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
Format: #eBook #Hardcover
Accessibility: #EnhancedTypesetting #ScreenReader #TextToSpeech
Year: #Year2023
Genres: #GameStudies
Companies:
N/A
Public Figures:
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Games:
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Misc:
#VideoGamesAndTheHumanities (Video Games and the Humanities)