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In the last decades, digital games have moved from niche to mainstream. As more people play, talk about, and engage with these artifacts, they have become an important part of contemporary cultures, giving rise to game literacy—the set of skills needed to meaningfully engage with video games. While the potentials of game literacy have, to some extent, been already discussed in the literature, we have not adequately discussed the need for a game literacy that problematizes the sociocultural dimensions of gaming, including the hegemonic, exclusionary rationales implicitly disseminated through mainstream gaming. In this chapter, I outline a decolonial model for game literacy, remarking how the reflection about the gaming circuits of production and dissemination should be part of any initiative that aims at dealing with critical and creative competences towards gaming, and how these are crucial for any citizen in contemporary societies.

In this paper, I intend to explore the role played by reflexivity in grounding a more critical perspective when designing, implementing and analysing participatory digital media research. To carry out this methodological reflection, I will present and discuss a recently concluded research project on young people’s game-making in an after-school programme targeting Latin American migrants in London/UK. I will pay special attention to how my subjectivities influenced planning, data generation and analysis of this programme, and to how context, lived experiences, curricular decisions and interpersonal relationships shaped the kinds of knowledge produced through this research. Findings emerging from this experience included relevant dissonances between curricular design/decisions and the use of participatory approaches in game-making, and the limitations of traditional analytical categories within the Social Sciences field (e.g., gender and intersectionality) to understanding subjectivities expressed through game-making. This study offers relevant insights into the place of reflexivity in research on digital media production by young people by highlighting its complexity and by calling for more critical and less homogenising approaches to this type of research.

This article investigates the relationship between young people’s game-making practices and meaning-making in videogames. By exploring two different games produced in a game-making club in London through a multimodal sociosemiotic approach, the author discusses how semiotic resources and modes were recruited by participants to realize different discourses. By employing concepts such as modality truth claims and grammar, he examines how these games help us reflect on the links between intertextuality, hegemonic gaming forms and sign-making through digital games. He also outlines how a broader approach to what has been recently defined as the ‘procedural’ mode by Hawreliak in Multimodal Semiotics and Rhetoric in Videogames (2018) can be relevant for promoting different and more democratic forms of meaning-making through videogames.

The present paper discusses questions related to the histories of videogames, more specifically in how we approach videogames in Global South. By using Zeebo, a Brazilian console produced in the late 2000s as an epistemic tool, I discuss the limitations of universalist, mainstream-centric epistemological models for exploring videogames as cultural phenomena. By investigating Zeebo’s discourses about piracy and players in the Global South, I argue that this platform can be seen as a partial decolonial project, destabilising conventional historical narratives about South-North relationships in videogames, but refraining from challenging a mainstream, Global North oriented epistemology. This exploratory work, therefore, elaborates on how a decolonial project of history of videogames, one that is more epistemically just to Global South, could be sought.

This paper explores a game-making programme for 14 Latin American migrants aged 13-18 in London/UK, carried out between October/2017-January/2018, where I investigated the relationships between game conventions, platforms and personal preferences in the curation of fluid identities through game production. Participants presented varying levels of affinity with games linked both to access issues and to other specific elements (e.g. perception of games in contemporary culture, gender). Questionnaires, observations, unstructured/semistructured interviews and gaming archives were employed to explore this participatory initiative and data was analysed through Multimodal Sociosemiotics. Findings remarked how shared understandings about digital games can find their way into platforms and act as “cultural-technical gatekeepers”, supporting or hindering the engagement with game-making of those often perceived as outsiders to gaming culture. This gatekeeping happens when there are “creative dissonances” between, for example, personal preferences and platforms aligned to normative/mainstream genres. These dissonances, however, can end up fostering subversive designs, contravening gaming conventions and potentially challenging traditional gaming boundaries. This insight is relevant for understanding “cultural-technical constraints” and subversive/non-mainstream game-making, especially in relation to innovation and appropriation of game-making resources/strategies by non-mainstream groups.

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.

En 2007, le monde du jeu vidéo est secoué par une violente polémique au sujet du jeu vidéo Resident Evil 5. Ce dernier est accusé de faire commerce du racisme, en invitant à se glisser dans la peau d'un américain blanc body-buildé, missionné dans une région africaine anonyme, et tuant des dizaines d'hommes et de femmes noires présentées comme de dangereux zombies infectés du virus T. Depuis, la communauté des joueurs et joueuses de jeux vidéo interpelle régulièrement les créateurs et créatrices des jeux sur les questions du racisme et du sexisme.Dans son ouvrage, Mehdi Derfoufi analyse les rapports de force qui structurent l'industrie du jeu vidéo, dévoilant comment le racisme se niche parfois insidieusement au cœur de scénarios de jeux vidéo à succès. Il nous invite à nous questionner. Quels sont les pays qui pèsent sur les milliards d'euros du marché mondial du jeu vidéo ? Qui sont les game designers et auteurs des jeux ? Comment les représentations racistes sont-elles véhiculées à travers les personnageset les imaginaires vidéoludiques ? L'auteur nous dévoile avec brio les logiques racialisantes à l’œuvre au sein d’un marché économique très concurrentiel où des stéréotypes exotisants servent régulièrement à faire vendre un jeu. Il nous montre aussi comment la division internationale du travail et la hiérarchie économico-politique Nord/Sud pèse sur le marché du jeu vidéo et ralentit l’émergence de nouvelles représentations. Pourtant, de nombreux espoirs, notamment dans les pays du Sud participent au renouvellement de la culture geek : face aux violences racistes, la riposte s’organise.

Repairing Play: Toward A Black Phenomenology of Play In this talk I offer the term "repairing play" or play that both repairs the damages wrought by colonialism, and is itself a form of reparations, in an effort to consider how we might advance an understanding of play that is inclusive of BIPOC people. I focus in on the Black American experience in order to better theorize a moment of repair, and consider how torture is memorialized in play through song. I also will draw on examples from Black artists and game designers in order to help show how their work in repairing play draws from the tradition of Black radical aesthetics. Bio: Aaron Trammell is an Assistant Professor of Informatics and Core Faculty in Visual Studies at UC Irvine. He writes about how BIPOC experience the games they play. Specifically, he is interested in how games and play further values of white privilege and hegemonic masculinity in geek culture. Aaron's work has been cited in Wired and featured on National Public Radio. It has been published in Game Studies, Games & Culture, New Media & Society, and G|A|M|E. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the journal Analog Game Studies and the Multimedia editor of the Sounding Out!

Remember localization! Game localization from an indie development perspective Abstract: The game industry is today a global industry, where digital storefronts are used to distribute the digital product you are developing. This presents a number of challenges for a small scale game developer and localization is one. The talk will focus on game localization from an indie game development perspective. The research is based on data from field studies in Sweden, China and India and is a part of a PhD project conducted at the Division of Game Development at the University of Skövde, Sweden. Bio: Marcus Toftedahl is a game researcher, developer and lecturer at the University of Skövde, Sweden. His main competences lies within game production, game localization and game design, from a practical and research perspective. Marcus has worked at the University of Skövde since 2009 and has since then co-developed the world's first full concentration game writing education at university level and is teaching game design and game production.

2019 marked ten years since the publication of Nick Dyer-Witheford and Greig de Peuter’s Games of Empire, which has become a seminal book in videogame cultural criticism. Ten years later, there is still a pressing need for cultural and materialist criticism of the politics of production within game studies. In putting together this special issue, our hope is to identify new developments in the game industry and academia that are emblematic of 21st-century capitalism. Just as Games of Empire popularised critical political-economic perspectives ten years ago, we encourage others, as the authors in this issue did, to continue and maintain investigations into questions of ownership, privatized property, coercive class relations, military operations and radical struggle. Such analyses are necessary not only to trace but also to open up new directions in game culture and academia for decades to come.

Video games can be dynamic sovereign spaces for Indigenous representation and expression when the self-determination of Indigenous people is supported. Where ga...

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 thesis explores the many ways indigenous religion is articulated, performed and translated in the video game Never Alone - Kisima Inŋitchuŋa (2014). The video game was among the first of its kind – being made in a close collaboration with an indigenous group, and published by the first indigenous owned video game company in the U.S.A. At launch, Never Alone gathered attention from traditional media in both North America and in Europe, and the game reached a global audience. Never Alone tells a story based on Inupiat storytelling, and Cultural Ambassadors gives the player an insight into Inupiat culture and tradition. Never Alone balances on the edge between the conventions of the video game medium and its genres, and of indigenous tradition and religion. This thesis examines how vocabularies that can be related to ‘indigenous religion’ are used and translated in Never Alone, and how these vocabularies relate to a globalizing discourse on indigenous religion. This thesis also explores how the medium of video games facilitates new ways of reclaiming traditions and articulating indigenous religion.

This article paves way for a materialist analysis of the games industry as 21st century imperialism that is economically and culturally structured to cultivate anti-democratic norms that lead to fascist movements against those who question or seek to change the status quo. While much research has studied the politics of reactionary movements in gaming cultures, few have paid attention to the relation between the games industry as part of an imperialist economic system, the chauvinistic ideals symptomized in their cultural products, and the reactionist consumer audiences they attract and cultivate. As I argue, the economic structure of the industry as 21st century imperialism leads to perpetual anti-democratic crises that are maintained by reactionary forces that cultivate, attract, and form fascist grassroots organization. To conceptualize this dynamic, I invoke the labor aristocracy theory as suggested by Friedrich Engels and V.I. Lenin. This theory helps highlight the material basis from which consumers of digital games are bribed to become ideologically aligned with the chauvinism that the imperialist nature of the games industry is justified by. I also invoke W.E.B. Du Bois’ concept of a public and psychological wage to highlight the chauvinistic tendencies that the games industry cultivates via their products and marketing, in which the lack of democratic and equitable representation provides the reactionary consumers a sense of superiority. Together, these approaches account for the economic and cultural bases of both the games industry and its reactionary consumers. By anchoring my analysis in critical theories on imperialism and race, the article identifies the root causes of organized harassment and chauvinism in game cultures, as well as how the industry as 21st century imperialism benefits from and is protected by these forces of reaction.

This contribution interrogates the figure of the perpetrator as it emerges in narrative videogames. First, we provide a brief outlook on some key characteristics of videogames, before we discuss how the specific affordances of this “new” medium offer unprecedented ways of approaching and dealing with perpetrators and perpetration. Finally, we offer concrete examples from three games to illustrate different possible configurations of the playerperpetrator nexus—Yager Development’s Spec Ops: The Line (2012), 11 Bit Studio’s This War of Mine (2015), and Hangar 13’s Mafia III (2016). In contrast to other media, games enable an active exploration of, and participation in, a variety of possible offenses. Rather than merely witnessing evil deeds, players are immersed in simulated environments that demand constant evaluations of complex settings and require decision-making under systemic limitations. This performative aspect of play makes games a unique medium for learning and teaching about the intricate logics and innate dynamics of perpetrations.

"The Routledge International Handbook of Perpetrator Studies provides the first comprehensive overview of this emerging interdisciplinary field in the humanities and social sciences. Featuring contributions by scholars from a wide variety of fields and disciplines, the Handbook charts the growth and development, foundations, key debates, core concerns, and frontiers of Perpetrator Studies. Focusing on genocide, terrorism, and other forms of political mass violence, this Handbook addresses questions of guilt and responsibility, definition, terminology, typology, motivations, group dynamics, memory, trauma, representation, and pedagogy. Offering a thematic and conceptual approach that facilitates a comparative analysis across historical, geographic, and disciplinary lines, the Handbook allows different disciplinary perspectives to confront one another. In so doing, this foundational volume presents contemporary perspectives on longstanding debates whilst also providing new contributions to the field. Written with an interdisciplinary readership in mind, the chapters provide an overview of existing work on a specific topic or issue, delineate current developments within the respective discipline or field, and make suggestions for further research. As such, the book will appeal to scholars across a range of disciplines, including history, sociology, anthropology, criminology, law, philosophy, memory studies, psychology, political science, literary studies, film studies, cultural studies, art history, and education"-- Provided by publisher.

This essay considers how the experience of Black folk descended from slaves in North America helps us to rethink a definition of play that has been largely informed by scholars and philosophers working within a White European tradition. This tradition of play, theorized most famously by Dutch Art Historian Johan Huizinga, French Sociologist Roger Caillois, Swiss Psychologist Jean Piaget, and New Zealander Brian Sutton-Smith reads play in a mostly positive sense and asserts that certain practices, namely torture, are taboo and thus cannot be play. I argue that this approach to play is short-sighted and linked to a troubling global discourse that renders the experiences of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) invisible. In other words, by defining play only through its pleasurable connotations, the term holds an epistemic bias towards people with access to the conditions of leisure. Indeed, torture helps to paint a more complete picture where the most heinous potentials of play are addressed alongside the most pleasant, yet in so doing the trauma of slavery is remembered. In rethinking this phenomenology, I aim to detail the more insidious ways that play functions as a tool of subjugation. One that hurts as much as it heals and one that has been complicit in the systemic erasure of BIPOC people from the domain of leisure.

Aucune étude n’a jamais démontré que les formes médiatiques disposeraient d’un pouvoir direct de transformation des réalités sociales. Une approche critique un peu sérieuse préférera ainsi appréhender le jeu vidéo comme le site d’un ensemble de rapports de pouvoir opérant au sein de la culture dominante, traversé, à l’instar d’autres formes culturelles, par des contradictions, des résistances et des réappropriations – autrement dit par des circulations dans la production de sens, les formes et les affects, qui viennent renforcer, nuancer ou déstabiliser les normes de l’hégémonie culturelle. Depuis le début des années 2010 et en particulier la polémique du #GamerGate en 2014, la communauté vidéoludique ne peut plus ignorer le sexisme. Les féministes n’ont pourtant pas attendu si longtemps pour se manifester. Mais c’est peut-être l’année 2012 qui marqua un réel tournant, lorsque Anita Sarkeesian lança une campagne de crowdfunding pour une série de vidéos sur sa chaîne YouTube feministfrequency. Sa démarche déclencha une vague de cyberharcèlement qui alla des insultes aux menaces de mort et jusqu’à la publication de données personnelles. Ce modèle de violence sexiste s’est reproduit à de multiples reprises, notamment en France en 2013 à l’encontre de la créatrice de jeu et féministe Mar_Lard, attaquée pour sa critique argumentée du sexisme dans la culture geek. Elle revenait en particulier sur des propos plus que complaisants d’un journaliste à propos d’une séquence où le personnage de Lara Croft, héroïne du mythique je…

This article presents the ways in which Japanese survival horror employs video games as a tool for cultural representation. First, it analyses the main differences between American and Japanese horror, and how the historical relationships of competition/collaboration between both have led to a constant exchange of cultural references present in their games. This relationship of domination/submission traces back to the post-war period in which the United States began exercising control over Japan. It is as a result of this period that Japanese terror begins to take shape and take its first steps towards the current J-Horror. Second, it analyses the work of game designer Keiichiro Toyama, namely Silent Hill and Siren, as a well-known example of the construction of a cultural identity halfway between the devotion to the Other and the respect for tradition. Finally, the article addresses other examples of Japanese survival horror to analyse more deeply which stance Japanese industry takes in this era of cultural globalization, or hyperculturality, which is seriously transforming our conception of culture in digital media.

Qualifié parfois de « dixième art », après que les jeux de rôles sur table (comme Donjons & Dragons) eurent commencé à céder du terrain dans les loisirs de la jeunesse à partir du mil…