Producing & Playing Hegemonic Pasts: Historical Digital Games as Memory-Making Media

Abstract

This dissertation investigates the relation between digital games and common understandings of the past, which people experience through popular culture, formally called 'cultural memory processes'. Typically, so-called historical digital games depict historical scenarios such as World War II, the Cold War, and more recently, the War on Terror, as also seen in major film productions, TV series, and literature. However, at the same time, some historical digital games also manage to go beyond these conventional norms by allowing players to experience, for example, the transatlantic slave trade in the 18th century, or the American civil rights movement in the 1960s. The dissertation therefore raises the question of which understandings and subject-positions digital games systematically promote and invite to understand the past.<p>

<p>The research findings demonstrate that games’ formal devices, such as game mechanics, representation, and physical instantiation, motivate distinct understandings of history. By analyzing these formal devices, the dissertation contributes new knowledge on the role of digital games in the larger picture of cultural commemorative processes. On the one hand, the dissertation conducts a qualitative, formal analysis of the digital games Assassin's Creed Freedom Cry and Mafia III, and on the other, a quantitative content analysis of 208 different historical digital games. The close readings of the two games identify their meaning-potentials through which they are analyzed for their possible impact on memory-making processes. In turn, the quantitative analysis highlights the dataset’s dominant representations of the past. Here, general trends of historical representation emerge, where whiteness, masculinity, and simple violence are most common, the larger the production budget of each historical game. Therefore, the dissertation investigates how digital games systematically promote and invite specific understandings of the past on both a micro and macro-level of analysis, accomplished through the close readings and the quantitative analysis.<p>

<p>The research project also contextualizes its findings with attention to the contexts of production and reception of historical digital games. Firstly, the dissertation identifies the unstable working conditions, the economic structures, the technical challenges, and the social norms through which the digital games industry operates. These aspects highlight how digital games often develop games according to profit-maximizing purposes. Consequently, such games often represent dominant representations of the past, in which North American or European white men perform simplified violence against others. These dominant representations are encoded as meaning-potentials in the games themselves, whereby formal game analysis helps to identify them.<p>

<p>Secondly, the dissertation shifts focus to the practices of play that negotiate these dominant representations of the past. In this context, players activate, negotiate, or oppose the meaning-potentials in order to express their own personal values via the game’s formal devices. Based on Stuart Hall's Encoding / Decoding model, the dissertation shows how the communication process between the games industry and the players themselves is discursive, dynamic, and negotiable.<p>

<p>Overall, the dissertation identifies the economic, technical, and social processes undergirding the production of historical digital games, which predispose developers to encode dominant representations of the past as the game's meaning-potentials. These meaning-potentials are analyzed through a formal game analysis with an emphasis on the formal devices that contribute to historical beliefs. Simultaneously, the dissertation highlights that these significant potentials are only actualized through practices of play, where players activate, negotiate, or even oppose the dominant representations of the past that historical digital games usually follow. In doing so, the dissertation unveils the movement of cultural commemorative processes across production, game form, and practices play in historical digital games.

<i>Dansk opsummering</i>:<p>

<p>Denne afhandling belyser sammenspillet mellem computerspil og gængse forståelser af fortiden som vi optager og forhandler igennem populærkulturen, formelt kaldet ‘kulturelle mindeprocesser’. Typisk ser man såkaldte historiske computerspil afbilde fortidige scenarier, såsom Anden Verdenskrig, Den Kolde Krig, og i nyere tid, Krigen mod Terror, såvel som i større filmproduktioner, TV-serier, og litteratur. Men samtidig formår enkelte historiske computerspil også at gå udover det typiske ved at lade spillere eksempelvis opleve den transatlantiske slavehandel i det 18. århundrede, eller den amerikanske borgerrettighedsbevægelse i 1960erne. Afhandlingen undersøger herved hvilke forståelser og subjektpositioner computerspil fremmer og derved hvordan de inviterer til at forstå historien. <p>

<p>Afhandlingen viser at computerspils formelle virkemidler, såsom spilmekanikker, repræsentation, og fysisk instantiering, motiverer specifikke forståelser af historien. Med fokus på disse virkemidler giver afhandlingen ny viden omkring computerspils rolle i det større billede af kulturelle mindeprossesser. Analysen lægger på den ene side vægt på en kvalitativ, formel analyse af computerspillene Assassin’s Creed Freedom Cry og Mafia III, og på den anden side, en kvantitativ indholdsanalyse af 208 forskellige historiske computerspil. De kvalitative læsninger af disse to spil identificerer de betydningspotentialer de besidder, hvorigennem de analyseres med henblik på deres mulige indvirkning på forståelsen af fortiden. Dernæst fremhæver den kvantitative analyse de herskende tendenser som historiske computerspil ofte reproducerer, hvor hvidhed, maskulinitet, og simplificeret vold finder oftere sted, jo større produktionsbudgettet for de enkelte historiske spil er. Afhandlingen undersøger derved hvordan computerspil igennem deres form inviterer til bestemte forståelser af fortiden på både et mikro- og makroplan. <p>

<p>Samtidig kontekstualiserer afhandlingen sine fund med fokus på produktions- og spillerkonteksterne for historiske computerspil. I første omgang beskriver afhandlingen de ustabile arbejdsforhold, de økonomiske strukturer, de tekniske udfordringer, og de sociale normer som computerspilsindustrien handler ud fra. Disse produktionsaspekter belyser hvordan profitmaksimering påvirker udformningen af. Historiske computerspil gør at herskende forståelser af fortiden reproduceres i spillene, hvori ofte nordamerikanske eller europæiske hvide mænd udøver simplificeret vold. Disse herskende forståelser indkodes som ’betydningspotentialer’ i selve spillene, hvorved formel spilanalyse kan fremhæve disse. I anden omgang retter afhandlingen fokus på de spilpraksisser som forhandler disse herskende forståelser af fortiden. I denne kontekst aktiverer, forhandler, eller modsætter spillere sig de eksisterende betydningspotentialer til at udtrykke deres egne personlige værdier igennem spillenes formelle virkemidler. På baggrund af Stuart Halls model om ind- og afkodning demonstrerer afhandlingen hvorledes kommunikationsprocessen imellem computerspilsindustrien og spillerene selv er diskursiv, dynamisk, og ofte til forhandling. <p>

<p>Overordnet identificerer afhandlingen de økonomiske, tekniske, og sociale processer som ligger bag produktionen af historiske computerspil, som motiverer deres udviklere til at indkode herskende forståelser af fortiden i læsninger af spillenes betydningspotentialier. Disse betydningspotentialer kan analyseres igennem en formel spilanalyse med fokus på de formelle virkemidler der bidrager til historiske overbevisninger. Samtidig fremhæver afhandlingen at disse betydningspotentialer kun kan aktualiseres igennem spilpraksisser, hvor spillere selv aktiverer, forhandler, eller endda modsætter sig de herskende repræsentationer af fortiden, som historiske computerspil ellers normalt følger. Derved afdækker afhandlingen bevægelsen af kulturelle mindeprocesser på tværs af produktion, spil, og spilpraksisser i historiske computerspil.