[-empyre-] Welcome to Week 2 on -empyre: GAMES AND REPRESENTATION

[TR]

I think my last paragraph got cut off in the previous post. Here it is:

One case in point: Ian Bogost’s regular contributions to The Atlantic on
games. While I do not intend to single out Bogost, he is a designer/scholar
who is very much in the public view and I think his musings on games help
shape the terms of engagement both within and outside of the academy. In
his March 13th column “Video Games Are Better Without Characters,” Bogost
argues that games (like simulation games) that emphasize complex systems
instead of dialogue, characters, and identities better prepare us to
analyze the changing social and economic times. He explicitly links
discussions about representation in games with Gamergate reactionaries,
arguing that the people who are asking for more diverse representation and
the gamers policing gamer identity are operating essentially from the same
ideological base. He explains, “Maybe the obsession with personal
identification and representation in games is why identity politics has
risen so forcefully and naively in their service online, while essentially
failing to build upon prior theories and practices of social justice. And
perhaps it is why some gamers have become so attached to their identity
that they’ve been willing to burn down anything to defend it.” I encourage
other folks to check out Bogost’s entire post since I can’t adequately
summarize it all here. Anyhow, in my mind, this evinces some of that
resistance to having discussions about representation remain central to
game studies. Of course, I don’t think examinations of “complex” systems
and matters pertaining to identity and self have to be mutually exclusive.
—TreaAndrea

On Thu, Apr 9, 2015 at 9:30 PM, TR <thetalentedtenthrealized at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Greetings everyone! I’m glad to join in on this conversation, and I’m
> fascinated by the work that the participants have done. In my next
> posts, I will aim to relate more to the work referenced in the posts
> so far.
>
> For now, I’ll introduce myself and take up Jen’s question about the
> field and the issue of representation in games. I will say first that
> I approach game studies primarily as a humanist who has a background
> in literary studies and media studies. My writing on games so far
> includes an essay I wrote on the game Afro Samurai and the co-edited
> collection, Identity Matters, with Jen Malkowski. My methodology is
> heavily informed by postmodern and critical race theory. I am also
> intrigued by the way the politics of representation overlap with the
> politics of recognition, especially when it comes to black
> subjectivities and what I call spectacularized rituals of destruction.
> For example, I am interested in how black characters across mediums
> but particularly in digital culture are humanized through acts of
> violence that produce suffering. This motif is something I take up in
> our edited collection and in my monograph.
>
> As for Jen’s question about whether or not “the analysis of
> representation in games… is a somewhat/sometimes maligned pursuit in
> Video Game Studies,” I am of two minds. On the one hand, at our annual
> conference in recent years we’ve no doubt seen a boom in what I
> consider to be a clear attempt to make identity and representation
> more central in game studies. Prior to that, I would say that code and
> platform approaches to thinking about games dominated the discussion
> in my various interdisciplinary fields. At this moment, I can think of
> a long and impressive list of scholars who write about games in ways
> that include questions about representation. Yet, I may also very well
> be in the proverbial choir. That is, it is certainly possible that now
> my field of vision is informed by who I know—and I tend to know people
> who bring humanist discourses and politics to game studies in exciting
> and innovative ways. At the same time, though, there are public
> figures who talk and write about games who I think are very much
> invested in minimizing the role that these points of entry play in
> game studies.
>
> One case in point: Ian Bogost’s regular contributions to The Atlantic
> on games. While I do not intend to single out Bogost, he is a
> designer/scholar who is very much in the public view and I think his
> musings on games help shape the terms of engagement both within and
> outside of the academy. In his March 13th column “Video Games Are
> Better Without Characters,” Bogost argues that games (like simulation
> games) that emphasize complex systems instead of dialogue, characters,
> and identities better prepare us to analyze the changing social and
> economic times. He explicitly links discussions about representation
> in games with Gamergate reactionaries, arguing that the people who are
> asking for more diverse representation and the gamers policing gamer
> identity are operating essentially from the same ideological base. He
> explains, “Maybe the obsession with personal identification and
> representation in games is why identity politics has risen so
> forcefully and naively in their service online, while essentially
> failing to build upon prior theories and practices of social justice.
> And perhaps it is why some gamers have become so attached to their
> identity that they’ve been willing to burn down anything to defend
> it.” I encourage other folks to check out Bogost’s entire post since I
> can’t adequately summarize it all here. Anyhow, in my mind, this
> evinces some of that resistance to having discussions about
> representation remain central to game studies. Of course, I don’t
> think examinations of “complex” systems and matters pertaining to
> identity and self have to be mutually exclusive.
>
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