Playing American : Open-World Videogames and the Reproduction of American Culture.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Schoppmeier, Sören.

Series:

Video games and the humanities.

Video Games and the Humanities Series ; Volume 14.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Video games.

Digital media.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (246 pages)

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Basel/Berlin/Boston : Walter de Gruyter GmbH, 2023.

Summary:

This book explores the relationship between American culture and open-world video games, examining how these games reproduce cultural narratives and societal norms. It focuses on games such as Grand Theft Auto, Watch Dogs, and Red Dead Redemption, analyzing their impact on American Studies and Game Studies. The book investigates themes like surveillance, cultural agency, and the portrayal of the American West, providing a critical examination of the politics and cultural contexts embedded within these games. Aimed at scholars and students of game studies and digital media, it seeks to deepen the understanding of video games as cultural artifacts. Generated by AI.

Contents:

Acknowledgments

Contents

Abbreviations of Videogame Titles

Introduction

1 Ambient Operations: An Analytic Focus for the Study of Open-World Videogames

2 A Portrait of the Videogame as an Actor-Network: Grand Theft Auto and the Agencies of American Culture

3 (Anti-)Black Boxes, Black Bodies, and Surveillance as Gameplay: Watch Dogs’ Ambivalent Politics

4 Once (+n) Upon A Time, There Was the (Simulated) West: Red Dead Redemption and the Database Western

Conclusion: Past, Present, and Futures of Playing American

Works Cited

Index Generated by AI.

Notes:

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

Part of the metadata in this record was created by AI, based on the text of the resource.

ISBN:

3-11-131775-7

OCLC:

1409688815