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Joystick Soldiers:
The Politics of Play in Military Video Games
Edited by Nina B. Huntemann and Matthew Thomas Payne
Joystick Soldiers is the first anthology to examine the reciprocal relationship between militarism and video games. War has been an integral theme of the games industry since the invention of the first video game, Spacewar! in 1962.While war video games began as entertainment, military organizations soon saw their potential as combat simulation and recruitment tools. A profitable and popular relationship was established between the video game industry and the military, and continues today with video game franchises like America’s Army, which was developed by the U.S.Army as a public relations and recruitment tool.
This collection features all new essays that explore how modern warfare has been represented in and influenced by video games. The contributors explore the history and political economy of video games and the military-entertainment complex; present textual analyses of military-themed video games such as Metal Gear Solid; and offer reception studies of gamers, fandom, and political activism within online gaming.
Table of Contents
Foreword, Ian Bogost
Introduction, Nina B. Huntemann and Matthew Thomas Payne
Section I: Historicizing the Joystick Soldier
1. Living Room Wars: Remediation, Boardgames, and the Early History of Video Wargaming, Sebastian Deterding
2. Target Acquired: America’s Army and the Video Games Industry, Randy Nichols
3. Training Recruits and Conditioning Youth: The Soft Power of Military Games, David B. Nieborg
Interview with James F. Dunnigan edited by Nina B. Huntemann and
Matthew Thomas Payne
Section II: Representing War
4. Behind the Barrel: Reading the Video Game Gun, Scott A. Lukas
5. War Games as a New Frontier: Securing American Empire in Virtual Space, C. Richard King and David. J. Leonard
6. Future Combat, Combating Futures: Temporalities of War Video Games and the Performance of Proleptic Histories, Josh Smicker
Interview with Rachel Hardwick edited by Matthew Thomas Payne
Section III: Producing Pedagogical War
7. Mobilizing Affect: The Politics of Performative Realism in Military New Media , Dan Leopard
8. A Battle in Every Classroom: Gaming in the U.S. Army Command & General Staff College, Jeffrey Leser and James Sterrett
9. A Battle for Hearts and Minds: The Design Politics of ELECT BiLat, Elizabeth Losh
Interview with Colonel Casey Wardynski edited by Nina B. Huntemann
Section IV: Playing War
10. “No Better Way to ‘Experience’ World War II”: Authenticity and Ideology in the Call of Duty and Medal of Honor Player Communities, Joel Penney
11. “F*ck You, Noob Tube!”: Learning the Art of Ludic LAN War, Mathew Thomas Payne
12. Playing with Fear: Catharsis and Resistance in Military-Themed Video Games, Nina B. Huntemann
Section V: Resisting War
13. Playing Against the Grain: Machinima and Military Gaming, Irene Chien
14. “Turn the game console off right now!”: War, Subjectivity, and Control in Metal Gear Solid 2, Tanner Higgin
15. Dead-in-Iraq: The Spatial Politics of Digital Game Art Activism and the In-Game Protest, Dean Chan
Gameography
List of Contributors
Index
Publication Details
Paperback: 312 pages
Publisher: Routledge; 1 edition (August 6, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0415996600
ISBN-13: 978-0415996600
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