VOLUME 5, SPECIAL ISSUE A (SEPTEMBER, 2023)
SURVIVING WHITENESS IN GAMES
Bonus issue editors: Sabine Harrer, Mahli-Ann Butt, Rilla Khaled, Florence M. Chee, Amani Naseem, Katta Spiel, Cale Passmore, Kishonna L. Gray, Outi Laiti
Theorizing Whiteness as a Proceduralized Ideology in Videogames
by E. R. Aguilera
Taking the concept of procedurality as a theoretical starting point, this essay offers a framing of whiteness-in-gaming as a proceduralized ideology: a way of knowing/doing/being in the world that is embedded in and circulated through computational technologies like videogames.
Colonized Morality Mechanics: The Struggle to Be Good in Telltale’s The Walking Dead
by Jess Erion
Telltale’s The Walking Dead is known for making players and protagonists suffer, but that suffering is racialized in ways you may not expect.
by E. Granzotto Llagostera & R. Khaled
A reflective account of the creation of Cook Your Way, an alternative controller game about a fictional visa application system. We revisit moments, design moves, and questions, sharing how themes of immigration, global capitalism, and culture were navigated through game making.
Can ‘Red Dead’ be Redeemed?: Race and Gameworld Contexts
by R. D. Hamilton
Where are the Black people in Red Dead Redemption 2’s portrayal of the American West, and what might we learn about American media from their absence?
Outside the Racist Nostalgia Box: Rethinking Afrikan tähti’s Cultural Depictions
by Sabine Harrer & Outi Laiti
While in recent years many European businesses have taken steps to alter their previously racist product designs, some games, especially board games like the popular Finnish Afrikan tähti (Star of Africa; Kuvataide, 1951), resist this trend. This raises two questions: First, what are the emotional mechanics which allow openly racist games like Afrikan tähti to remain unchanged and celebrated as ‘classics’ today? Secondly, what can our predominantly white board and role-playing game communities do to let go of emotional attachments to white supremacist games and become invested in a more respectful and welcoming games culture?
Black Deprivation in Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us Remastered and The Last of Us Part II
by M. G. Hill
This essay examines black subjective demise as a philosophical reflection of the white gaze, providing a context in which black characters in The Last of Us are shaped through Naughty Dog’s whiteness, which sustains what can be called black deprivation.
“An Affront to My People:” Excising the Other from the Fantasy of Skyrim
by M. Hines
From the moment we awaken tied and imprisoned and awaiting our execution in Bethesda’s Skyrim, the player is inundated with themes of imperialism and nationalism. Through creating our character, we interact with elements that introduce ideas of normative culture and racial essentialism. Such means implicitly key the player into racializing bodies in the fictionalized world of Skyrim. The Orcs of Skyrim, or the Orsimer, as they are called, play into a history of representing the Black, Other, as a savage outsider to the “civilized,” European-like races that are indigenous to Skyrim. Decolonial theory and semiotics allow us to understand how Skyrim imagines its intended audience as participants in creating new narratives of colonialism—one that simultaneously dehumanizes Black-coded races and erases them from narratives with which they should identify. As Skyrim is an incredibly popular game, its community of players have taken efforts to grapple with and rectify this racialization, and such efforts are interrogated as both participating in dehumanizing the Orcs and rectifying the racially coded assumptions that went into the race’s portrayal.
Highway to the Golden Zone(fire): PC Bangs and Techno-Orientalism in the StartCraft II Visual Novel
by M. J. Howard
The white reaction to Korean esports dominance has been fear and high-tech Orientalist racialization of Korean Others. This analysis of StarCraft II Visual Novel discusses the ways this whiteness manifests in the game’s aesthetics and deployment of a pc bang as its main setting.
by C. A. Kocurek
The demonization of violent video games serves to rehabilitate and preserve the innocence of white boys and young men in the U.S., even in the wake of horrific acts. When game researchers defend games without dismantling white innocence, we contribute to the problem.
Videogame Distribution and Steam’s Imperialist Practices: Platform Coloniality in Game Distribution
by T. Mukherjee
As a distribution platform, Steam has a near-monopolistic hold over the videogame industry. It exhibits imperialist tendencies that this paper investigates through a reinterpretation of archival material on Steam as a move towards decolonizing the study of platforms.
The Fight is the Dance: Modding Chinese Martial Arts and Culture into Beat Saber
by Y. Ong, R. D. Loban, & R. K. Parrila
The article explores the design process of a Beat Saber mod called Good Bag which integrates saber-sword Wushu martial art moves into gameplay with rhythm of contemporary Wuxia-influenced music. The Good Bag project drew upon two expert cultural practitioners from the Chinese community to shape the mod design and output.
Binaries on a Circle: Engaging Whiteness on the Playground
by S. Singha
This essay explores a disruption of dominant academic conventions of play-based scholarship in its form as well as content by using playground games as metaphors and illustrations of the complexity of human experiences and identities.
Appropriation or Erasure? Imagining Indigenous Futures in Games
by D. Wallis
Comparing the depictions of Indigenous peoples in Overwatch, inFAMOUS Second Son, and Horizon Zero Dawn, this essay examines how the mentalities of settler colonialism impact the imagined futures depicted in these games.
by H.A. Wu
This article reflects on my pedagogical encounters with structural whiteness in games as a woman of color instructor of Game Studies I.
Journal of Games Criticism 