Matthew Wilhelm Kapell

Andrew B.R. Elliott

Game Studies is a rapidly growing area of contemporary scholarship, yet volumes in the area have tended to focus on more general issues. With Playing with the Past, game studies is taken to the next level by offering a specific and detailed analysis of one area of digital game play -- the representation of history. The collection focuses on the ways in which gamers engage with, play with, recreate, subvert, reverse and direct the historical past, and what effect this has on the ways in which we go about constructing the present or imagining a future. What can World War Two strategy games teach us about the reality of this complex and multifaceted period? Do the possibilities of playing with the past change the way we understand history? If we embody a colonialist's perspective to conquer 'primitive' tribes in Colonization, does this privilege a distinct way of viewing history as benevolent intervention over imperialist expansion? The fusion of these two fields allows the editors to pose new questions about the ways in which gamers interact with their game worlds. Drawing these threads together, the collection concludes by asking whether digital games - which represent history or historical change - alter the way we, today, understand history itself.

Digital Games and the Simulation of History

Playing with the Past

Esther MacCallum-Stewart

Douglas Brown

Despite the advent and explosion of videogames, boardgames--from fast-paced party games to intensely strategic titles--have in recent years become more numerous and more diverse in terms of genre, ethos and content. The growth of gaming events and conventions such as Essen Spiel, Gen Con and the UK Games EXPO, as well as crowdfunding through sites like Kickstarter, has diversified the evolution of game development, which is increasingly driven by fans, and boardgames provide an important glue to geek culture. In academia, boardgames are used in a practical sense to teach elements of design and game mechanics. Game studies is also recognizing the importance of expanding its focus beyond the digital. As yet, however, no collected work has explored the many different approaches emerging around the critical challenges that boardgaming represents. In this collection, game theorists analyze boardgame play and player behavior, and explore the complex interactions between the sociality, conflict, competition and cooperation that boardgames foster. Game designers discuss the opportunities boardgame system designs offer for narrative and social play. Cultural theorists discuss boardgames' complex history as both beautiful physical artifacts and special places within cultural experiences of play.

Essays on Themes, Systems, Experiences and Ideologies

Rerolling Boardgames

Increasingly, digital games center their narratives during or after the apocalypse. In 2017, the action role-playing game Horizon Zero Dawn offered a new take on society after the end of the world. Horizon has since become a multimedia franchise, with a second video game released in 2022, in addition to comic books, a board game, and other adaptations in development. This collection analyzes the Horizon franchise and its presentation of the apocalypse, ecology, gender, history and more. Game story and game mechanics are fundamental to each essay and contributors offer a close reading--or close playing--of the games from perspectives as diverse as hauntology, postcolonialism, contemporary feminism, and historiography. This first collection on the Horizon franchise argues that we now live in an Apocalyptic period in the same way previous periods were known as Romantic, Modernist or Realist Periods, and makes the case that Horizon belongs at the crest of this new Apocalyptic Period and at the center of contemporary gaming and of game studies.

Essays on Environment, Culture, Identity and Myth in the Game Franchise

Broadening Horizon

Since the emergence of digital game studies, a number of debates have engaged scholars. The debate between ludic (play) and narrative (story) paradigms remains the one that famously "never happened." This collection of new essays critically frames that debate and urges game scholars to consider it central to the field. The essayists examine various digital games, assessing the applicability of play-versus-narrative approaches or considering the failure of each. The essays reflect the broader history while applying notions of play and story to recent games in an attempt to propel serious analysis.

Critical Essays

The Play Versus Story Divide in Game Studies

Nate Garrelts

Call of Duty is one of the most culturally significant video game franchises of the 21st century. Since the first game was released for PC in 2003, the first-person shooter has sold over 250 million copies across a range of platforms, along with merchandise ranging from toys and comic books to a special edition Jeep Wrangler. Top players can compete for millions in prize money in tournaments sanctioned by the Call of Duty World League. While the gaming community has reported on and debated each development, Call of Duty has received little scholarly attention. This collection of new essays examines the ideologically charged campaign mode of major franchise releases, with a special focus on militarism, realism and gender.

Critical Essays on the Game Franchise

Responding to Call of Duty

Stephen McVeigh

Among the most expensive—and most profitable—films of all time, the works of James Cameron have had a profound effect upon popular culture and the technology of moviemaking. Yet the very blockbuster nature of his films means that the political commentary, cultural discourse and rich symbolism within the works are often overlooked. From The Terminator to Avatar, the director has evinced a persistence of themes, concerns and visions that capture the contemporary zeitgeist. This collection of essays on James Cameron’s films, written by a diverse group of scholars from a wide range of disciplines, provides a comprehensive exploration of the work and legacy of one of America’s foremost filmmakers.

The Films of James Cameron

The 1960s and early 70s saw the evolution of Frontier Myths even as scholars were renouncing the interpretive value of myths themselves. Works like Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War exemplified that rejection using his experiences during the Vietnam War to illustrate the problematic consequences of simple mythic idealism. Simultaneously, Americans were playing with expanded and revised versions of familiar Frontier Myths, though in a contemporary context, through NASA’s lunar missions, Star Trek, and Gerard K. O’Neill’s High Frontier. This book examines the reasons behind the exclusion of Frontier Myths to the periphery of scholarly discourse, and endeavors to build a new model for understanding their enduring significance. This model connects NASA’s failed attempts to recycle earlier myths, wholesale, to Star Trek’s revision of those myths and rejection of the idea of a frontier paradise, to O’Neill’s desire to realize such a paradise in Earth’s orbit. This new synthesis defies the negative connotations of Frontier Myths during the 1960s and 70s and attempts to resuscitate them for relevance in the modern academic context.

Vietnam, NASA, Star Trek and Utopia in 1960s and 70s American Myth and History

Exploring the Next Frontier

Bridget Whelan

The world of video games has long revolved around a subset of its player base: straight, white males aged 18-25. Highly gendered marketing in the late 1990s and early 2000s widened the gap between this perceived base and the actual diverse group who buy video games. Despite reports from the Entertainment Software Association that nearly half of gamers identify as female, many developers continue to produce content reflecting this imaginary audience. Many female gamers are in turn modifying the games. "Modders" alter the appearance of characters, rewrite scenes and epilogues, enhance or add love scenes and create fairy tale happy endings. This is a collection of new essays on the phenomenon of women and modding, focusing on such titles as Skyrim, Dragon Age, Mass Effect and The Sims. Topics include the relationship between modders and developers, the history of modding, and the relationship between modding and disability, race, sexuality and gender identity.

Essays on Gender and the Digital Community

Women and Video Game Modding

Since the emergence of digital game studies, a number of debates have engaged scholars. The debate between ludic (play) and narrative (story) paradigms remains the one that famously “never happened.” This collection of new essays critically frames that debate and urges game scholars to consider it central to the field. The essayists examine various digital games, assessing the applicability of play-versus-narrative approaches or considering the failure of each. The essays reflect the broader history while applying notions of play and story to recent games in an attempt to propel serious analysis.

Ace G. Pilkington

Fantasy and science fiction began in print, and from the first films to the latest blockbusters, print stories have provided the inspirations, the ideas, and in some cases the detailed blueprints. Adaption Studies has long been an area of intense debate in literature and film studies, but no single work has ever approached fantasy and science fiction texts as unique and important areas of inquiry by themselves. The Fantastic Made Visible with 16 fresh essays is the first book to do exactly that. From the earliest adaptations of Jules Verne, Robert A. Heinlein, and Shakespeare to recent films based on The Hobbit, Planet of the Apes, and The Hunger Games, this book offers a wide range of critical approaches and films from around the world.

Essays on the Adaptation of Science Fiction and Fantasy from Page to Screen

The Fantastic Made Visible

Gaines S. Hubbell

What is a videogame? What makes a videogame "good"? If a game is supposed to be fun, can it be fun without a good story? If another is supposed to be an accurate simulation, does it still need to be entertaining? With the ever-expanding explosion of new videogames and new developments in the gaming world, questions about videogame criticism are becoming more complex. The differing definitions that players and critics use to decide what a game is and what makes a game successful, often lead to different ideas of how games succeed or fail. This collection of new essays puts on display the variety and ambiguity of videogames. Each essay is a work of game criticism that takes a different approach to defining the game and analyzing it. Through analysis and critical methods, these essays discuss whether a game is defined by its rules, its narrative, its technology, or by the activity of playing it, and the tensions between these definitions. With essays on Overwatch, Dark Souls 3, Far Cry 4, Farmville and more, this collection attempts to show the complex changes, challenges and advances to game criticism in the era of videogames.

Essays on the Nature of Videogames

What Is a Game?

In an era of reboots, restarts and retreads, J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek trilogy—featuring new, prequel adventures of Kirk, Spock and the rest of the original series characters, aboard the USS Enterprise—has brought the franchise to a new generation and perfected a process that is increasingly central to entertainment media: reinvigorating the beloved classic. This collection of new essays offers the first in-depth analysis of the new trilogy and the vision of the next generation of Star Trek film-makers. Issues of gender, race, politics, economics, technology and morality—always key themes of the franchise—are explored in the 21st century context of “The Kelvin Timeline.”

Essays on J.J. Abrams' Final Frontier

The Kelvin Timeline of Star Trek

In the past, the examination of myth has traditionally been the study of the “Primitive” or the “Other.” More recently, myth has been increasingly employed in movies and in television productions. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the Star Trek television and movie franchise. This collection of essays on Star Trek brings together perspectives from scholars in fields including film, anthropology, history, American studies and biblical scholarship. Together the essays examine the symbolism, religious implications, heroic and gender archetypes, and lasting effects of the Star Trek “mythscape.”

Matthew Wilhelm Kapell

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