A Chain of Memories

What does it mean to share a game?

Hana'a Dorey

When I play Final Fantasy VIII on my own, I’m not going back to play Final Fantasy VIII. I’m using it as a conduit to tap into the memories of that time of my life. It’s a way to feel the feelings I associate with listening in rapt silence to a friend’s reading of the game’s dialogue. It’s a way to remember coming home from school, homework done before the final bell rang at 2:45PM and begging my mom to buy more Cheetos for another late evening of RPGs with the first older person to treat me like my opinions truly mattered. Continue Reading →

Moral-Making Through Gameplay

Life is Strange and Existential Simulators

Amanda Caldwell

From arcades where people would take turns playing the machines, to console gaming with multiplayer options, to massive-multiplayer online games and online discussion forums, videogames are not always a solitary experience. Let’s Play videos, in which players record and upload their playthroughs of games, are a central component of many videogame communities. Since the Let’s Player narrates their feelings and choices in their videos, LPs “reveal a hidden layer of the game narrative: the story of the player and the experience” (Kerttula, p. 17). This is especially relevant to the discussion of morality and moral-making because the narration of the moral and ethical choices moves the discussion from an individual to a community space. According to Sari Piittnen, “LP narrations significantly feature complex moral evaluations, and explore the discursive means through which these are produced” (p. 4672). Continue Reading →

Book Review: Video Games as Culture

Considering the Role and Importance of Video Games in Contemporary Society

Ignasi Meda-Calvet

I want to emphasize that this is not a book in which the reader will find untouchable truths: rather, it is a tool that explains, in a very clear and understandable way, some of the debates and discussions that are still open around video games and their communities. Hence, I would not dare to say that this is going to be a definitive or complete book, but the beginning of future works and new publications that will take as their starting point some of the questions that Muriel and Crawford have synthesized and summarized so well in it. Continue Reading →

Sailing the Queer Seas

Final Fantasy V, Faris, and Gender

Ari Hiraeth

Yet it is clear that Faris thinks of themself as masculine, or at least proudly embodies the traits of stereotypical masculinity. Their level of courage, stubbornness, and self-confidence is often only found in male protagonists (see, for example, shōnen protagonists or superheros, who tend to exemplify exaggerated masculisms). They are also brash, rough-spoken, and a bit domineering. They are what you would expect of a pirate captain and everything you wouldn’t expect of a princess. Continue Reading →

“A glimpse of the possibilities”

A Review of Queerness in Play

Maria Alberto

It seems overly reductive to claim that any field is “characterized” by certain traits, but sometimes I’m tempted to resort to this tactic anyway after excellent first impressions of new work. So, by way of compromise I’ll say it this way: new scholarship in game studies is often influenced by the ways in which game studies itself is a developing and interdisciplinary field. And, in a strong recent example of this, the 2018 anthology Queerness in Play is at once a realization, a celebration, and a call for more work drawing from the intersections between queer studies and game studies. Contributors do a commendable job of keeping both the theory and the games they discuss accessible, and I imagine that this text will prove valuable to scholars and students alike. (I know I was taking notes for two of my other projects as I read!) Continue Reading →

Mountains of Trash

An Essay on Videogames, Recycling, and Digital Culture

Dennis Jansen

In Getting Over It, as the player ascends and almost inevitably suffers the occasional dramatic plummet down to the foot of the mountain, Foddy delivers a witty voice-over monologue about a range of subjects like perseverance in the face of failure, the underestimated value of frustration, and the trash-like nature of digital culture. “When everything around us is cultural trash,” he says, “trash becomes the new medium, the lingua franca of the digital age.” Continue Reading →

We’re Gonna Crash!

The Apocalyptic Surrealism of Cruis’n USA

Matthew Koester

For all of the romantic language that’s been attached to it, driving is seldom the joyous experience that racing games try to capture. Automobiles are powerful and dangerous, so drivers must constantly be vigilant. The default mode of driving is a mix of anxiety and boredom. Vehicles isolate motorists from their real surroundings, which are abstracted by the new, powerful steel exoskeleton the driver wields. The body is now a zooming husk. Continue Reading →