Artgames after GamerGate

Videogame culture is obsessed with development. But gaming is still widely associated with wasted time, squandered potential and backwards attitudes. Even as the average gamer grows older, the medium remains dogged by the same old question: when will videogames grow up? The Gamergate movement lent this question renewed urgency, launching attacks on feminists and social justice warriors that have come to be seen as a catalyst for the emergence of the alt-right and election of Donald Trump. This book explores how makers of independent and experimental videogames responded to Gamergate and its aftermath. Analysing key titles released between 2015 and 2018, it shows how artgame designers used assets, characters and mechanics scavenged from classic franchises like Zelda , Street Fighter and Sonic the Hedgehog to review gaming's history, reframe their own biographies and link gaming's growing pains to a broader sense of disorientation, disillusionment and decline in American culture.

Analyses significant artgames from the post-GamerGate, pre-COVID period in depth, identifying key trends Advances discussions about gaming culture's relationship with right-wing political subcultures Theorises the relationship between game design and autobiography through the concept of 'ludobiography'

Autorentext

Rob Gallagher is a lecturer in Digital Media Industries at King's College London, UK. He has published widely on gaming and digital cultures, and has written for The Guardian , The New Inquiry and The Architectural Review . His previous book, Videogames, Identity and Digital Subjectivity was published in 2017.

Inhalt

Chapter 1 . Introduction: Artgames after Gamergate.-Chapter 2 . Nowhere Fast: Sonic Dreams Collection (Arcane Kids and Cyborgdino 2015).-Chapter 3 . Stuck in Suburbia: Ineffable Glossolalia (Nikolai 2018).-Chapter 4 . The Sleep of Reason: Black Room (McQuater 2017).-Chapter 5 . Playing the Field: The Game: The Game (Washko 2018).-Chapter 6 . Powering Down: Oikospiel: Book I (Kanaga 2017)