and considers the implications mobile technologies have for experiences of race, class, and gender.
This is a critical cultural and political economic analysis of the video game as an engine of glo... more This is a critical cultural and political economic analysis of the video game as an engine of global anxiety and desire. Attempting to move beyond conventional studies of the video game as a thing-in-itself, relatively self-contained as a textual, ludic, or even technological (in the narrow sense of the word) phenomenon, I propose that gaming has come to operate as an epistemological imperative that extends beyond the site of gaming in itself. Play and pleasure have come to affect sites of culture and the structural formation of various populations beyond those conceived of as belonging to conventional gaming populations: the workplace, consumer experiences, education, warfare, and even the practice of politics itself, amongst other domains. Indeed, the central claim of this dissertation is that the video game operates with the same political and cultural gravity as that ascribed to the prison by Michel Foucault. That is, just as the
prison operated as the discursive site wherein the disciplinary imaginary was honed, so too does digital play operate as that discursive site wherein the ludic imperative has emerged.
Video games take players on a trip through ancient battlefields, to mythic worlds, and across gal... more Video games take players on a trip through ancient battlefields, to mythic worlds, and across galaxies. They provide players with a way to try on new identities and acquire vast superpowers. Video games also give people the chance to hit reset – to play again and again until they achieve a desired outcome. Their popularity has enabled them to grow far beyond their humble origins and to permeate other forms of popular culture, from comic books and graphic novels to films and television programs. Video games are universal.
In 100 Greatest Video Game Franchises, editors Robert Mejia, Jaime Banks, and Aubrie Adams have assembled essays that identify, assess, and reveal the most important video games of all-time. Each entry makes a case for the game’s cultural significance and why it deserves to be on the list, from its influence on other games to its impact on an international scale. In addition to providing information about the game developer and when the franchise was established, these entries explore the connections between the different video games, examining them across genre, theme, and content.
Though in existence for only a few decades, video games are now firmly established in mainstream ... more Though in existence for only a few decades, video games are now firmly established in mainstream culture all around the planet. Every year new games are produced, and every year new favorites emerge. But certain characters have become so iconic that they withstand both time and the shifting interests of players. Such creations permeate other elements of popular culture—from graphic novels to film—and are known not only to dedicated gamers but to the general public as well. In 100 Greatest Video Game Characters, readers can learn about some of the most popular and influential figures that have leapt from computer monitors and television screens and into the public consciousness. The entries in this volume provide general facts about the characters as well as explore their cultural significance.
This volume is a collection of 18 original essays that, woven together, make a central claim: as ... more This volume is a collection of 18 original essays that, woven together, make a central claim: as a consequence of the new driving logics of globalization, transnationalism, and the digital age, all late-modern institutions and forms of association and affiliation are coalescing under the banner of new identities. These logics have unsettled the processes of the social integration of modern subjects into late-modern institutions. The modern subject is being remade and reproduced in a context in which the relations between government, society, the individual, and market forces have undergone profound transformations and reorganization. As such, critical/cultural theory is needed to address these transformations in a way that moves beyond dystopian or utopian frameworks, and instead point to the particularities that make this moment (un)livable. Hence, this volume is divided into four sections in which contributors map these new, volatile developments across the domains of disciplinary history, technology, the body, and neoliberal programs of cultural and economic globalization.
Survival has always been intersectional-raced, classed, gendered, sexed, (dis)abled, and colonize... more Survival has always been intersectional-raced, classed, gendered, sexed, (dis)abled, and colonized-and if we are to survive this twenty-first century, we need scholars with the experience and training to be at the forefront of the field of communication and critical/cultural studies. Hence, the field needs to take seriously the production of organic intellectuals, which means making space for and supporting scholars who operate at these intersections. Taking the politics of survival seriously means considering the politics of intellectual production: not just who we cite but who we publish, hire, promote, and retain. This forum is a step in that direction. ARTICLE HISTORY
Casual games disrupted the games industry, but not in ways commonly believed. What if we left beh... more Casual games disrupted the games industry, but not in ways commonly believed. What if we left behind the hardcore vs. casual games dichotomy to reveal that casual gameplay and casual game development have extended the neoliberal and neocolonial logic of the industry? Casual games, in terms of design and industry practices, remind us that there is nothing inherently liberating about play. Rather, the design and development practices of casual games should be understood as an extension and acceleration of neoliberal and neocolonial logics. Casual gameplay and casual game development pull us within processes of cruel optimism. These deeply political economic processes endanger free play and creativity and therefore are obstacles to the flourishing of gamers and game developers as free subjects. In this neoliberal and neocolonial game market, cruel optimism is enticing because casual gameplay and game development emerge as powerful actors and practices in a context where the state has globally failed in the distribution of hope.
FROM THE INTRO OF THE BOOK(Sharon Tettegah and Safiya Noble eds.)
Ergin Bulut and Robert Mejia ... more FROM THE INTRO OF THE BOOK(Sharon Tettegah and Safiya Noble eds.)
Ergin Bulut and Robert Mejia explore the “serious games” movement as an affective expression of “communicative capitalism.” In this chapter, they suggest that serious games “transform complex social problems into enjoyable experiences that often work to naturalize the primacy of capitalism over alternative political economic systems.” Through an analysis of the discourses of the game “Deliver the Nets,” they demonstrate how playing games of this nature make the political conditions of poverty, and the economic and social policies of neoliberalism, virtually invisible. By engaging positive emotions and good feelings through serious games, multiple dimensions of global crises are rendered more difficult to intervene upon.
In the aftermath of the 2016 election of President Trump, a veritable cottage industry of opinion... more In the aftermath of the 2016 election of President Trump, a veritable cottage industry of opinion pieces, blogs, and articles emerged overnight, most of which seemed to agree that only the post-truth could explain how a racist, misogynistic, neo-nationalist member of the economic elite could win a presidential election. This article, in contrast, is inspired by Barbara Christian’s injunction that we question why a given statement, concept, or theory is now acceptable when before it was not. Operating in this spirit, we critique post-truth critics for neglecting the material tradition of ideological criticism in favor of epistemological explanations for understanding post-truth literature; we then offer two case studies—American drug policy and housing policy—to illustrate the racial amnesia required for claiming that only now do we live in a post-truth era.
In this paper, we argue that EVE Online is a fruitful site for exploring how the representational... more In this paper, we argue that EVE Online is a fruitful site for exploring how the representational and political-economic elements of science fiction intersect to exert a sociocultural and political-economic force on the shape and nature of the future-present. EVE has been oft heralded for its economic and sociocultural complexity, and for employing a free market ethos and ethics in its game world. However, we by contrast seek not to consider how EVE reflects our contemporary world, but rather how our contemporary neoliberal milieu reflects EVE. We explore how EVE works to make its world of neoliberal markets and borderline anarcho-capitalism manifest through the political economic and sociocultural assemblages mobilized beyond the game. We explore the deep intertwining of behaviors of players both within and outside of the game, demonstrating that EVE promotes neoliberal activity in its players, encourages these behaviors outside the game, and that players who have found success in the real world of neoliberal capitalism are those best-positioned for success in the time-demanding and resource-demanding world of EVE. This thereby sets up a reciprocal ideological determination between the real and virtual worlds of EVE players, whereby each reinforces the other. We lastly consider the “Alliance Tournament” event, which romanticizes conflict and competition, and argue that it serves as a crucial site for deploying a further set of similar rhetorical resources. The paper therefore offers an understanding of the sociocultural and political-economic pressure exerted on the “physical” world by the intersection of EVE’s representational and material elements, and what these show us about the real-world ideological power of science fictional worlds.
The left and right are currently suffering from a crisis in political imagination. This is well u... more The left and right are currently suffering from a crisis in political imagination. This is well understood regarding the right, as rallying cries such as “Make America Great Again” make explicit the nostalgic desire for a return to an idyllic past that never existed. Journalists, academics, and political pundits have been quick to point out that whatever peace and prosperity existed during this idealized past was built on the backs of women, people of color, indigenous Americans, immigrants, conscripted military personnel, and others. These points have been widely made and it is not the purpose of this piece to rehash the evidence supporting these claims. What is less recognized, however, is that it is increasingly clear that so too does the left wish to return to an idyllic past that also never existed: an era of the truth.
My contention is that the “post truth” is just another concept in the long history of propaganda ... more My contention is that the “post truth” is just another concept in the long history of propaganda research that inadequately takes account of the fact that propaganda seems to work well on some populations and not others. To rectify the inadequate explanatory power of the “post truth,” I urge media theorists to take seriously the critical race theory concept of interest convergence and the rhetorical concepts of narrative probability and narrative fidelity to understand why we must stop referring to the “post truth” as anything other than the cultural logic of late racism.
The Intersectional Internet: Race, Sex, Class, and Culture Online, 2016
I argue that the field of media and cultural studies, with its unique approach to intersectionali... more I argue that the field of media and cultural studies, with its unique approach to intersectionality informed by the work of British Cultural Studies and Black Feminism, offers a powerful analytic for intervening upon issues of global health. The first orientation, from British Cultural Studies, encourages us to recognize the confluence of forces that affect the meaning of a message as it travels through the circuit of communication. This means that our understanding of digital technologies, such as the internet, must offer an account of the material infrastructure that undergirds its operation, for this is just as much its meaning as the ephemeral content that flows across its network. The second orientation, from Black Feminism, compels us to understand the confluence of forces that affect one’s relationship to systems of communication and power. This means that we must recognize that the experience and effects of global desire, pleasure, anxiety, and suffering operate unevenly across race, gender, class, and national lines. To make this case, this chapter is organized according to three case studies that serve as exemplars for understanding the epidemiological impact of media production, usage, and disposal.
Although digital games capture our society's imagination and produce a public discussion mostly i... more Although digital games capture our society's imagination and produce a public discussion mostly in relation to events of mass violence, the ways in which play has been put to work for serious purposes (such as education, military training, budgeting, job applications) have barely registered in critical analysis. This is unfortunate for we have argued elsewhere that video games can operate within the context of "communicative capitalism." As it pertains to video games, we argue that the game design can erase our social memory and obscure the political economic environment of which gaming is a part.
On March 17, 2010, the United States Federal Communications Commission identified broadband as “t... more On March 17, 2010, the United States Federal Communications Commission identified broadband as “the great infrastructure challenge of the early twenty-first century.” One month earlier, on February 10, 2010, in anticipation of the FCC's announcement, Google announced its intent to build ultra-high-speed broadband networks across the United States to serve as a model for overcoming this challenge. Since then, Google Fiber, as it is called, has succeeded in being recognized as a model for other communities interested in establishing ultra-high-speed broadband infrastructure. This article serves as an analysis of the political economic consequences of this particular configuration of broadband infrastructure, and argues that Google Fiber operates as a mechanism of flexible capital whereby the emphases on short- over long-term relationships, meritocracy over craftsmanship, and the devaluation of past experience in favor of potential outcomes are embedded in the institutional and technical infrastructure of ultra-high-speed Internet.
The Play Versus Story Divide in Game Studies: Critical Essays, 2015
This chapter is an attempt to reorient our ecological ethics surrounding video game play by repos... more This chapter is an attempt to reorient our ecological ethics surrounding video game play by repositioning the ecological consequences and impacts of video game technologies and processes as internal to the ludic design of contemporary digital play. The aim is to illustrate why it is impossible to continue looking away regarding the ecological consequences and impacts of digital play; to illustrate the entanglement of the ecological contexts of the production, consumption, and disposal of video game technologies to such an extent that one must confront the conditions of their ludic pleasure or become conscious of the fact that they have chosen to look away—to endorse the suffering of another upon his behalf. To better illuminate the entanglement of the ecological contexts of video game technologies and processes, it is necessary to: first, explain, and reconfigure the foundational game studies concept of the magic circle as a material construct as opposed to merely an ephemeral thing, as conventionally understood; and second, discuss the ecological effects of manufacturing the data processing units required of contemporary video gaming consoles so as to illustrate how this materialist conception of the magic circle undergirds the narrative pleasures derived from the experience of video game play.
This article analyzes Free Rice within the context of “the rise of the ludic sublime” where video... more This article analyzes Free Rice within the context of “the rise of the ludic sublime” where video games are hailed as the solution to highly sophisticated political problems. As part of what we call practices of “philitainment”, Free Rice, we argue, functions within the political domain of what Jodi Dean has termed “communicative capitalism” and therefore both captures resistance and actually solidify global capitalism. Ultimately, this case study of Free Rice reveals ways in which practices of philitainment signals the proliferation of a convergence between the technological sublime and neoliberal politics through which the disinvestment of the state from social problems is legitimized and reproduced through a reconfiguration of citizenship in terms of techno-consumerism.
The contemporary video game industry is a complex hybrid encompassing a mixture of Eastern and We... more The contemporary video game industry is a complex hybrid encompassing a mixture of Eastern and Western business and cultural politics to a degree unseen in other media industries. As such, the medium operates as a unique archive for understanding the ebbs, flows, and fusions of contemporary global politics. Engaging this archive with an awareness of its transnational origins is necessary, for contemporary culture increasingly operates on a global scale: state politics and cultural imaginings are often organized around and informed by international events. It is in this vein that we offer the case study of the Biohazard (Japanese) / Resident Evil (U.S.) franchise as a potent site for understanding historical shifts in first-world perceptions of global epidemics. Biohazard / Resident Evil is a compelling site of analysis, for it not only engages contemporary first-world anxiety about third-world global epidemics through a unique fusion of Japanese and U.S. infection metaphors, but also documents significant post-9/11 shifts in the politics of infection itself. The pre-9/11 Biohazard / Resident Evil narrative is heavily inflected with Japan’s ambivalent relationship to scientific progress in that the source of the epidemic is that of scientific research gone amok: an evil corporation is attempting to create a military-grade, genetic super weapon. The post-9/11 Biohazard / Resident Evil storyline, however, pushes this scientific anxiety to the background, and transforms its narrative in correspondence with the U.S.’s discourse of War on Terror: terrorists are plotting to infect the West. Tracing the fusion of this transnational history offers a compelling perspective in which to understand how contemporary first-world understandings of epidemics is being shaped by the histories of U.S. and Japanese biopolitical anxieties and desires.
Project LifeLike refers to the efforts to create a ‘realistic avatar supported by an intelligent ... more Project LifeLike refers to the efforts to create a ‘realistic avatar supported by an intelligent engine capable of online learning’. In essence, this means the encoding of the intelligence of presently living individuals in order to preserve the persons’ epistemological structures beyond their ontological death. To do this, the team must distil those ‘humanistic’ elements that are deemed essential to the human experience, and thus this process reconfigures the very concept of the original itself. Hence, I argue that Project LifeLike constitutes an epistemological cooptation of the ontological project of life, whereby the technological apparatus of the body is effaced in favour of the epistemic projections of the mind.
The author contends that mobile technologies can reconfigure our experience of public places, and... more The author contends that mobile technologies can reconfigure our experience of public places, and can be used to “purify” public places of “undesirable” elements. This reading discusses movement as a productive practice; explores the historical relationship between technology and mobility; provides a theory of mobile practices; and considers the implications mobile technologies have for experiences of race, class, and gender.
This is a critical cultural and political economic analysis of the video game as an engine of glo... more This is a critical cultural and political economic analysis of the video game as an engine of global anxiety and desire. Attempting to move beyond conventional studies of the video game as a thing-in-itself, relatively self-contained as a textual, ludic, or even technological (in the narrow sense of the word) phenomenon, I propose that gaming has come to operate as an epistemological imperative that extends beyond the site of gaming in itself. Play and pleasure have come to affect sites of culture and the structural formation of various populations beyond those conceived of as belonging to conventional gaming populations: the workplace, consumer experiences, education, warfare, and even the practice of politics itself, amongst other domains. Indeed, the central claim of this dissertation is that the video game operates with the same political and cultural gravity as that ascribed to the prison by Michel Foucault. That is, just as the
prison operated as the discursive site wherein the disciplinary imaginary was honed, so too does digital play operate as that discursive site wherein the ludic imperative has emerged.
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In 100 Greatest Video Game Franchises, editors Robert Mejia, Jaime Banks, and Aubrie Adams have assembled essays that identify, assess, and reveal the most important video games of all-time. Each entry makes a case for the game’s cultural significance and why it deserves to be on the list, from its influence on other games to its impact on an international scale. In addition to providing information about the game developer and when the franchise was established, these entries explore the connections between the different video games, examining them across genre, theme, and content.
Ergin Bulut and Robert Mejia explore the “serious games” movement as an affective expression of “communicative capitalism.” In this chapter, they suggest that serious games “transform complex social problems into enjoyable experiences that often work to naturalize the primacy of capitalism over alternative political economic systems.” Through an analysis of the discourses of the game “Deliver the Nets,” they demonstrate how playing games of this nature make the political conditions of poverty, and the economic and social policies of neoliberalism, virtually invisible. By engaging positive emotions and good feelings through serious games, multiple dimensions of global crises are rendered more difficult to intervene upon.
prison operated as the discursive site wherein the disciplinary imaginary was honed, so too does digital play operate as that discursive site wherein the ludic imperative has emerged.
In 100 Greatest Video Game Franchises, editors Robert Mejia, Jaime Banks, and Aubrie Adams have assembled essays that identify, assess, and reveal the most important video games of all-time. Each entry makes a case for the game’s cultural significance and why it deserves to be on the list, from its influence on other games to its impact on an international scale. In addition to providing information about the game developer and when the franchise was established, these entries explore the connections between the different video games, examining them across genre, theme, and content.
Ergin Bulut and Robert Mejia explore the “serious games” movement as an affective expression of “communicative capitalism.” In this chapter, they suggest that serious games “transform complex social problems into enjoyable experiences that often work to naturalize the primacy of capitalism over alternative political economic systems.” Through an analysis of the discourses of the game “Deliver the Nets,” they demonstrate how playing games of this nature make the political conditions of poverty, and the economic and social policies of neoliberalism, virtually invisible. By engaging positive emotions and good feelings through serious games, multiple dimensions of global crises are rendered more difficult to intervene upon.
prison operated as the discursive site wherein the disciplinary imaginary was honed, so too does digital play operate as that discursive site wherein the ludic imperative has emerged.