Synopsis
This book brings together a selection of papers delivered at the Video Game Cultures 2023 conference, held from 7 to 9 September 2023 at the University of Klagenfurt, Austria. An interdisciplinary collection drawing on disciplines from literary and cultural studies through to evolutionary psychology, this book critically investigates many developments in video game cultures, technologies, practices, texts, paratexts, and genres. Through examining ideas such as narrative and time, gender and sexuality, ethics and affect, and technology and spaces, our authors aim to expand our shared understanding of video games, and the cultures and communities which surround them.
The work presented here reflects authors at different points in their academic careers, and will appeal to a variety of readers, from those wanting to find out more about academic writing on video games, through to those with a focused scholarly interest in particular fields of enquiry. With sections addressing Queer Game Studies, Historical Game Studies, and Game Design Perspectives, alongside ideas of solidarity and kindness in video games, the collection speaks to numerous subfields within games research. The chapters within offer conclusions and recommendations for academics and other educators, for established and aspiring game designers, and for anyone interested in how games can be understood as meaningful contributors to our cultural lives.
Table of Contents
Introduction: Exploring Cultural Horizons Old and New
Nick Webber, Ewan Kirkland, René Schallegger & Felix Schniz
Section I: Solidarity and Kindness in Video Games
Of Dead Heroes and Growing Networks: Crisis, Agency, and Solidarity in Canadian Video Games
René Schallegger
Cultivating kindness in the tiny MORPG Book of Travels
Tan Schütz
Section II: Queer Game Studies
Video Games as Safe Spaces: A Walking Perspective
Kseniia Harshina & Tom Tucek
The Performance of Queer Identities in the Gameplay of Final Fantasy VII (1997) and Final Fantasy VII Remake (2020)
Laura Arnott
Queering the Walking Simulator – The Legacy of Gone Home
Nicole Kilzer
Section III: Historical Game Studies
Playing Resistance without Restrictions: Nazi Germany in Through the Darkest of Times
Lydia Kleinstück
Playing Time Capsules: Layered Temporalities in Gone Home and Return of the Obra Dinn
Kristina Jevtic
‘Watch for fairies, fen-folk, and fiends’. An Authentic and Didactic Approach to Historical Xenophobia in Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla’s Multi-Cultural World of the Ninth Century
Tamara Urach
Section IV: Game Design Perspectives
Simple and Choice Response Times of Females and Males Rating the Wilhelm Scream: An Important Null Result for Gaming Sound Engineers
Hermann Prossinger, Jakub Binter, Daniel Říha, Tomáš Hladký & Silvia Boschetti
Embodied game play: Exploring human and non-human experiences through affective game design in What Remains of Edith Finch and Brothers – A Tale of Two Sons
Christina Obmann
Contributor Details
About the Author
Nick Webber is Resources Coordinator for the Department of Media and Communication at the University of Central England in Birmingham.
Ewan Kirkland has published extensively on video games, focussing on survival horror and the Silent Hill series. Exploring such issues as storytelling, gender representation, genre and concept art, Ewan’s work has appeared in Games and Culture, Convergence, Gothic Studies and Camera Obscura. Routledge Advances in Game Studies recently published his study examining the influence of Gothic literature on games design, which contains chapters on Bioshock, Gone Home, What Remains of Edith Finch and Night in the Woods. Other research interests include animation, children’s culture and fandom. Ewan’s current research project explores UK fan conventions surrounding Hasbro’s My Little Pony series.
René Reinhold Schallegger was trained in English and American as well as French Studies, with a focus on literary and cultural criticism at the University of Klagenfurt (Austria), Anglia Ruskin University (UK), and Birmingham City University (UK). He is Associate Professor at the University of Klagenfurt, and his main areas of interest are media cultures of the fantastic, normative ethics, affect theory, Citizenship-, Gender-, Queer-, Canadian-, and Game Studies. He is President of the Gesellschaft für Fantastikforschung (Association for Research in the Fantastic), and his most recent publication is the monograph A New Virtual Ethics: Interconnectedness and Interrelationality in Videogames (2024).
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