Casual Empire: Video Games as Neocolonial Praxis

Harrer, Sabine

doi:10.16995/olh.210

Cited by 37 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…The kidnapping of the Nigerian prime minister is an illustrative example of mirroring the established narrative in the media: Africa is a dangerous and perilous place (Adegbola et al, 2018;Omobowale, 2015). Thus it can be argued that game developers were inspired (whether knowingly or unknowingly) by the colonial rhetoric about Africa, and used that colonial lens or rhetoric to write the game storylines (Harrer, 2018). Players of Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare are likely to store in their minds stereotypes about Africa and Africans, which may also affect their worldviews and perception of Africans (Harrer& Pichlmair, 2015).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Hence, video games with African settings or characters perpetuate an ideology because developers often draw on "longstanding cultural grammar when assigning racial representation of the hero and the other to the affordances of play (Harrer, 2018, p. 4). The limited presence of non-White characters in video games has pushed some researchers to argue that video games are becoming another platform where stereotypes are reinforced, and where the impact of underrepresentation or stereotypical representation of non-White characters on players is not to be ignored (Harrer, 2018;Passmore et al, 2017). This research suggests that Africans depiction in video games still remains scant.…”

Section: Race Representation In Video Gamesmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…This research suggests that Africans depiction in video games still remains scant. With the exception of few studies (Brock, 2011;Harrer, & Pichlmair, 2015;Harrer, 2018), research on Africans' portrayal in video games has not received much attention in the literature. Nevertheless, media studies literature has addressed Africans' representation in Western media.…”

Section: Race Representation In Video Gamesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Perceptions of Africa as a perilous place through the focus on stories of war or conflict is consequently perpetuated by the media (Adegbola, Skarda-Mitchell, & Gearhart, 2018). These negative representations reinforce Westerners' perception of Africa as the "hopeless continent" that needs to be helped, ordered, and led to solving her problems (Harrer, 2018;Omobowale, 2015), and a view of Africans as lacking agency, and helpless (Baker, 2015;Harrer, 2018).…”

Section: Africa and African Representation In The Mediamentioning

confidence: 99%

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Representations of Africans in Popular Video Games in the U.S

Bayeck

Asino

Young

2018

JVWR

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Studies investigating the representation of Africans and other ethnicities are scarce in video game literature. Using a content analysis approach, this paper examines Africans' representation in ten of the most popular games of 2014 in the United States based on industry market research reports. The findings show that Africans are underrepresented in video games explored in this study. The study also reveals that African characters in these games did not play leading roles in the storyline. Results are discussed as they pertain to Africans' representation in video games, media effect, and media literature. This exploratory study broadens the discussion on representation in video games to other ethnicities and shows the need for studies on representation in contemporary video games that include understudied ethnicities.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Race Representation In Video Gamesmentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Race Representation In Video Gamesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Africa and African Representation In The Mediamentioning

confidence: 99%

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Representations of Africans in Popular Video Games in the U.S

Bayeck

Asino

Young

2018

JVWR

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“…My presentation will revisit Games of Empire and complement the concepts of "desiring machine" and "ideology" with narratives from my three-year-long ethnographic work in a medium-sized video game studio in the U.S. Midwest. Drawing on postcolonial approaches to gaming (Harrer, 2018;Mukherjee and Hammar, 2018), and cultural studies (Slack & Wise, 2015), I argue that Games of Empire's Deleuzio-Guattarian framework fails to illuminate how racialized and gendered histories inform game developers' practices of creating racialized and gendered fantasies.…”

Section: White Masculinity Creative Desires and Production Ideologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Games of Empire Ten Years On

Pelletier

Ruffino

Woodcock

et al. 2020

SPIR

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The panel will retrospectively evaluate the significance of the seminal text Games of Empire (2009) for new media and game studies, reflecting on the contribution of autonomous Marxism to the study of digital culture today, as well as the methodological move it performed in tracing continuities and discontinuities between sites of production and play. Each paper will take one or two key concepts from the original book, including Empire, multitude, ideology, and cognitive capitalism, and apply them to the contemporary moment in the games sector. Our aim is to explore the strengths and limitations of these concepts, as well as identify the salient ways in which the sector has evolved over the last ten years. For example, we will examine efforts at unionisation in the sector; how gender and race have emerged as key concerns in the last few years in sites of game work; how apps are affecting the representation of capitalist and military systems; and how ‘multitude’ in the sector has assumed new forms in the wake of new distribution platforms. The panel will make a case for integrating social theory with the analysis of production cultures and textual practices, as well as situating the analysis of games within the field of new media and internet studies more broadly.

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Postcolonial Play in the Orient's Sandbox

Mukherjee,

Rizvi

2023

CyberOrient

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In this introduction to the special double issue, the guest editors outline their vision behind the work by giving a short overview of the orientalist bias in game studies, the postcolonialist turn in the field, and the need for South Asia‐centric scholarship to contribute to and invite South‐South discourse in games scholarship. This short introduction also introduces the various contributions to this double issue which range from academic articles to book reviews to comments.

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Casual Empire: Video Games as Neocolonial Praxis

Cited by 37 publications

References 7 publications

Representations of Africans in Popular Video Games in the U.S

Representations of Africans in Popular Video Games in the U.S

Games of Empire Ten Years On

Postcolonial Play in the Orient's Sandbox

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