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Colonized Morality Mechanics: The Struggle to Be Good in Telltale’s The Walking Dead
by Jess Erion Published September 2023 Download full pdf of article here. Abstract Zombies have a long and fraught history in the media as products of colonial rule. They have frequently represented white anxieties about slave uprisings, the Orient, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, socialism, and more. Telltale’s The Walking Dead game introduces an Continue reading
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Videogame Distribution and Steam’s Imperialist Practices: Platform Coloniality in Game Distribution
by Tathagata Mukherjee Published September 2023 Download full pdf of article here. Abstract With more than 120 million active monthly users (Steam, 2021) and over 44,000 games available for purchase (SteamSpy, 2021), Steam is a central figure with a near-monopolistic grasp over videogame distribution for desktop computing users. Its expansion into non-anglophone territories and displacement Continue reading
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Surviving Whiteness in Games
by Sabine Harrer, Mahli-Ann Butt, Rilla Khaled, Florence M. Chee, Amani Naseem, Katta Spiel, Cale Passmore, Kishonna L. Gray, Outi Laiti Published September, 2023. Download full pdf of article here. “The problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color-line.” —W.E.B. Du Bois Writing these words in 1903, W.E.B. Du Bois’ words continue Continue reading
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Outside the Racist Nostalgia Box: Rethinking Afrikan tähti’s Cultural Depictions
by Sabine Harrer and Outi Laiti Published September, 2023. Download full pdf of article here. Abstract 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 Continue reading
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ON COOKING A SOUR GAME
by Enric Granzotto Llagostera & Rilla Khaled First published March 2023 Download full article PDF here. Abstract Cook Your Way is an alternative controller game about a fictional visa application system in which potential immigrants are asked to prepare typical dishes from their country of origin to show immigration judges they can contribute to their Continue reading
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CAN ‘RED DEAD’ BE REDEEMED?: RACE AND GAMEWORLD CONTEXTS
by Regina D. Hamilton First published May 2023 Download full article PDF here. Abstract In the video game Red Dead Redemption 2, there are no Black communities in the game’s version of the American West, and there is never any explicit mention in the game of American slavery or the racism that followed Black people Continue reading
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“AN AFFRONT TO MY PEOPLE:”EXCISING THE OTHER FROM THE FANTASY OF SKYRIM
by Mark S. Hines First published March 2023. Download full article PDF here. Abstract The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the signs and narrative elements through which a popular gaming company, Bethesda, imagines and perpetuates stereotypes and racial essentialism relating to Black and Indigenous cultures and bodies. Such perpetuations work to solidify the Continue reading
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APPROPRIATION OR ERASURE? IMAGINING INDIGENOUS FUTURES IN GAMES
by Darcy Wallis First published March 2023 Download full article PDF here. Abstract The depictions of the future in videogames are not neutral. In particular, the way Indigenous cultures and peoples are developed in these settings often reflects constraints of imagination reflective of settler colonial ideologies. The most prominent depictions of Indigenous peoples and cultures Continue reading
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PEDAGOGICAL ENCOUNTERS WITH STRUCTURAL WHITENESS IN GAMES: TALES AND REFLECTIONS FROM A GAME STUDIES CLASSROOM
by Hong-An (Ann) Wu First published January 2022 Download full article PDF here. Abstract This article reflects on my pedagogical encounters with structural whiteness in games as the instructor. Since 2017, I have had the privilege of teaching Game Studies I for seven semesters in an interdisciplinary higher education games program in the United States. Continue reading
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BINARIES ON A CIRCLE: ENGAGING WHITENESS ON THE PLAYGROUND
by Shagun Singha First published January 2022 Download full article PDF here. Abstract As scholars continue to colonize and de/colonize whiteness (Bhattacharya, 2019; 2020) within game studies, often tethering our efforts to tracing the binary of colonizer/colonized, we end up with our own disparate set of binaries. Thus, we begin to engage in the very Continue reading
The Journal of Games Criticism is a non-profit, peer-reviewed game studies journal that strives to connect the conversations between traditional academics and popular game critics. The journal strives to be a producer of feed-forward approaches to video games criticism with a focus on influencing gamer culture, the design and writing of video games, and the social understanding video games and video game criticism.
ISSN: 2374-202X
Recent Articles
- A Contemporary Take on Victorian Lunacy: Representations of the Asylum in the Neo-Victorian Video Game Alice: Madness Returns
- Investigating Development Crunch in Games and its Impact on Creative Expression
- Character Affectivity in Newton and the Apple Tree
- Colonized Morality Mechanics: The Struggle to Be Good in Telltale’s The Walking Dead
- Videogame Distribution and Steam’s Imperialist Practices: Platform Coloniality in Game Distribution
Journal of Games Criticism 