Designing Ideology
Videogames are inextricably bound to ideology. In most cases, this is not by design, but simply because game developers tend to create virtual worlds that reflect the particular way in which they see the real world. As Ian Bogost (2006) has noted, these ideological frames are rarely explicit, making itContinue Reading
Remembrance in Second World War Shooters
Leading up to the new Millennium, western countries rushed to recount the history of the 20th century in what Jay Winter, one of the leading historians in the field of memory studies, has called the memory boom. During this time, the big conflicts of 20th century were remembered in publicContinue Reading
Games as Historical Scholarship
We talk a lot about how history is represented in games and about how cozino games can be used to teach history, but I’d love to spark a conversation here about how games themselves can actually be a form of scholarship in their own right. That is, can we imagineContinue Reading
Redux
We’ve got a lot of great scholarship here on Play the Past. I’m continually astounded by these authors – their insights, their wit, and their ability to surprise and delight. I’m confident that what we’re doing here on Play the Past is making a difference in the scholarship of gamesContinue Reading
The Play of History
The following is a guest post from Andrew Salvati, a Media Studies Ph.D. candidate at Rutgers University, interested in media history, myth,memory, and representation. The post is based on a paper he presented at the first meeting of the International Network for the Theory of History (INTH) in Ghent, Belgium, July 2013. YouContinue Reading
Excavating Age of Empires
This guest post is by Owen Vince. Owen studied and practiced as an archaeologist in the UK and Turkey, working primarily with Mesolithic and Chalcolithic materials. He holds a Masters in literature and has, recently, been writing video games and music criticism. He’s on Twitter @Owen________ During his long andContinue Reading
Modding Skyrim: The Value of Magic and Metaphor
Ever since its release, I’ve been a big fan of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. I found its huge open world, its random environment, and specifically its material culture refreshing- it kind of fit my style of play exactly. I’m an explorer and tinkerer. I generally abhor magic, for noContinue Reading
Between ‘what is presented’ and ‘how is presented’: historical re-enactment through popular culture
The following is a guest post from Dawid Kobiałka, a doctoral candidate at Adam Mickiewicz University (Poznan). The times in which we all live are quite interesting and paradoxical. On the one hand, there is an injunction to enjoy, to carpe diem; seize the day. According to this point of view, humanContinue Reading
Epic Life: Critiquing Ubiculturality in Assassin’s Creed
In my last post I outlined the way that the Assassin’s Creed series makes of its players what I call Ubicultural subjects. I argued that through the thematics of culture-clash that the games drape over the mechanics of free-movement within a notionally historical space and violence of a notionally historicalContinue Reading
Games as Text and K12 Social Studies
I’m often asked by colleagues who know my interest in games in education to suggest a game students can play that will teach them some particular set of knowledge or skills. “Do you know any iPad games that can teach quadratic equations?,” or “Has anyone made a game about conjugatingContinue Reading