Cultural Politics of Games

This article describes how computer games draw from and produce cultural practices that inform politics. The repetitiveness of playing games and experiencing intensive affective states make games the perfect vehicle for the generation of emotion and meaning. Games can 'attune'1 us to gestures, body postures, movements, phrases, visual patterns, and soundscapes. These assets-as game designers would call them-can be perceived and identified as belonging to certain 'pathos formulae'2 or 'emotionally charged visual trope[s].'3 Playing games elicits emotional responses that are triggered by these tropes and that grow with repetition. They are gateways into the social and material world4 and produce collective politics and social alliances.