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Playing Dystopia: Searching for the Neganthropocene in Papers, Please and Orwell The way we play games and the way games play us is constantly changing. The physical shrinking of space can no longer be compensated by expansive gamescapes which otherwise provided a reprieve from diminishing access to space in 20th and 21st century childhood (Mayra, An Introduction to Game Studies). Gamescapes, increasingly, are becoming neo-explorations of “other people simulators” characterized by a suffocating hypernearing of the experience of the dystopia (Lucas Pope). Often ‘mundane’ mirrors of real-life situations, these dystopian games place the player in movement-limiting, choice-limiting challenging scenarios from where a fulfilling ending is more often than not impossible. I look at two of these dystopian games that offer covertly disruptive gameplay through alienating, often disembodied, simulation as a strategy for playing dystopia: Lucas Pope’s Papers, Please and Osmotic Studios’ Orwell. Closely engaging with issues of surveillance, digital governance, neurotechnology, illegal profiling, and ultimately, survival in a dystopia of technics, these games with their multiple endings caused by the smallest, seemingly most insignificant of differences in gameplay become crucial in their playing out of the possibilities of the neganthropocene.

Speaking to the 'Missing' Player: Subaltern Poetics in Indian Videogames The degree of interactivity and agency of the player-character in videogames is often a moot question in Games Studies discourses (Atkins 2002 , Juul 2004, Salen and Zimmerman 2001). The assumption is that whether illusory or real, agency is an important element that drives the plot of digital games. To assume this, however, is to argue from a position of privilege and some videogames use their in-game mechanics to emphasise this. The assumption of a selfhood by the player while playing a digital game is the precondition to the experience of agency. Such a precondition is hardcoded into the gameplay on the basis of a default notion of empowerment and entitlement. What happens, however, in the case of the character that does not provide this sense of agency or for the game wherein such an experience of selfhood may not be possible? Using a well-worn but very relevant term from Postcolonial discourses, one could ask what happens where the game is about the Subaltern. Considering videogame studies from non-Western and South-South perspectives, such a default assumption of selfhood or agency may be challenged. Elsewhere (Mukherjee 2017), I have cited examples from the Cameroon, Indonesia and India that begin to address this challenge. Here, I wish to take two games from India as my texts for close-reading (or close-play) and show how a different poetics operates; indeed, my primary objective is to enquire into how the videogame as a narrative medium, which is by default apparently premised on agency, functions for the subaltern.

First Person Encounters is a series of podcasts presented by Games Studies India, about our first experiences with Games while growing up in India. This our third podcast where we interview Xenia Zeiler, an associate professor of South Asian studies at the University of Helsinki, Finland. Her research is situated at the intersection of digital media, religion, and culture, with a focus on India and the worldwide Indian community.

Hitman 2’s Mumbai mission, just like the film Extraction, looks at the oriental space in a similar ‘diseased’ yellow filter which is akin to the Mexico of Breaking Bad. Here, we have the perfect orientalist reduction of a culture. By digitising Mumbai and creating it into a gamic world, it produces a rather lazily translated and racialised appropriation of this particular South Asian space. The essential orientalist gaze thus reinforces the binary between the ‘I’ and the ‘other’: where the ‘I’ is the foreign Agent 47 and the ‘other’ are the yellow dwellers of Mumbai. The NPCs react to Agent 47 in awe as if a white man is a miracle of nature which they have never seen before. Not only that, but they also interact with themselves in a very essentialist way. The tea shops/kiosks are literally written as 'Chaye Dukan' (which is a direct translation for 'Tea Shop'). Not only does this point at a lack of research but also a lazy design. No matter how inferior a place is, no one names their establishment in a direct translation to their colonial/capitalist overlords. It becomes nothing but a city ‘lost in translation’. In this paper, I will read the Mumbai mission of Hitman 2 as a cultural artefact where the game scape becomes a techno-orientalist commodity. Like any other Literary text which fetishizes the ‘other’, Hitman 2 also becomes such a ‘digital/ludic’ text which manages to define the ‘Indian’ in its own myopic way. The discourse propagated thus reinforces the idea of ‘India’ or the ‘Orient’ as the literal plaything of the West. Thus, I will expand by elaborating on how the creators become a part of the greater orientalized theatricality by indulging in a form of ‘identity tourism’ (Nakamura ’96), where the autonomy of creating a cultural space takes the form of an essentialist fetish. About Samya : Samya Brata Roy (He/Him) is currently in the final semester of his M.A in English Literature from The English and Foreign Languages University in Hyderabad. Mainly his interests lie in and around the modalities of Digital Narratives, which he also tries to create at thepenarchist (wordpress.com). He is associated as a SIG facilitator with DHARTI (dhdharti.in), as a transcriber with The Canterbury Tales Project and as database contributor with Electronic Literature Knowledge Base | ELMCIP. He works in the field of Disability Studies by assisting in research. He is also passionate about teaching and inclusion and pursued it by teaching slum kids.

Unreal City: Expressions of Tokyo in Video Games Abstract: Games today, with advancements in graphic design and capability of the platforms on which they can be played, are almost akin to interactive films- in which the player not only consumes the movie-like storyline, but becomes an active participant in the narrative and its outcomes. Worldbuilding in video games has strong connections with the approaches contained in semiotics, as it is not with the images on the screen that players interact, but rather the world that is represented by the images. I intend to examine Tokyo as a virtually constructed game world in three separate texts – Atlus Studios’ Persona 5, Sega’s Yakuza series and Square Enix’s The World Ends with You. The fictionally created cityscapes of contemporary Japan have become ideal spaces for the video games to propagate, their construction in the texts can be seen a form of techno-orientalism that is simultaneously rooted in both Eastern and Western imagination. Each of these texts constructs its own version of Tokyo that, while being recognisable through the use of specific semiotic markers, is also sufficiently different enough to make it a virtual, unreal, space. However, what must be noted is that this space only exists in its entirety when it is interacted upon by the player. Using Lefebvre’s conceptualisation of social space into spatial practice, representations of space and representational space, this paper seeks to look at how the construction of the digital city is not merely a 3D representation thereof, but points where interactivity and narrative coincide. It is through the locus of these two elements that the player comprehends and navigates game narratives. My purpose will therefore be to look at the constructions of Tokyo within video games as data visualisations of spaces that become places through interactivity and comprehension of the player. About Laxmi: Lakshmi Menon is Assistant Professor of English at VTM NSS College, Trivandrum, and a PhD candidate at the Centre for English Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, where her thesis is a study of Harry Potter slash fanfiction and fan communities. She is currently researching Boys Love fan cultures in South Asia, while her wider research interests also include digital humanities, popular culture and queer literature.

Counter-Hegemonic Representations of Japanese Cultural Icons in Sekiro Abstract: Through fictional or non-fictional narratives, media representations of the past communicate specific interpretations, which lets users negotiate the past's prospective meanings. Additionally, these cultural constructions of the past are produced and disseminated in the present. Hence, the existing hegemonic power relations influence the depiction and recognition of cultural communities in the construction of the past. Therefore, the approach to framing cultures in pop-culture representations becomes a preponderating factor in how people perceive such cultures and periods. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, at first glance, can be considered as a game that follows the same vein of exploiting the western craze for the ninja archetype, as seen in its predecessors like the Onimusha and Tenchu series. However, it takes a bold stance against the persisting ‘self-Orientalist’ framework by reclaiming the ninja myth from marketized exoticization. Borrowing from Said’s theory of Orientalism, I would first like to analyze the existing self-Orientalism in depicting and marketing Japanese cultural icons. I would then like to highlight how this game is not an exoticized cultural artefact and further discuss the implications of such a portrayal in the contexts of representation and authenticity. I conclude that by undercutting innate stereotypes and using inherently Japanese characters, the game reappropriates the agency to depict Japanese cultural icons, from a non-Oriental, non-exoticized viewpoint. Thus, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice becomes a stand-out in the video game industry in this respect. Bio: Geoffrey Fernandez is a PhD candidate at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Birla Institute of Technology and Science Pilani, Pilani campus. His doctoral research examines the use of culture, mythology, and folklore in video games.

Recent research has started focusing on the representation of history in videogames. Such representation is almost always of mainstream history and usually presented from a Western perspective. Set in a fictitious Himalayan kingdom in South Asia, Ubisoft’s Far Cry 4 is arguably a crucial example of how history is represented using Western and even colonial frameworks and where the narratives that do not emerge from conventional written history are almost always rendered invisible. Using the frameworks of Subaltern Studies and “border-thinking,” this essay attempts to unpack issues of Orientalism and “colonial difference”; it then engages with postcolonial digital humanities and postcolonial game studies to comment on how history is represented in videogames and how the neglected gaps and silences in the game are important in constructing the historiography in videogames. In the process, the essay engages in a debate with current notions of videogame-historiography.

Independent Videogames investigates the social and cultural implications of contemporary forms of independent video game development. Through a series of case studies and theoretical investigations, it evaluates the significance of such a multi-faceted phenomenon within video game and digital cultures. A diverse team of scholars highlight the specificities of independence within the industry and the culture of digital gaming through case studies and theoretical questions. The chapters focus on labor, gender, distribution models and technologies of production to map the current state of research on independent game development. The authors also identify how the boundaries of independence are becoming opaque in the contemporary game industry – often at the cost of the claims of autonomy, freedom and emancipation that underlie the indie scene. The book ultimately imagines new and better narratives for a less exploitative and more inclusive videogame industry. Systematically mapping the current directions of a phenomenon that is becoming increasingly difficult to define and limit, this book will be a crucial resource for scholars and students of game studies, media history, media industries and independent gaming.

This chapter analyzes the reflections of Turkey’s neoconservative and neoliberal politics of gender on daytime television. The focus is on Bridal House, a popular daytime TV show in Turkey which interpellates women as domestic subjects competing with other women to prove their domestic abilities, particularly the ability to navigate the etiquette of domestic consumption. Hierarchies are instigated among women through symbolic battles on “tasteful” consumption, and the marital household surfaces as a space of constant regulation where women strive to be ideal housewives. By analyzing Bridal House through a Bourdieusian framework, this chapter traces the representations of the “ideal female subject” along neoconservative and neoliberal lines, and demonstrates the ways in which symbolic violences are enacted on women in contemporary Turkey’s daytime TV culture.

This book examines the phenomenon of prime time soap operas on Indian television. An anthropological insight into social issues and practices of contemporary India through the television, this volume analyzes the production of soaps within India’s cultural fabric. It deconstructs themes and issues surrounding the "everyday" and the "middle class" through the fiction of the "popular". In its second edition, this still remains the only book to examine prime time soap operas on Indian television. Without in any way changing the central arguments of the first edition, it adds an essential introductory chapter tracking the tectonic shifts in the Indian "mediascape" over the past decade – including how the explosion of regional language channels and an era of multiple screens have changed soap viewing forever. Meticulously researched and persuasively argued, the book traces how prime time soaps in India still grab the maximum eyeballs and remain the biggest earners for TV channels. The book will be of interest to students of anthropology and sociology, media and cultural studies, visual culture studies, gender and family studies, and also Asian studies in general. It is also an important resource for media producers, both in content production and television channels, as well as for the general reader.

The marriage show was a popular reality show format that invited people to find their soulmate and marry on live television in Turkey. Based on ethnographic fieldwork which took place in the show’s studio between 2011 and 2012, this chapter explores female participants’ investment of their trust in the show. While being reluctant about finding a spouse on television, women take on registers of safety, familiarity, and secrecy to navigate the show as a safe venue. This endeavor also involved women’s safeguarding of themselves on their way to marriage. The fragility of trust in the show, therefore, indicates how women foresee risks and yet strive for securing happiness and safety in marriage in general. This affective tension, at a larger scale, is related to the increased sense of insecurity at a global scale, and the systematic failure of the family to provide the safe living environment it promises in the Turkish context.

This chapter explores the social and cultural factors that have contributed to the success of Turkish programs in the Arab world. Following the cancelation of Turkish serials on the Arab world’s largest networks in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, this chapter will explore how dedicated Arab fans are continuing to watch Turkish shows via alternative platforms after having seen them become such a large part of their daily lives and a permanent fixture on their screens in recent years. By using the Gulf State of Qatar as a departure point, it will examine why Turkish content resonates so closely with female Arab audiences, while also determining their viewing motivations and how Turkish serials have managed to fill a void among its viewers that Arab media has failed to satisfy. At the same time, this chapter will discuss why Turkish dramas have been widely perceived as a women’s genre despite being prime-time serials in Turkey.

Police procedural has been historically perceived as a dominantly masculine genre for continually revolving around the investigations of male police officers. In accordance with the patriarchal norms that pervade Turkish society, local variations of the police procedural genre have conveniently appropriated this globally known convention and left little room for female detectives in their narratives. However, whenever they got a chance to be included in this male-dominated universe, female detectives have been frequently depicted as relatively independent women but also submitted to the traditional norms of womanhood in an ambivalent manner. This chapter examines this hesitant position of female police detectives in three contemporary Turkish police procedurals, Kanıt (The Evidence, 2010–2013), Cinayet (The Killing, 2014) and Sṃahsiyet (Personality, 2018), by building connections between the interest of police procedural genre in feminist debates in the global context and the influence of this interest on local variations.

This chapter unpacks the tension between secular, modern values and conservative, Islamic interpretations within the Indonesian middle class by taking the consumption of Turkish popular cultural products as a case. The chapter explicates the social responses towards the first Turkish television drama aired on terrestrial, private television in Indonesia: The Magnificent Century (Muhtesṃem Yüzyıl/Abad Kejayaan). This chapter understands the reproduction of secular and conservative Islamic values, while in contestation, as a response to broader global, market-capitalist developments. It finds that in response to audience criticism regarding the “un-Islamic” portrayal of the epoch in the drama—specifically the depiction of women as concubines—television stations enlisted the services of Muslim clerics to correct or justify the representation of historical facts. This reveals that market-driven self-censorship has opened up ways for Muslim clerics to influence television content. As such, the chapter argues that market-capitalist forces discursively use Islamic authority as a way to legitimise the halal consumption of Turkish drama among Indonesian Muslim audience at the expense of programme diversity.

This book examines the process of transnationalization of Latin American television industries. Drawing upon six representative case studies spanning the subcontinent’s vast and diverse geo-political and cultural landscape, the book offers a unique exploration of the ongoing formation of interrelated cultural, technological, and political landscapes, from the mid-1980s to the present. The chapters analyse the international circulation of the genres and formats of entertainment television across the subcontinent to explore the main driving forces propelling the production and consumption of television contents in the region, and what we can learn about the cultural and social identities of Latin American audiences following the journey of genres, formats, and media personalities beyond their own national borders. Taking a contemporary interdisciplinary approach to the study of transnational television industries, this book will be of significant interest to scholars and students of television and film studies, communication studies, Latin American studies, global media studies, and media and cultural industries.

This chapter examines the intersection of popular culture and populism in Turkey by focusing on the TV show Payitaht Abdulhamid. Our motivation to analyze the recent TV series Payitaht Abdulhamid stems from our interest in the instrumental mobilization of popular culture for the Turkish government’s dual desire to both establish cultural hegemony and consolidate its populist style of government. Our analysis reveals that television, especially in the Global South, still plays a central role in governments’ desire to reconstruct history and establish cultural hegemony. This is particularly important as Turkey is going through a crisis of hegemony since the public is completely divided in its support for the government. Within the context of this hegemonic crisis, televised popular culture is vital, perhaps more than ever. Specifically, the show reduces a complicated history into easily understandable dichotomies and projects them on to contemporary politics in order to consolidate support for the government. Through televised popular culture, the government mobilizes history for purposes of cultural hegemony and populist politics flavored with nationalist, Islamist, and anti-Western motifs. Ultimately, the TV show presents yet another moment for understanding the mediated nature of 21st-century politics outside Western contexts.

Questions of nation and identity not only concern multiple aspects of video games, their production, and their consumption, but also require further and manifold discussion from different perspectives. In an effort to bring together voices from different fields that engage with video games and gaming practices from various perspectives, this virtual round table discussion attempts to open up the conversation beyond the realms of academia. Kathrin Trattner and Lisa Kienzl talked to Megan Condis, Marijam Didzgalvyt , Georg Hobmeier and Souvik Mukherjee about how concepts such as nation(alism) and identity impact video game representations, the gaming industry, and online gaming cultures in numerous ways.

This article offers a critical analysis of Matthew Baren’s 2018 film Extravaganza, a documentary about drag scenes in Shanghai. By focusing on some drag performers represented in this film, in tandem with an examination of the social and industry contexts of the film, as well as my interviews with the filmmaker and performers, I problematise the gender identity of the performers and the national identity of the film. Drawing on Deleuze and Guattari’s notion of ‘becoming’ and Song Hwee Lim’s discussion of ‘trans’, I propose to think about certain modes of transnational production with the critical concept of ‘becoming trans’. ‘Becoming trans’ offers a productive way of conceptualising new modes of ‘minor’ transnational cinematic connections in a globalised world without having to resort to identity politics.

From #Gamergate to the daily experiences of marginalization among gamers, gaming is entangled with mainstream cultures of systematic exploitation and oppression. Whether visible in the persistent color line that shapes the production, dissemination, and legitimization of dominant stereotypes within the industry itself, or in the dehumanizing representations often found within game spaces, many video games perpetuate injustice and mirror the inequities and violence that permeate society as a whole. Drawing from the latest research and from popular games such as World of warcraft and Tomb raider, Woke gaming examines resistance to spaces of violence, discrimination, and microaggressions in gaming culture. The contributors of these essays identify strategies to detox gaming culture and orient players toward progressive ends, illustrating the power and potential of video games to become catalysts for social justice

Resident Evil 5is a zombie game made by Capcom, featuring a White Americanprotagonist and set in Africa. This article argues that approaching this as a Japanesegame reveals aspects of a Japanese racial and colonial social imaginary that are missedif this context of production is ignored. In terms of race, the game presents hybridracial subjectivities that can be related to Japanese perspectives of Blackness andWhiteness, where these terms are two poles of difference and identity throughwhich an essentialized Japanese identity is constructed in what Iwabuchi calls“strategic hybridism.” In terms of colonialism, the game echoes structures of Japa-nese colonialism through which Japanese colonialism is obliquely memorialized and a“normal” Japanese global subjectivity can be performed.