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PLAYING AMERICAN: OPEN-WORLD VIDEOGAMES AND THE REPRODUCTION OF AMERICAN CULTURE

Sören Schoppmeier



 

Videogames have always depicted representations of American culture, but how exactly they feed back into this culture is less obvious. Advocating an action-based understanding of both videogames and culture, this book delineates how aspects of American culture are reproduced transnationally through popular open-world videogames. Playing American proposes an analytic focus on open-world videogames' "ambient operations" and traces practices of "playing American" through the stages of videogame development, gameplay, and reception. Three case studies – concentrating on the Grand Theft Auto, Watch Dogs, and Red Dead Redemption franchises, respectively – highlight different figurations of "playing American." Thematic foci range from public discourses on systemic racism and neoliberal capitalism to the justification of real-world surveillance practices and to the reconfiguration of the Western in the digital age. Playing American provides those interested in either videogames or American culture with a fresh angle and new concepts regarding its subject matters. It demonstrates that videogames are agents of cultural reproduction that do distinct cultural work for American culture in the twenty-first century.

 

PUBLICATION DETAILS

LANGUAGE

BINDING

EDITION

ISBN

YEAR

PAGES

English

Hardcover


9783111244846

2023

240

English

eBook


9783111317755

2023

240

 

TAGS


Authors/Narrators: #SörenSchoppmeier

Publishers: #DeGruyter (De Gruyter Oldenbourg)

Languages: #English

Year: #Year2023

Genres: #GameStudies


Companies:

N/A


Public Figures:

N/A


Games:

N/A


Misc:

#VideoGamesAndTheHumanities (Video Games and the Humanities)

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