Daniel Goldberg - The State of Play: Creators and Critics on Video Game Culture

Creators and Critics on Video Game Culture

Ian Bogost Leigh Alexander Zoe Quinn A nita Sarkeesian & Katherine Cross Ian Shanahan anna anthropy Evan Narcisse Hussein Ibrahim Cara Ellison & Brendan Keogh Dan Golding David Johnston William Knoblauch merritt kopas Ola Wilkander

Edited by

Daniel Goldberg & Linus Larsson

Seven Stories Press

New York Oakland

Copyright 2015 by Daniel Goldberg and Linus Larsson

A Seven Stories Press First Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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Book design by Elizabeth DeLong and Jon Gilbert

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

The state of play : sixteen voices on video games / edited by Daniel Goldberg and Linus Larsson. -- First edition.

pages cm

ISBN 978-1-60980-639-2 (hardcover)

1. Video games--Social aspects. I. Goldberg, Dan (Daniel) II. Larsson, Linus.

GV1469.34.S52S73 2015

794.8--dc23

2015004641

Printed in the United States

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Contents

Introduction

Daniel Goldberg & Linus Larsson

Leigh Alexander

Ian Shanahan

anna anthropy

Evan Narcisse

Hussein Ibrahim

Zoe Quinn

Anita Sarkeesian & Katherine Cross

Dan Golding

Cara Ellison & Brendan Keogh

Ian Bogost

David Johnston

William Knoblauch

merritt kopas

Ola Wikander

Introduction

Post-Escapism: A New Discourse on Video Game Culture

Daniel Goldberg & Linus Larsson

Ask anyone you meet on the street and chances are they will have spent more time in the past week or month playing video games than reading books or magazines. A few short decades ago, video games were considered a niche hobby for nerds and computer geeks. Today, they are an inseparable part of global popular culture. Video games are everywhere, played by people of all ages, faiths, and nationalities. Game design is taught in schools next to architecture, photography, and fashion. Big-budget video games often surpass Hollywood blockbusters in terms of both production budgets and profitability.

And yet, video game culture has been reluctant to step out of the boys room. There are of course historical exceptions (for example, see William Knoblauch on the subtle anti-war subtexts of many Cold War-era video games, page 183), but unlike, say, music or literature, games have no strong tradition of engaging with social issues, politics, or the culture that surrounds them. Game designers have historically eschewed reality and the present day for the fantastical and imaginary, with light-hearted science fiction, fantasy, and fairy-tale settings as staples of the form. Many argue that escapism is precisely the point.

There are historical reasons for this. More than any other form of creative expression, video games are highly dependent on, and to a certain extent an offshoot of, advances in computing and digital technology. This means games have traditionally been engaged with and discussed as products of technology rather than products of culture, which is why most game criticism still tends to read a lot like a review of a mobile phone or a car. The specialist gaming press has a long tradition of consumer-oriented criticism, using simple, quantifiable parameters to measure the technical proficiency and craftsmanship of the game designer, the fun level of a game, and the value for the money that a game provides. How smooth are the animations? How sophisticated are the graphics? How well-balanced are the rules?

Video game production has historically been prohibitively expensive and time-consuming, giving big-name publishers a virtual monopoly on production, sales, and marketing. As a result, the cultural identity of the gamer was from an early stage largely appropriated and shaped by the dominant corporate interests of the industry. This created a consumption-centric culture with its own norms and value systems, clustered around a small number of brands and big-budget franchises while showing little concern for identities other than the prime demographic of the young, white, Western male.