Videogames And Postcolonialism

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Videogames and Postcolonialism

Author : Souvik Mukherjee
Publisher : Springer
Page : 120 pages
File Size : 42,6 Mb
Release : 2017-07-24
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9783319548227

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Videogames and Postcolonialism by Souvik Mukherjee Pdf

This book focuses on the almost entirely neglected treatment of empire and colonialism in videogames. From its inception in the nineties, Game Studies has kept away from these issues despite the early popularity of videogame franchises such as Civilization and Age of Empire. This book examines the complex ways in which some videogames construct conceptions of spatiality, political systems, ethics and society that are often deeply imbued with colonialism. Moving beyond questions pertaining to European and American gaming cultures, this book addresses issues that relate to a global audience – including, especially, the millions who play videogames in the formerly colonised countries, seeking to make a timely intervention by creating a larger awareness of global cultural issues in videogame research. Addressing a major gap in Game Studies research, this book will connect to discourses of post-colonial theory at large and thereby, provide another entry-point for this new medium of digital communication into larger Humanities discourses.

Video Games and the Global South

Author : Phillip Penix-Tadsen
Publisher : Lulu.com
Page : 302 pages
File Size : 48,8 Mb
Release : 2019-05-17
Category : Computers
ISBN : 9780359641390

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Video Games and the Global South by Phillip Penix-Tadsen Pdf

Video Games and the Global South redefines games and game culture from south to north, analyzing the cultural impact of video games, the growth of game development and the vitality of game cultures across Africa, the Middle East, Central and South America, the Indian subcontinent, Oceania and Asia.

Ancient Greece and Rome in Videogames

Author : Ross Clare
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 241 pages
File Size : 40,7 Mb
Release : 2021-06-03
Category : Games & Activities
ISBN : 9781350157217

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Ancient Greece and Rome in Videogames by Ross Clare Pdf

This volume presents an original framework for the study of video games that use visual materials and narrative conventions from ancient Greece and Rome. It focuses on the culturally rich continuum of ancient Greek and Roman games, treating them not just as representations, but as functional interactive products that require the player to interpret, communicate with and alter them. Tracking the movement of such concepts across different media, the study builds an interconnected picture of antiquity in video games within a wider transmedial environment. Ancient Greece and Rome in Videogames presents a wide array of games from several different genres, ranging from the blood-spilling violence of god-killing and gladiatorial combat to meticulous strategizing over virtual Roman Empires and often bizarre adventures in pseudo-ancient places. Readers encounter instances in which players become intimately engaged with the “epic mode” of spectacle in God of War, moments of negotiation with colonised lands in Rome: Total War and Imperium Romanum, and multi-layered narratives rich with ancient traditions in games such as Eleusis and Salammbo. The case study approach draws on close analysis of outstanding examples of the genre to uncover how both representation and gameplay function in such “ancient games”.

Heritage, Memory and Identity in Postcolonial Board Games

Author : Michal Mochocki
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
Page : 137 pages
File Size : 51,9 Mb
Release : 2023-08-04
Category : Games & Activities
ISBN : 9781000918076

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Heritage, Memory and Identity in Postcolonial Board Games by Michal Mochocki Pdf

Heritage, Memory and Identity in Postcolonial Board Games is a unique edited collection that explores the interplay of heritage, memory, identity and history within postcolonial board games and their surrounding paratexts. It also examines critiques of these games within the gamer communities and beyond. Drawing on a range of international contributions, examples and case studies, this book shows how colonialism-themed games work as representations of the past that are influenced by existing heritage narratives and discourses. It also considers the implications of using colonial histories in games and its impact on its audience, the games’ players. Heritage, Memory and Identity in Postcolonial Board Games will be relevant to scholars and postgraduate students in the fields of game studies, game design or development, heritage studies, postcolonial criticism, media studies, and history. It will also be beneficial to practicing game developers.

Playing the Middle Ages

Author : Robert Houghton
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 289 pages
File Size : 55,8 Mb
Release : 2023-08-24
Category : History
ISBN : 9781350242890

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Playing the Middle Ages by Robert Houghton Pdf

The Middle Ages have provided rich source material for physical and digital games from Dungeons and Dragons to Assassin's Creed. This volume addresses the many ways in which different formats and genre of games represent the period. It considers the restrictions placed on these representations by the mechanical and gameplay requirements of the medium and by audience expectations of these products and the period, highlighting innovative attempts to overcome these limitations through game design and play. Playing the Middle Ages considers a number of important and timely issues within the field including: one, the connection between medieval games and political nationalistic rhetoric; two, trends in the presentation of religion, warfare and other aspects of medieval society and their connection to modern culture; three, the problematic representations of race; and four, the place of gender and sexuality within these games and the broader gaming community. The book draws on the experience of a wide-ranging and international group of academics across disciplines and from games designers. Through this combination of expertise, it provides a unique perspective on the representation of the Middle Ages in modern games and drives key discussions in the fields of history and game design.

Videogames in the Indian Subcontinent

Author : Souvik Mukherjee
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 261 pages
File Size : 42,6 Mb
Release : 2022-09-30
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9789354359712

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Videogames in the Indian Subcontinent by Souvik Mukherjee Pdf

Videogames in the Indian Subcontinent: Development, Culture(s) and Representations explores the gaming culture of one of the most culturally diverse and populous regions of the world-the Indian subcontinent. Building on the author's earlier work on videogame culture in India, this book addresses issues of how discussions of equality and diversity sit within videogame studies, particularly in connection with the subcontinent, thereby presenting pioneering research on the videogame cultures of the region. Drawing on a series of player and developer interviews and surveys conducted over the last five years, including some recent ones, this book provides a sense of how games have become a part of the culture of the region despite its huge diversity and plurality and opens up avenues for further study through vignettes and snapshots of the diverse gaming culture. It addresses the rapid rise of videogames as an entertainment medium in South Asia and, as such, also tries to better understand the recent controversies connected to gaming in the region In the process, it aims to make a larger connection between the development of videogames and player culture, in the subcontinent and globally, thus opening up channels for collaboration between the industry and academic research, local and global.

Video Games and Spatiality in American Studies

Author : Dietmar Meinel
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Page : 301 pages
File Size : 40,8 Mb
Release : 2022-02-21
Category : History
ISBN : 9783110675184

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Video Games and Spatiality in American Studies by Dietmar Meinel Pdf

While video games have blossomed into the foremost expression of contemporary popular culture over the past decades, their critical study occupies a fringe position in American Studies. In its engagement with video games, this book contributes to their study but with a thematic focus on a particularly important subject matter in American Studies: spatiality. The volume explores the production, representation, and experience of places in video games from the perspective of American Studies. Contributions critically interrogate the use of spatial myths ("wilderness," "frontier," or "city upon a hill"), explore games as digital borderlands and contact zones, and offer novel approaches to geographical literacy. Eventually, Playing the Field II brings the rich theoretical repertoire of the study of space in American Studies into conversation with questions about the production, representation, and experience of space in video games.

Video Game Chronotopes and Social Justice

Author : Mike Piero
Publisher : Springer Nature
Page : 299 pages
File Size : 55,5 Mb
Release : 2022-01-25
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9783030919443

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Video Game Chronotopes and Social Justice by Mike Piero Pdf

Video Game Chronotopes and Social Justice examines how the chronotope, which literally means “timespace,” is an effective interpretive lens through which to understand the cultural and ideological significance of video games. Using ‘slow readings’ attuned to deconstruction along the lines of post-structuralist theory, gender studies, queer studies, continental philosophy, and critical theory, Mike Piero exposes the often-overlooked misogyny, heteronormativity, racism, and patriarchal structures present in many Triple-A video games through their arrangement of timespace itself. Beyond understanding time and space as separate mechanics and dimensions, Piero reunites time and space through the analysis of six chronotopes—of the bonfire, the abject, the archipelago, the fart as pharmakon, madness, and coupled love—toward a poetic meaning making that is at the heart of play itself, all in affirmation of life, equity, and justice.

Japanese Culture Through Videogames

Author : Rachael Hutchinson
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 534 pages
File Size : 55,8 Mb
Release : 2019-05-28
Category : Games & Activities
ISBN : 9780429655944

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Japanese Culture Through Videogames by Rachael Hutchinson Pdf

Examining a wide range of Japanese videogames, including arcade fighting games, PC-based strategy games and console JRPGs, this book assesses their cultural significance and shows how gameplay and context can be analyzed together to understand videogames as a dynamic mode of artistic expression. Well-known titles such as Final Fantasy, Metal Gear Solid, Street Fighter and Katamari Damacy are evaluated in detail, showing how ideology and critique are conveyed through game narrative and character design as well as user interface, cabinet art, and peripherals. This book also considers how ‘Japan’ has been packaged for domestic and overseas consumers, and how Japanese designers have used the medium to express ideas about home and nation, nuclear energy, war and historical memory, social breakdown and bioethics. Placing each title in its historical context, Hutchinson ultimately shows that videogames are a relatively recent but significant site where cultural identity is played out in modern Japan. Comparing Japanese videogames with their American counterparts, as well as other media forms, such as film, manga and anime, Japanese Culture Through Videogames will be useful to students and scholars of Japanese culture and society, as well as Game Studies, Media Studies and Japanese Studies more generally.

Postcolonialism and Science Fiction

Author : J. Langer
Publisher : Springer
Page : 188 pages
File Size : 45,8 Mb
Release : 2011-12-15
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9780230356054

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Postcolonialism and Science Fiction by J. Langer Pdf

Using close readings and thematic studies of contemporary science fiction and postcolonial theory, ranging from discussions of Japanese and Canadian science fiction to a deconstruction of race and (post)colonialism in World of Warcraft, This book is the first comprehensive study of the complex and developing relationship between the two areas.

How to Play Video Games

Author : Matthew Thomas Payne,Nina B. Huntemann
Publisher : NYU Press
Page : 376 pages
File Size : 51,5 Mb
Release : 2019-03-26
Category : Games & Activities
ISBN : 9781479805921

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How to Play Video Games by Matthew Thomas Payne,Nina B. Huntemann Pdf

Forty original contributions on games and gaming culture What does Pokémon Go tell us about globalization? What does Tetris teach us about rules? Is feminism boosted or bashed by Kim Kardashian: Hollywood? How does BioShock Infinite help us navigate world-building? From arcades to Atari, and phone apps to virtual reality headsets, video games have been at the epicenter of our ever-evolving technological reality. Unlike other media technologies, video games demand engagement like no other, which begs the question—what is the role that video games play in our lives, from our homes, to our phones, and on global culture writ large? How to Play Video Games brings together forty original essays from today’s leading scholars on video game culture, writing about the games they know best and what they mean in broader social and cultural contexts. Read about avatars in Grand Theft Auto V, or music in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. See how Age of Empires taught a generation about postcolonialism, and how Borderlands exposes the seedy underbelly of capitalism. These essays suggest that understanding video games in a critical context provides a new way to engage in contemporary culture. They are a must read for fans and students of the medium.

Wandering Games

Author : Melissa Kagen
Publisher : MIT Press
Page : 215 pages
File Size : 51,8 Mb
Release : 2022-10-11
Category : Games & Activities
ISBN : 9780262370974

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Wandering Games by Melissa Kagen Pdf

An analysis of wandering within different game worlds, viewed through the lenses of work, colonialism, gender, and death. Wandering in games can be a theme, a formal mode, an aesthetic metaphor, or a player action. It can mean walking, escaping, traversing, meandering, or returning. In this book, game studies scholar Melissa Kagen introduces the concept of “wandering games,” exploring the uses of wandering in a variety of game worlds. She shows how the much-derided Walking Simulator—a term that began as an insult, a denigration of games that are less violent, less task-oriented, or less difficult to complete—semi-accidentally tapped into something brilliant: the vast heritage and intellectual history of the concept of walking in fiction, philosophy, pilgrimage, performance, and protest. Kagen examines wandering in a series of games that vary widely in terms of genre, mechanics, themes, player base, studio size, and funding, giving close readings to Return of the Obra Dinn, Eastshade, Ritual of the Moon, 80 Days, Heaven’s Vault, Death Stranding, and The Last of Us Part II. Exploring the connotations of wandering within these different game worlds, she considers how ideologies of work, gender, colonialism, and death inflect the ways we wander through digital spaces. Overlapping and intersecting, each provides a multifaceted lens through which to understand what wandering does, lacks, implies, and offers. Kagen’s account will attune game designers, players, and scholars to the myriad possibilities of the wandering ludic body.

Methods for Studying Video Games and Religion

Author : Vít Šisler,Kerstin Radde-Antweiler,Xenia Zeiler
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 222 pages
File Size : 51,9 Mb
Release : 2017-11-28
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9781315518329

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Methods for Studying Video Games and Religion by Vít Šisler,Kerstin Radde-Antweiler,Xenia Zeiler Pdf

Game studies has been an understudied area within the emerging field of digital media and religion. Video games can reflect, reject, or reconfigure traditionally held religious ideas and often serve as sources for the production of religious practices and ideas. This collection of essays presents a broad range of influential methodological approaches that illuminate how and why video games shape the construction of religious beliefs and practices, and also situates such research within the wider discourse on how digital media intersect with the religious worlds of the 21st century. Each chapter discusses a particular method and its theoretical background, summarizes existing research, and provides a practical case study that demonstrates how the method specifically contributes to the wider study of video games and religion. Featuring contributions from leading and emerging scholars of religion and digital gaming, this book will be an invaluable resource for scholars in the areas of digital culture, new media, religious studies, and game studies across a wide range of disciplines.

Playing Oppression

Author : Mary Flanagan,Mikael Jakobsson
Publisher : MIT Press
Page : 237 pages
File Size : 50,8 Mb
Release : 2023-02-28
Category : Games & Activities
ISBN : 9780262373722

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Playing Oppression by Mary Flanagan,Mikael Jakobsson Pdf

A striking analysis of popular board games’ roots in imperialist reasoning—and why the future of play depends on reckoning with it. Board games conjure up images of innocuously enriching entertainment: family game nights, childhood pastimes, cooperative board games centered around resource management and strategic play. Yet in Playing Oppression, Mary Flanagan and Mikael Jakobsson apply the incisive frameworks of postcolonial theory to a broad historical survey of board games to show how these seemingly benign entertainments reinforce the logic of imperialism. Through this lens, the commercialized version of Snakes and Ladders takes shape as the British Empire’s distortion of Gyan Chaupar (an Indian game of spiritual knowledge), and early twentieth-century “trading games” that fêted French colonialism are exposed for how they conveniently sanitized its brutality while also relying on crudely racist imagery. These games’ most explicitly abhorrent features may no longer be visible, but their legacy still lingers in the contemporary Eurogame tendency to exalt (and incentivize) cycles of exploration, expansion, exploitation, and extermination. An essential addition to any player’s bookshelf, Playing Oppression deftly analyzes this insidious violence and proposes a path forward with board games that challenge colonialist thinking and embrace a much broader cultural imagination.

Traveling through Video Games

Author : Tom van Nuenen
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
Page : 98 pages
File Size : 49,8 Mb
Release : 2023-10-25
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781003827177

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Traveling through Video Games by Tom van Nuenen Pdf

This book unlocks an understanding of video games as virtual travel. It explains how video game design increasingly takes cues from the promotional language of tourism, and how this connection raises issues of power and commodification. Bridging the disciplinary gap between game and tourism studies, the book offers a comprehensive account of touristic gazing in games such as The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Minecraft, and Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020. Traveling through video games involves a mythological promise of open-ended opportunity, summarized in the slogan you can go there. Van Nuenen discusses the scale of game worlds, the elusive nature of freedom and control, and the pivotal role of work in creating a sense of belonging. The logic of tourism is fundamentally consumptive—but through design choices, players can also be invited to approach their travels more critically. This is the difference between moving through a game world, and being moved by it. This interdisciplinary and innovative study will interest students and scholars of digital media studies, game studies, tourism and technology, and the Digital Humanities.