This is a problem that we often see in games by history. In an industry dominated by white men — by 2021, according to Statista, 75% of developers globally identify as malewhile the Entertainment Software Association reports that 73 percent are white—Governments are overwhelmingly viewed through a very specific lens. In Ghost of Tsushima (2020), the conflict is rooted in the Bushido code, a set of tenets comparable to the European idea of chivalry. Not from the perspective of Japanese culture and history, but the films of Kurosawa Akira. The lower classes treated the samurai in the game with respect, almost worshiping them during their revolt against the occupying Mongols. In reality, however, the relationship between the samurai and the population was considerably more complicated. As a result, the story is less historical than Western interpretations of decades-old Japanese films.
A more extreme example is Quantic Dream’s Detroit: Be Human. The game actively rewards players for exploring all avenues, including those that use its playable characters as agents of oppression. The game is set in the future, but it relies on the past to tell its story, especially the history of black people. Like many fictional representations of rebellious cyborgs and other classes of technocrats, the game creates a clumsy analogy of the Civil Rights Movement — albeit with an exclusively white cast of protagonists. permission.
As an industry dominated by white men creates games for white audiences to perceive, we will continue to see narratives – historical and otherwise – reframed through the prism of white people’s empathy rather than complex, alternate reality.
Similarly, because large developers and publishers are often risk-averse, indie developers increasingly have to present a more layered and complete historical picture. In Return of Obra Dinn, by solving the mysterious deaths of crew members on the main ship, the player also learns about the stratification between upper deck and lower deck, the conflict between multinational crews and reality. of people living in cramped quarters of the hull. Similarly, complicated stories can be found in Heaven’s Vault and Treasures of the Aegean.
Without the oversight of major publishers and with little focus on marketability, indie games are more likely to explore the usual intricacies of history that triple-A games shy away from.
Despite some of its failures in developing historical narratives, we can’t underestimate the game’s ability to push us to further interrogate subjects we know nothing about. about them.
I asked Christopher Mitchell, head of the School of Creative Technology at the Vancouver Film School, about this potential. In response, he emphasized that “games” We an educational technology. When you create a game, you are continuously teaching and instructing users on how to perform complex tasks. “Although some may object to the inclusion of games in the classroom, they are essentially teaching tools, so their implementation in educational institutions makes a lot of sense.
Covid-19 has brought this question to the fore. As the pandemic disrupts education and lessons move into the digital space, the use of interactive, visual tools in teaching is essential. Filippo Lorenzin, artistic director at Contemporary Digital Art Museum“Digital projects and tools that many organizations will eventually make available to the public in 5 or 10 years have become a priority overnight, and are released in a few months,” said. in 2020”.
