Votre recherche

An interview by Kathrin Trattner with Mira Wardhaningsih, Cultural Content Director from StoryTale Studios about the game Pamali

Virtual History examines many of the most popular historical video games released over the last decade and explores their portrayal of history. The book looks at the motives and perspectives of game designers and marketers, as well as the societal expectations addressed, through contingency and determinism, economics, the environment, culture, ethnicity, gender, and violence. Approaching videogames as a compelling art form that can simultaneously inform and mislead, the book considers the historical accuracy of videogames, while also exploring how they depict the underlying processes of history and highlighting their strengths as tools for understanding history. The first survey of the historical content and approach of popular videogames designed with students in mind, it argues that games can depict history and engage players with it in a useful way, encouraging the reader to consider the games they play from a different perspective. Supported by examples and screenshots that contextualize the discussion, Virtual History is a useful resource for students of media and world history as well as those focusing on the portrayal of history through the medium of videogames.

The treatment of colonialism in video games, barring a few notable exceptions, is marked by a Western and, specifically, late 19th-century imperialist bias. Simultaneously, in the past two decades of multifaceted research and the development of robust theoretical frameworks in the still fledgling discipline of game studies, postcolonial discourses, whether they comprise critiques of imperialism or neocolonialism, have not been prominently highlighted until very recently. A coherent effort to bring together the current research on postcolonialism in video games was also urgently required. Further, the past years has seen a rather persistent, albeit unexpected, emergence of a pro-colonial or pro-imperialist discourse in mainstream academia that even justifies the continuance of empire as an ameliorating influence on the people of the so-called developing countries, most of which had formerly been colonized by European powers.Thus, it is the aim of this issue to address this epistemic omission and counter such bias where it exists by also bridging video games research with larger discussions of postcolonialism in other humanities contexts and disciplines. The various articles in this special issue offer a range of perspectives from epistemological power to theory and praxis in critical academia, to contexts of production and practices of play, to close readings of postcolonial traces in video games. These varying approaches to the analysis of video games and their societal and historical contexts open up the debates further to a diverse set of topics ranging from board games to phone games or from mainstream high-budget console games to indie titles that question colonialism. As video games address issues relating to orientalism, subalternity, and hybridity as well as the current ambiguities in conceiving nationhood and the postcolony, the articles in this issue will also likely adumbrate further serious commentary that will develop both game studies research and current conceptions of the postcolonial.

Digital games can uniquely express Indigenous teachings by merging design, code, art, and sound. Inspired by Anishinaabe grandmothers leading ceremonial walks known as Nibi Walks, Honour Water (http://www.honourwater.com/) is a singing game that aims to bring awareness to threats to the waters and offer pathways to healing through song. The game was developed with game company Pinnguaq and welcomes people from all over to sing with good intentions for the waters. The hope is to pass on songs through gameplay that encourages comfort with singing and learning Anishinaabemowin. Songs were gifted by Sharon M. Day and the Oshkii Giizhik Singers. Sharon M. Day, who is Bois Forte Band of Ojibwe and one of the founders of the Indigenous Peoples Task Force, has been a leading voice using singing to revitalize the waters. The Oshkii Giizhik Singers, a community of Anishinaabekwe who gather at Fond du Lac reservation, contribute to the healing for singers, communities, and the waters. Water teachings are infused in art and writing by Anishinaabe and Métis game designer, artist, and writer Elizabeth LaPensée. From development to distribution, Honour Water draws on Indigenous ways of knowing to reinforce Anishinaabeg teachings with hope for healing the water.

The genre of history strategy games is a crucial area of study because of what is at stake in the representation of controversial aspects of history in popular culture. Previous work has pointed to various affordances and constraints in the representation of history, based on the framing of the game interface, the alignment of goals with certain strategies and textual criticism of the contents of the games. In contrast, this article examines these games from the perspective of the player’s experience of play in relation to a wider gaming community. It is in these counterfactual communities that players negotiate their individual experience with their knowledge of the history that is presented in the games that they play, indicating that the relationship between digital games, players and history is highly contextual. The relevant practices of players of history strategy games are illustrated with examples from the official and unofficial communities of the Paradox Interactive games Europa Universalis II and Victoria: Empire Under the Sun. The shared paratexts demonstrate how positions are negotiated in relation to the ‘official’ version of history presented in the games. These negotiations are made tangible through the production and sharing of paratexts that remix the official history of the games to include other perspectives developed through counterfactual imaginations. These findings indicate the importance of including perspectives from gaming communities to support other forms of analysis in order to make rigorous observations about the impact of digital games on popular history.

In the past ten years, two seemingly unconnected fields of study have risen to prominence. Patrick Wolfe’s 2006 theorization of settler colonialism called for the development of a distinct set of literature and analytical tools to analyze the relationship between indigenous peoples and occupying settlers. Meanwhile, Ian Bogost’s 2007 elaboration of the notion of procedural rhetoric provided a theoretical framework to approach the critical analysis of the ideology modeled by a game’s rules and design. While each of these theories have proliferated and prospered within their disciplines, this article seeks to bring the two fields together in order to establish a critical framework that can be used to highlight the presence of settler colonialism in popular mobile videogames, in particular Supercell’s 2012 mobile game Clash of Clans. Within this framework, the essay analyzes how the game engages in a system of play driven by its focus on improvement, progression, and expansion, which ends up operating under the same principles settler colonialism has used to justify the expansion of settler-states and the eradication of indigenous populations. Through an examination of the game’s economy, enemies, maps, and music, the essay connects the game’s systems of play to the embedded nature of settler colonialism in the videogame industry—particularly the mobile or casual scene—and contemporary life in settler-states. The ultimate goal is to explain how social meaning is derived from these types of games and what that means for both players and creators in terms of developing new, progressive opportunities for play.

This article considers larger methodological questions of what political work is undertaken when scholars engage in postcolonial critiques of video games within academic intellectual frameworks. What is postcolonial game studies, and what is its purpose, within the context of larger issues of inclusion, representation, diversity, and the challenging of hegemonic power structures? After surveying some of the key literature in postcolonial game studies, the author provides critical frameworks for understanding the means by which these approaches have largely been excluded from video game studies, and their crucial function in operating against the grain of profit and innovation-driven discourses in games. This work is the extension of a larger discussion of inclusion, diversity, and tolerance discourse within the liberal academy, and particularly the functions of postcolonial, postmodern and other critical cultural scholarly interventions. In this article, the author argues for a postcolonial approach to game studies, but one that refuses to be reduced to an institutional cultural labor of due diligence, or according to Slavoj Žižek’s term, a ‘culturalization of politics’. Through the work of Stuart Hall and Sara Ahmed on intellectual diversity work within the context of large systems and academic institutions, this article asserts that the perception that critical theorizations (like postcolonial game studies) exert pressure on efficiency and innovation is greatly outweighed by the rich toolkits they bring to video games as maturing cultural forms.

As a media form entwined in the U.S. military-industrial complex, video games continue to celebrate imperialist imagery and Western-centric narratives of the great white explorer (Breger, 2008; Dyer-Witheford & de Peuter, 2009; Geyser & Tshalabala, 2011; Mukherjee, 2016). While much ink has been spilt on the detrimental effects of colonial imagery on those it objectifies and dehumanises, the question is why these games still get made, and what mechanisms are at work in the enjoyment of empire-themed play experiences. To explore this question, this article develops the concept of ‘casual empire’, suggesting that the wish to play games as a casual pastime expedites the incidental circulation of imperialist ideology. Three examples – Resident Evil V (2009), The Conquest: Colonization (2015) and Playing History: Slave Trade (2013) – are used to demonstrate the production and consumption of casual empire across multiple platforms, genres and player bases. Following a brief contextualisation of postcolonial (game) studies, this article addresses casual design, by which I understand game designers’ casual reproduction of inferential racism (Hall, 1995) for the sake of entertainment. I then look at casual play, and players’ attitudes to games as rational commodities continuing a history of commodity racism (McClintock, 1995). Finally, the article investigates the casual involvement of formalist game studies in the construction of imperial values. These three dimensions of the casual – design, play and academia – make up the three pillars of the casual empire that must be challenged to undermine video games’ neocolonialist praxis.

This article is a reading of The Witcher 3 in relation to postcolonial approaches to Polish culture. It departs from an analysis of an online debate on racial representation in the game as a possible act of epistemic disobedience, and moves on to a consideration of three narrative aspects of the game itself: its representation of political struggle, the ideological stance of the protagonist, and ethnic inspirations in worldbuilding. By referring those three issues to postcolonial analyses of Polish culture, as well as Walter D. Mignolo’s concept of decolonization through epistemic disobedience, this article aims to demonstrate paradoxical qualities of the game, which tries to simultaneously distance itself from the established, West-oriented ways of knowledge production and gain recognition as an artifact of modern Western pop culture. Moreover, it employs the tradition of Polish Romanticism to establish itself as a bridge between Slavdom and Western culture, and strengthen the colonial idea of Poland being the proper ruler over Slavs.

Studies investigating the representation of Africans and other ethnicities are scarce in video game literature. Using a content analysis approach, this paper examines Africans’ representation in ten of the most popular games of 2014 in the United States based on industry market research reports. The findings show that Africans are underrepresented in video games explored in this study. The study also reveals that African characters in these games did not play leading roles in the storyline. Results are discussed as they pertain to Africans’ representation in video games, media effect, and media literature. This exploratory study broadens the discussion on representation in video games to other ethnicities and shows the need for studies on representation in contemporary video games that include understudied ethnicities.

Game Devs & Others: Tales from the Margins tell the true stories of life in the industry by people of color, LGBTQIA and other marginalized identities. This collection of essays give people a chance to tell their stories and to let others know what life on the other side of the screen is like when you’re not part of the supposed “majority”. Key Features This book is perfect for anyone interested in getting into the games industry who feels they have a marginalized identity For those who wish to better diversify their studio or workplace who may or may not have access to individuals that could or would share their stories about the industry Includes initiatives aimed at diversifying the industry that have a positive or negative impact on the ongoing discussions Coverage of ajor news items about diversity, conferences aimed at or having diversity at its core of content and mission are discussed Included essays are written with as little game dev specific jargon as possible, makeing it accessible to people outside the industry as well as those in the scene but that may not have all the insider lingo

Peut-on envisager une autre histoire du jeu vidéo ?

"Les bandes dessinées, chansons, films, jeux vidéos, musées, reconstitutions, romans, séries télévisées et voyages occupent de plus en plus de place dans la vie des élèves. Comment exploiter en classe ces biens, loisirs et services culturels d'histoire pour que les élèves posent de mieux en mieux certains actes mentaux que les historiennes et historiens doivent effectuer lorsqu'elles et ils adoptent leur pratique? Pour répondre à cette question, les auteures et auteurs de cet ouvrage explorent les usages scolaires possibles et souhaitables des produits qui ne sont pas associés à l'histoire savante et sur l'exploitation didactique de ce que la Loi québécoise sur les biens culturels désigne comme "?une oeuvre d'art, un bien historique, un monument ou un site historique ... une oeuvre cinématographique, audiovisuelle, photographique, radiophonique ou télévisuelle?". Les auteures et auteurs s'intéressent à des oeuvres qui ne sont pas créées pour l'école, mais qui peuvent néanmoins servir aux enseignantes et enseignants pour faire apprendre l'histoire aux élèves."--Résumé de l'éditeur.

Games face a crisis of diversity in both their content and in the industry itself. The inequalities that underlie these issues are heightened in the Global South. Addressing these issues will require a systemic decolonisation of games education in which future generations of industry professionals become critically engaged in their creative practice. Decolonisation requires the investigation and reconstruction of the ways knowledge is created and produced. To enable this, the curricula employed in teaching games requires close investigation and intervention. The difficulties of enabling access to knowledge when teaching games are exacerbated when seen in light of the need for decolonisation. Situated in a South African context, this article investigates the first-year core course ‘Key Concepts in Game Design’ offered at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. It outlines the challenges games education faces in South Africa and takes stock of the state of the course and of the perceptions of students enrolled in it. It demonstrates that the course curriculum requires increased Africanisation and the establishment of common play practices. Finally, it highlights the importance of focusing on the development of critical game literacies as part of the decolonising project.

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

Feminism in Play focuses on women as they are depicted in video games, as participants in games culture, and as contributors to the games industry. This volume showcases women's resistance to the norms of games culture, as well as women's play and creative practices both in and around the games industry. Contributors analyze the interconnections between games and the broader societal and structural issues impeding the successful inclusion of women in games and games culture. In offering this framework, this volume provides a platform to the silenced and marginalized, offering counter-narratives to the post-racial and post-gendered fantasies that so often obscure the violent context of production and consumption of games culture.

What counts as the field site when researching Nepali video game developers? Concentrating on the company Arcube Games and Animation, in the summer of 2017 I used the ethnoludographic method to research game development in the Kathmandu Valley. I recorded my findings in field notes, photographs, written documents and other material culture. My usual ethnographic method developed in two ways. First, I engaged in ludography, a humanistic qualitative method for interpreting gaming. Second, Nepal proved not to be an isolated location, but rather a vortex of global flows. I found that in the Kathmandu valley these flows are often focused on a fantasy of Shangri-La that poses Nepal as an underdeveloped traditional nation, full of picturesque poverty, and over-determined with religious culture, but blessed with beautiful Himalayan landscapes.

Introduction to the gamevironments Special Issue Video Game Development in Asia: Voices from the Field .

"Queerness in Play examines the many ways queerness of all kinds - from queer as 'LGBT' to other, less well-covered aspects of the queer spectrum - intersects with games and the social contexts of play. The current unprecedented visibility of queer creators and content comes at a high tide of resistance to the inclusion of those outside a long-imagined cisgender, heterosexual, white male norm. By critically engaging the ways games - as a culture, an industry, and a medium - help reproduce limiting binary formations of gender and sexuality, Queerness in Play contributes to the growing body of scholarship promoting more inclusive understandings of identity, sexuality, and games."--Provided by publisher.