The State of Play Read online

  Praise for The State of Play

  “If you want to explain to anyone why video games are worth caring about, this is a single-volume primer on where we are, how we got here, and where we’re going next. In every way, this is the state of play.”

  —Kieron Gillen, author of The Wicked + The Divine, co-founder of Rock, Paper, Shotgun

  “Video games are now on the front lines of the culture wars. The State of Play gathers essential voices who are trying to make a more just, more true, more playful gamespace, one that’s fun for everybody.”

  —McKenzie Wark, author of Gamer Theory

  “The State of Play is an excellent primer [and] a much-needed alternative look at the state and stakes of video game culture, today and tomorrow.”

  —Angela Washko, artist and founder of The Council on Gender Sensitivity and Behavioral Awareness in World of Warcraft

  “We are past the era when it was surprising to learn that video games are more than just pleasurable power fantasies. Video games are emotional explorations of race, gender, sex and love. Video games give us intense experiences of being others, or finding ourselves, alone with the computer or surrounded by crowds, in physical or virtual spaces. The State of Play is a key collection of writings to understand why playing video games matters more than ever.”

  —Miguel Angel Sicart, author of Play Matters and The Ethics of Computer Games

  “Like a game that opens your heart, I found more than I came for in The State of Play. . . . Not what I expected, but much more. The thoughtful, articulate essays recursively confirm the importance of gaming to society, the book’s key theme. Beautifully written in workmanlike, accessible prose, and highly recommended.”

  —Bonnie Nardi, author of My Life as a Night Elf Priest: An Anthropological Account of World of Warcraft

  “This highly recommended edition is not just about the state of play, it is about so much more: the state of everything digital—by way of video games, in spite of them, transcending them. Yes, indeed: games are f****** political.”

  —Dr. Steffen P. Walz, co-editor of The Gameful World

  “This diverse collection demonstrates the deep power of anchoring our design theories in the lived experiences of players and creators. It offers a kaleidoscopic view of the possibility space of games, providing exciting new perspectives on play and the construction of play spaces.”

  —Brian Upton, author of The Aesthetic of Play

  “Through a combination of deeply personal narratives and academic analyses The State of Play effectively illuminates the social and cultural relevance of gaming. . . . The authors do not simply discuss what games are technically, but what they are, can, and should be culturally.”

  —Ellen Middaugh, co-editor of #youthaction: Becoming Political in the Digital Age

  Creators and Critics on Video Game Culture

  Ian Bogost • Leigh Alexander • Zoe Quinn • Anita 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.

  Seven Stories Press

  140 Watts Street

  New York, NY 10013

  www.sevenstories.com

  College professors may order examination copies of Seven Stories Press titles for free. To order, visit http://www.sevenstories.com/textbook or send a fax on school letterhead to (212) 226-1411.

  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

  Post-Escapism: A New Discourse on Video Game Culture

  Daniel Goldberg & Linus Larsson

  ADVENT

  Leigh Alexander

  Bow, Nigger

  Ian Shanahan

  Love, Twine, and the End of the World

  anna anthropy

  The Natural: The Parameters of Afro

  Evan Narcisse

  What It’s Like to Always Play the Bad Guy: On the Portrayal of Arabs in Online Shooters

  Hussein Ibrahim

  A Game I Had to Make

  Zoe Quinn

  Your Humanity is in Another Castle: Terror Dreams and the Harassment of Women

  Anita Sarkeesian & Katherine Cross

  The End of Gamers

  Dan Golding

  The Joy of Virtual Violence

  Cara Ellison & Brendan Keogh

  The Squalid Grace of Flappy Bird

  Ian Bogost

  The Making of Dust: Architecture and the Art of Level Design

  David Johnston

  Game Over? A Cold War Kid Reflects On Apocalyptic Video Games

  William Knoblauch

  Ludus Interruptus: Video Games and Sexuality

  merritt kopas

  The God in the Machine: Occultism, Demiurgic Theology, and Gnostic Self-Knowledge in Japanese Video Games

  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.

  But in recent years the barriers of entry into the industry have lowered considerably. Digital distribution platforms such as Steam and the Apple App Store have made it infinitely easier for small-scale video game productions to reach a large audience. Cheap and widely available game-making tools (see, for example, anna anthropy, page 33, for more on Twine) have made it possible for those without a degree in computer science to approach game design as a form of creative expression. This has helped give rise to a thriving scene of independent game development next to the Tolkien-esque fantasy epics and chart-topping military-themed shooters of the dominant publishers. The indie scene of today is perhaps best described as an experimental greenhouse feeding off the audience of the established industry while providing fresh talent and new ideas.

  Recently, a new generation of independent video game designers have begun to explore how games can be used for social and political activism and commentary. Topics such as sexism, race, politics, and class injustice are today being grappled with to an extent that has previously been absent from the form. For example, anna anthropy (see page 33) recounts her experiences of hormone replacement therapy in Dys4ia. In Cart Life, Richard Hofmeier examines the relentless churning of Western capitalism through the lives and actions of American street vendors. In Depression Quest, Zoe Quinn (see page 85) attempts to immerse the player in her own experiences of clinical depression.

  These three examples are all in some way autobiographical. They aspire to make a point about how their creators perceive the world around them, and interactivity gives them the power to do so in ways that are impossible for creators in other fields. Cart Life doesn’t just describe life in poverty; it forces players to engage with and immerse themselves in it. If you only had money for one, would you feed your cat or yourself? If you had to choose, would you work late so you could afford to pay rent, or would you leave on time so you could pick your daughter up after school?

  What’s more, these games do not easily slot into preexisting categories or genres. For example, while there exists no official definition of the term serious games, it is often applied to games whose primary purpose is something other than entertainment. It may refer to games that are created for education, marketing, professional training, or to advance a certain political standpoint. This, by definition, means they are exercises in communications or public relations above all, simply borrowing game design mechanics as a way to make their point. In contrast, the examples above are games first and foremost, created independently. They represent an evolution of the form rather than a reappropriation of its mechanics.

  Games such as these have helped foster a new school of video game criticism with particular interest in gender and identity politics. The work of Anita Sarkeesian (see page 103) has spearheaded a growing movement of feminist critical analysis of games. Other writers have begun examining the (mis)representation of non-straight, non-white, and non-Western minorities in gaming (see Evan Narcisse, page 53; and Hussein Ibrahim, page 77), or the common emphasis on violence as a core game mechanic (see Cara Ellison and Brendan Keogh, page 141).

  These developments point toward a philosophical shift in the perception of what games are and ought to be. There is, it seems, a newfound willingness among both game designers and critics to engage with games in the context of the world they exist in, as opposed to considering them in a vacuum devoid of social or political forces. In other words, video game culture is finally starting to grow up.

  In early 2004, game writer Kieron Gillen coined the influential phrase “New Games Journalism.” Taking his cue from writers such as Tom Wolfe and Hunter S. Thompson, he envisioned a new kind of criticism that emphasized the subjective experiences of the player, essentially arguing that the worth of a video game lies not in the game but in the gamer (for a defining example of the form, see Ian Shanahan, page 25). Today, perhaps a similarly useful definition is that the discourse on games is moving into a state of post-escapism—that is, a discourse that looks for meaning beyond entertainment and the joy of play. New Games Journalism sought to understand games through the subjective experiences of the player. Post-escapism understands games by placing them in social, political, and cultural context. It finds value in what a game says about the world around it.

  Like all progressive movements, these developments have been met with a backlash. At its ugliest, this has manifested in the hate mob behavior of Gamergate, named after the Twitter hashtag #gamergate that first emerged during summer 2014 and that has since snowballed into a loosely defined online movement (for more on this topic, see Dan Golding, page 127).

  On a basic level, Gamergate has functioned as a focal point for the rampant misogyny that has plagued tech and online culture for decades. Several prominent game designers and critics, almost exclusively women, have been targeted with slander and threats of violence, sexual assault, and outright murder for speaking their minds on these topics (see Anita Sarkeesian and Katherine Cross, page 103; and Zoe Quinn, page 85). This, of course, deserves only to be condemned. But Gamergate can also be understood as a reactionary counterforce to the ongoing and rapid maturation of video game culture, and to the progressive voices that are embracing these changes.

  Controversies around video games are nothing new. The form has been under intense scrutiny for decades and vilified for everything from glorifying violence to promoting drug-like addiction among the young. But these accusations have most often come from the outside—from politicians, pundits, and academics with little or no inside understanding of the culture. Gamergate is notable because it is, perhaps for the first time, an attack by one group within video game culture on another. At its core, it represents a civil war for control over the future discourse on games. On one side are designers and critics arguing that games should be viewed as meaningful tools for understanding the world around us and the interplay between human beings, borrowing heavily from progressive and emancipatory movements such as feminism. On the other side are conservative voices wishing for a return to an imagined, perhaps mid-’90s utopia largely exempt from critical analysis beyond the purely technical, thus leaving old norms and hierarchies to stand largely unchallenged.

  In reality, video games are a complex and rapidly evolving form, where different qualities intertwine and influence each other in subtle, often surprising ways. A progressive, critical approach to games and their place in culture does not preclude the appreciation of them as the rich and wonderful pieces of entertainment they are. But if our understanding of them is to move beyond simple escapism, games must be held up to the same standards and allowed the same scrutiny as any other form of creative expression.

  Our hope is that this anthology may play a small part in furthering that understanding. It contains essays by sixteen of the most powerful and unique progressive voices in gaming today, on subjects ranging from gender, race, and identity to sex, violence, and faith. Taken as a whole these essays emphasize how the conversation around games is changing from holding an unrelenting foc
us on technology and mechanics to not being afraid to engage with worlds outside its own. If art is defined as a lens through which we perceive reality, then games are just beginning their transition from artifacts of technology into something more.

  ADVENT

  Leigh Alexander

  For three decades or more, video games have been the most widespread form of children’s entertainment in the developed world. Even so, they remain absent from most depictions of childhood in contemporary literature. In Breathing Machine: A Memoir of Computers—from which this essay is an excerpt—Leigh Alexander provides an exception and breaks fresh ground by giving an intimate and highly personal account of the relationship between the child, game, and machine.

  A luminescent green prompt blinks softly at me like an eye. I’m in the basement, and there is the humming of machines. In an alcove, the clothes dryer repeats a soft, rhythmic thudding. I curl up so my toes don’t touch the chilly floor.

  There’s no disk in the drive. I left it empty on purpose, an open mouth crowned with an angry red eye. Its inside parts stutter and whirr within their beige casing. A sound barks from it like a scolding, but I already know it won’t hurt me.

  Everything is green lines, green light. An altar, a yawning vacuum of black, glassy space, a box with a screen, and on the screen there’s a tiny, vivid green rectangle flashing slowly in place. I press my little face up closer to the monitor, and I can see the flashing rectangle is built of tiny, impeccable lines etched one atop the other, the lines themselves comprised of infinitesimal dots.

  I stare, and I let my eyes sting and flood. With my nose smudging the glass, the blinking rectangle seems haloed in violet and white. I pretend I can see each fine laser-green etching, each pointelle stutter to life one at a time. The rectangle dies, is born, dies, is born.