Ludopolitics: Videogames against Control

By: Liam Mitchell

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Synopsis: What can videogames tell us about the politics of contemporary technoculture, and how are designers and players responding to its impositions? To what extent do the technical features of videogames index our assumptions about what exists and what is denied that status? And how can we use games to identify and shift those assumptions without ever putting down the controller? "Ludopolitics" responds to these questions with a critique of one of the defining features of modern technology: the fantasy of control. Videogames promise players the opportunity to map and master worlds, offering closed systems that are perfect in principle if not in practice. In their numerical, rule-bound, and goal-oriented form, they express assumptions about both the technological world and the world as such. More importantly, they can help us identify these assumptions and challenge them. Games like "Spec Ops: The Line," "Braid," "Undertale," and "Bastion," as well as play practices like speedrunning, theorycrafting, and myth-making provide an aesthetic means of mounting a political critique of the pursuit and valorization of technological control.

Book Quality:: Publisher Quality
Book Size:: 352 Pages
ISBN-13:: 9781785354892
Publisher:: Zer0 Books
Date of Addition:: 11/05/25
Copyrighted By:: Liam Mitchell
Adult content:: No
Language:: English
Has Image Descriptions:: No
Categories:: Nonfiction, Computers and Internet, Philosophy, Politics and Government, Sociology
Submitted By:: Bookshare Staff
Usage Restrictions:: This is a copyrighted book.