Games in a time of crisis?

Abstract

The world is in peril, and yet we are still playing. In the midst of the climate emergency and environmental disasters of the Anthropocene; in the third year of a global pandemic; as wars rage in Ukraine, Yemen, Tigray and elsewhere; as nationalistic and far-right discourses move closer to the political mainstream sphere; as authoritarianism rears its head, freedom of speech is curtailed, and journalists are assassinated; as the rights of women, LGBTIQ+ individuals and racial and ethnic minorities are rolled back; as humanitarian crises unfold among migrants and asylum seekers: in the light of all of this, it becomes vital to ask, what is the point of making, playing and studying games? Put differently: what role do, or can, games play in relation to these multiple crises? In the best case, games can seem like a frivolous distraction from addressing such urgent concerns. In the worst case, digital games – enmeshed as they are in the technological materiality, discourses and networks of labour relations of global capitalism – are active contributors to many of the crises described above. To list only some of the ways in which this might be the case: commercial game production is embedded in the material-discursive structures and problematic labour relations of capitalism (Dyer-Witherford & de Peuter 2009; Hammar et al 2021); playing and making digital games demands the use of energy-intensive technologies that contribute to the climate crisis (Abraham 2022); games reproduce imperialist discourses and colonialist ideologies (Mukherjee 2018); and create cultures that support far-right radicalisation (Bjørkelo 2020).

On the other hand, perhaps it is also possible to identify ways in which games can respond positively to times of crisis. This might mean paying attention to games’ capacity to represent and engage with contemporary crises, such as through the development of utopian or dystopian imaginaries (Pedercini 2019; Farca 2018) as practices of thinking otherwise. It could involve highlighting emancipatory efforts to reclaim games, and the ideological assumptions underpinning their ludic characteristics and spaces, through transgressive practices of design or play – for instance, from queer (Ruberg 2019) or postcolonial (Jayanth 2021) perspectives. On an individual or interpersonal level, it could mean considering games as coping mechanisms, as means of self-care or community formation – for instance, as means of countering the stress and isolation of pandemic-era lockdowns (Pearce et al 2021). This special journal issue collects responses to these questions, and reflections on the role(s) games play in a time of crisis.