The geographical imaginations of video games: Diplomacy, civilization, america's army and grand theft auto IV

Geopolitics

Volumn 16, Issue 2, 2011, Pages 359-388

  Salter, Mark B ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF OTTAWA   (Canada)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ARMED FORCES; CIVILIZATION; DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS; GEOPOLITICS; MAPPING; VIDEOGRAPHY;

EID: 79956353146     PISSN: 14650045     EISSN: 15573028     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/14650045.2010.538875     Document Type: Article

References (140)

1. While debates circulate in literary theory (between narratologists and ludologists) and new media studies over the terminology of "video" games, "digital" games, e-games, or "new media," I will use the first term. This can be seen as a continuation of Shapiro and Klein
2. Michael J. Shapiro'Representing World Politics: The Sport/War Intertext'J. Der Derian and M. J. Shapiro (eds.)International/Intertextual Relations: Postmodern readings of world politics (New York: Lexington 1989) pp. 69-96
3. Bradley S. Klein, 'The Textual Strategies of the Military: Or Have You Read Any Good Defense Manuals Lately?', in J. Der Derian and M. J. Shapiro (eds.), International/Intertextual Relations: Postmodern Readings of World Politics (New York: Lexington 1989) pp. 97-112.
4. Simon Dalby, 'Warrior Geopolitics: Gladiator, Black Hawk Down and the Kingdom of Heaven', Political Geography 27/4 (2008) pp. 439-455
5. Klaus Dodds, 'Hollywood and Popular Geopolitics of the War on Terror', Third World Quarterly 29/8 (2009) pp. 1621-1637
6. Marcus Power and Andrew Crampton, 'Reel Geopolitics: Cinemato-graphing Political Space', Geopolitics 10/2 (2005) pp. 193-203
7. Michael J. Shapiro, Violent Cartographies: Mapping Cultures of War (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press 1997)
8. Michael J. Shapiro, Cinematic Geopolitics (London: Routledge 2009)
9. Cynthia Weber, Imagining America at War: Morality, politics, and Film (London: Routledge 2006).
10. Marcus Power, 'Digitized Virtuosity: Video War Games and Post-9/11 Cyber-Deterrence', Security Dialogue 38/2 (2007) pp. 273-284.
11. Jason Dittmer, Popular Culture, Geopolitics and Identity (Lanham, MD: Rowman Littlefield 2010)
12. Nick Dyer-Witheford and Greig de Peuter, Games of Empire: Global Capitalism and Video Games (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press 2010)
13. Nina B. Huntemann and Matthew Thomas Payne, 'Introduction', in N. B. Huntemann and M. T. Payne (eds.), Joystick Soldiers: The Politics of Play in Military Video Games (London: Routledge 2010) pp. 1-18
14. Michael Longan, 'Playing with Landscape: Social Process and Spatial Forms in Video Games', Aether: The Journal of Media Geography 2 (2008) pp. 23-40
15. Power (note 3).
16. John Agnew, 'The Territorial Trap: The Geographical Assumptions of International Relations Theory', Review of International Political Economy 1/1 (1994) pp. 53-80.
17. The Call of Duty, Half-Life or Halo series, on the other hand, are 'rail' shooters, so called because even when presented with a choice of tactics, the game play is linear-the space of the game is likened to a rail, where players must progress down a particular, spatially defined track.
18. Chris Plante, 'All the World's a Sandbox', Gamasutra: The Art and Business of Making Games (12 May 2008), available at http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=18545>.
19. Gonzalo Frasca, 'Sim Sin City: Some Thoughts about Grand Theft Auto 3', Game Studies 3/2 (2003), available at http://gamestudies.org/0302/frasca/>.
20. Marc Augé, Non-places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity, trans. by John Howe (London: Verso 1995).
21. Christopher Coker, Waging War Without Warriors: The Changing Culture of Military Conflict (Boulder: Lynne Rienner 2002).
22. James Der Derian, Anti-diplomacy: Spies, Terror, Speed, and War (Oxford: Blackwell 1992).
23. Elaine Scarry, The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World (Oxford: OUP 1985) p. 62.
24. Shapiro, Violent Cartographies (note 2) p. 31.
25. Hartmut Gieselmann, 'Ordinary Gamers: The Vanishing Violence in War Games and its Influence on Male Games', Eludamos: Journal for Computer Game Culture 1/1 (2007) p. 4.
26. Coker (note 10) p. 173.
27. Gonzalo Frasca, 'Simulation versus narrative: Introduction to ludology', in M. P. Wolf and P. Perron, (eds.), The Video Game Theory Reader (New York: Routledge 2003) pp. 221-236.
28. Dittmer (note 4)
29. Marc G. Doucet, 'Child's Play: The Political Imaginary of IR and Contemporary Popular Children's Films', Global Society: Journal of Interdisciplinary International Relations 19/3 (2005) pp. 289-306;
30. Kyle Grayson, Matt Davies, and Simon Philpott, 'Pop Goes IR? Researching the Popular Culture-World Politics Continuum', Politics 29/3 (2009) pp. 155-163
31. Daniel H. Nexon and Iver B. Neumann (eds.), Harry Potter and International Relations (Ladham MD: Rowman and Littlefields 2006)
32. Weber (note 2).
33. Jutta Weldes, 'Popular Culture, Science Fiction and World Politics: Exploring Intertextual Relations', in J. Weldes (ed.), To Seek Out New Worlds: Exploring Links Between Science Fiction and World Politics (New York: Palgrave Macmillan 2003) pp. 1-27.
34. James Der Derian, Virtuous War: Mapping the Military-Industrial-Media-Entertainment Network, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge 2009) p. 26.
35. Entertainment Software Association, 'Industry Facts' (2010), available at http://www.theesa.com/facts/index.asp, accessed 18 June 2010.
36. Stephen Kline, Nick Dyer-Witheford, and Greig de Peuter, Digital Play: The Interaction of Technology, Culture, and Marketing (Montreal/Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press 2003) p. 247.
37. See http://www.fragdolls.com/index.php/gamer-girls, accessed 13 June 2010.
38. David Leonard, "'Live in Your World, Play in Ours": Race, video games, and consuming the other', SIMILE 3/4 (2003).
39. Alexander R. Galloway, Gaming: Essays on Algorithmic Culture (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press 2006) p. 72.
40. Ibid., p. 92.
41. Aaron Hess, "'You Don't Play, You Volunteer": Narrative Public Memory Construction in Medal of Honor: Rising Sun', Critical Studies in Media Communication 24/4 (2007) pp. 339-356.
42. Weber (note 2) pp. 13-28.
43. Eva Kingsepp, 'Fighting Hyperreality With Hyperreality: History and Death in World War II Digital Games', Games and Culture 2/4 (2007) p. 368.
44. For this project, I am not considering the physicality or sociality of playing video games, although both may have value for further study.
45. Prof. K. J. Holsti introduced this game to myself, and generations of graduate students and colleagues, through an annual tournament, graciously hosted by himself.
46. Richard Sharp, The Game of Diplomacy (1978), available at http://www.diplomacy-archive.com/god.htm.
47. Sebastian Deterding, 'Living Room Wars: Remediation, Board Games and the Early History of Video Wargaming', in N. B. Huntemann and M. T. Payne (eds.), Joystick Soldiers: The Politics of Play in Military Video Games (London: Routledge 2009) p. 23.
48. Allan Calhamer, 'The Invention of Diplomacy', Games and Puzzles 21 (1974), available at http://www.diplomacy-archive.com/resources/calhamer/invention.htm, accessed 12 June 2010.
49. Allan B. Calhamer, Rules of the Game of Diplomacy (1959), available at http://www.diplomacy-archive.com/resources/rulebooks/1959.pdf, accessed 12 June 2010.
50. Compare the rules of Risk, the nearest competitor to Diplomacy, in which the territories are sometimes but not always countries, and the retention or capture of a territory during a turn is rewarded with a card. Thus, the randomness of the cards, which lead to additional armies, puts chance at the heart of the game.
51. Parker Brothers,' Risk: Rules of Play for Parker Brothers Continental Game (1959), available at http://www.hasbro.com/common/instruct/Risk1959.PDF, accessed 12 June 2010.
52. Duningan in Deterding (note 30) p. 26.
53. See Myers on the importance of Civilization in popular and gamer culture. According to its own press, the series has sold over six million units since its first iteration in 1991, and been listed as one of the top ten computer games by a number of sources over the past 19 years.
54. David Myers, The Nature of Computer Games: Play as Semiosis (New York: Peter Lang 2003).
55. Galloway (note 23) p. 98.
56. Critics argue that the ideological goal of victory is inevitably an American-style liberaldemocracy technocracy.
57. Kacper Pobłocki, 'Becoming-State: The Bio-Cultural Imperialism of Sid Meier's Civilization', Focaal: European Journal of Anthropology 39 (2002) pp. 163-177
58. Tom Henthorne, 'Cyber-Utopias: The Politics and Ideology of Computer Games', Studies in Popular Culture 25/3 (2003).
59. Myers (note 35) p. 201.
60. R. B. J. Walker, Inside/Outside: International Relations as Political Theory (Cambridge: CUP 1993).
61. Ben DeVane and Kurt D. Squire, 'The Meaning of Race and Violence in Grand Theft Auto', Games and Culture 3/3-4 (2008) pp. 267-268.
62. Abhinava Kumar, America's Army Game and the Production of War, York Centre for International Security Studies Working Paper 27 (Toronto: York University 2004).
63. Galloway (note 23) p. 57.
64. Ibid., pp. 79-82.
65. Similar kind of analysis by Hansen of the Danish publication of the cartoons of the ProphetMohammed.
66. Lene Hansen, 'The Clash of Cartoons? The Clash of Civilizations? Visual Securitization and the Danish 2006 Cartoon Crisis', presented at the 48th Annual ISA Convention, Chicago, 28 Feb.-3 March 2007.
67. America's Army, 'Army Game Project' (2008), available at http://www.americasarmy.com/about/.
68. America's Army, 'America's Army Game Features' (2008), available at http://www.americasarmy.com/intel/features.php.
69. Randy Nichols, 'Target Acquired: America's Army and the Video Games Industry', in N. B. Huntemann and M. T. Payne (eds.), Joystick Soldiers: The Politics of Play in Military Video Games (London: Routledge 2010) p. 40.
70. America's Army, 'America's Army: Real Heroes' (2008), available at http://www.americasarmy.com/realheroes/.
71. Again, this is a topic of vigorous conversation on the AA forum. See: http://forum.americasarmy.com/viewtopic.php?t=293423&highlight=women, accessed 16 June 2010.
72. Kumar (note 41) pp. 6-8.
73. David B. Nieborg, 'Training Recruits and Conditioning Youth: The Soft Power of Military Games', in N. B. Huntemann and M. T. Payne (eds.), Joystick Soldiers: The Politics of Play in Military Video Games (London: Routledge 2010) p. 62.
74. Margaret Davis, Russell Shilling, Alex Mayberry, Phillip Bossant, Jesse McCree, Scott Dossett, Christian Buhl, et al., Making America's Army, in America's Army PC Game: Vision and Realization (San Francisco: US Army and the Moves Institute 2004) pp. 10-11, available at http://www.movesinstitute.org/~zyda/pubs/YerbaBuenaAABooklet2004.pdf.
75. Ian Bogost, 'The Rhetoric of Video Games', in K. Salem (ed.), The Ecology of Games: Connecting Youth, Games and Learning (Cambridge: MIT Press 2008) p. 130.
76. This is not always true in other games: The expansion to Battlefield 2 permits players to choose "Insurgent" as their character. Nieborg, 'Training Recruits' (note 51) p. 54.
77. Nichols (note 47) p. 61.
78. Nina B. Huntemann, 'Interview with Colinal Casey Wardynski', in N. B. Huntemann and M. T. Payne (eds.), Joystick Soldiers: The Politics of Play in Military Video Games (London: Routledge 2010) p. 181.
79. America's Army, 'Mission: Border' (2008), available at http://www.americasarmy.com/intel/missions.php?id=36.
80. David B. Nieborg, America's Army: More than a Game Transforming Knowledge into Action Through Gaming and Simulation (München: SAGSAGA 2004) p. 2.
81. "The point is, its a joke. It is nothing serious about it, and it is a very fun way to spice up gameplay. I think AA staff should keep teabagging in the game. When your playing with friends, its more fun to teabag them when you kill them. It gives people a reason to fight- Teabag the fallen enemys. Go teabagging!"
82. See 'Eliminate Teabagging' post (11 March 2008), available at http://forum.americasarmy.com/viewtopic.php?t=274969, accessed 16 June 2010.
83. Huntemann and Payne (note 4) p. 7.
84. Kumar (note 41)
85. Power (note 3) p. 281.
86. Henry A. Giroux, 'War on Terror: The Militarising of Public Space and Culture in the United States', Third Text 18/4 (2004) p. 217.
87. Nieborg, America's Army (note 58) p. 6.
88. Gieselmann (note 14) p. 3.
89. James Der Derian, 'War as Game', Brown Journal of World Affairs 10/1 (2003) pp. 39-40.
90. Paul Barrett, 'White Thumbs, Black Bodies: Race, Violence and Neoliberal Fantasies in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas', The Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies 28/1 (2006) p. 109.
91. Nichols (note 47) p. 41.
92. Giroux (note 62) p. 217.
93. Debbie Lisle, 'Comments at Cinematic Geopolitics Roundtable', 48th Annual International Studies Association, Chicago, 2007;
94. Dyer-Witheford and de Peuter (note 4).
95. E. Casey Wardynski, 'Informing Popular Culture: The America's Army Game Concept', in M. David (ed.), America's Army PC Game: Vision and Realization (San Francisco: US Army and the Moves Institute 2004) p. 7, available at http://www.movesinstitute.org/~zyda/pubs/YerbaBuenaAABooklet2004.pdf.
96. America's Army, 'Virtual Army Experience Fact Sheet' (2010), available at http://vae.americasarmy.com/pdf/vae_factsheet.pdf.
97. Ron Gould, 'The Virtual Army Experience: Mobile Event Case Study' (2008), available at http://www.wholeinmyhead.com/Experiences_files/VAE.pdf.
98. Will Freeman, 'The Virtual Army Experience', news.cnet.com, 1 Oct. 2007, available at http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-9788521-1.html.
99. Der Derian, Virtuous War (note 18) pp. 1-10.
100. America's Army, 'Recon' (2010), available at http://www.americasarmy.com/intel/recon.php, accessed 16 June 2010.
101. Galloway (note 23) p. 79.
102. Paul, Franklin, 'Take-Two's Grand Theft Auto 4 Sales Top $500 Million', Reuters, 8 May 2008, available at http://www.reuters.com/article/hotStocksNews/idUSWNAS233520080507.
103. DeVane and Squire (note 40) p. 264.
104. A similar game, released in 2002 by the same studio Rockstar Games, pushed this conceit even further: State of Emergency's sandbox was a game world dominated by 'The Corporation' in which a rebel group 'Freedom' attempted to create anarchy. Within a mission structure that includespolitical assassination and drug dealing,
105. "The spirit of violent social upheaval seen in events like the Rodney King rebellion in Los Angeles [is transposed] into a participatory gaming environment."
106. Galloway (note 23) p. 76.
107. This is a particular geopolitics of crime and punishment that maps well onto contemporary theorisation of "government through crime" and indeed the "war on terror."
108. Jonathan Simon, 'Choosing our Wars, Transforming Governance: Cancer, Crime and Terror', in L. Amoore and M deGoede (eds.), Risk and the War on Terror (London: Routledge 2008).
109. Mikolaj Dymek and Thomas Lennerfors, 'Among Pasta-Loving Mafiosos, Drug-Selling Columbians, and Noodle-Eating Triads - Race, Humor and Interactive Ethics in Grand Theft Auto III', Proceedings of the Digital Games Research Association 2005 Conference: Changing Views Worlds in Play, 2005, p. 9.
110. Barrett (note 66) p. 95.
111. DeVane and Squire (note 40) p. 279.
112. Dymek and Lennerfors (note 81) p. 3.
113. Dean Chan, 'Playing with Race: The Ethics of Racialized Representations in E-Games', International Review of Information Ethics 4 (2005) p. 28.
114. Dyer-Witheford and de Peuter (note 4) pp. 156-158.
115. DeVane and Squire (note 40) p. 265.
116. Barrett (note 66) p. 101.
117. Dyer-Witheford and de Peuter (note 4) p. 171.
118. Stephen Graham, 'Imaging Urban Warfare: Urbanization and U.S. Military Technoscience', in D. Cowen and E. Gilbert (eds.), War, Citizenship, Territory (London: Routledge 2008) pp. 33-56.
119. Simon Bart, 'What if Baudrillard was a Gamer?', Games and Culture 2/4 (2007) pp. 355-357.
120. This was also true in the original GTA and GTA: II, which was shot in a top-down perspective (and still provides the perspective for the mini-map within the HUD).
121. Soraya Murray, 'High Art/Low Life: The Art of Playing Grand Theft Auto', Performing Arts Journal 80/27 (2005) p. 96.
122. DeVane and Squire (note 40) p. 272.
123. Murray (note 93) p. 97.
124. Stéphane Bura, 'Emotion Engineering: A Scientific Approach for Understanding Game Appeal', Gamasutra: The Art and Business of Making Games (29 July 2007), available at http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3738/emotion_engineering_a_scientific_.php?print=1, accessed 10 June 2010.
125. Kingsepp (note 27) p. 371.
126. Ibid., p. 372.
127. Dyer-Witheford and de Peuter (note 4)
128. Eric Hayot and Edward Wesp, 'Reading Game/Text: EverQuest, Alienation, and Digital Communities', Postmodern Culture 14/2 (2004);
129. Greg Lastowka, 'Planes of Power: EverQuest as Text, Game and Community', Game Studies 9/1 (2009).
130. Francois Debrix, Tabloid Terror: War, Culture and Geopolitics (London: Routledge 2008);
131. Dittmer (note 4).
132. Derek Gregory and Alan Pred (eds.), Violent Geographies: Fear, Terror, and Political Violence (London: Routledge 2007).
133. Grayson, Davies, and Philpott (note 17) p. 157.
134. Richard Grusin, Premediation: Affect and Mediality After 9/11 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan 2010).
135. Peter Y. Paik, From Utopia to Apocalypse: Science Fiction and the Politics of Catastrophe (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press 2010).
136. Jason Dittmer and Tristan Sturm (eds.), Mapping the End Times: American Evangelical Geopolitics and Apocalyptic Visions (Aldershot: Ashgate 2010).
137. Stephen Graham, Cities under Siege: The Military Urbanism (London: Verso 2010).
138. Martin Shaw, 'New Wars of the City: Relationships of 'Urbicide' and 'Genocide", in S. Graham (ed.), Cities, War, and Terrorism: Towards an urban geopolitics (Oxford: Wiley Blackwell 2004) pp. 141-153.
139. Judith Butler, 'Photography, War, Outrage', PMLA 120/3 (2005) pp. 822-827;
140. Susan Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others (New York: Picador 2004).