Lars de Wildt

Bibles and BioShock : Affording Religious Discussion on Video Game Forums

This study sets forth to analyze and categorize attitudes shown by communities of players on internet forums, debating religious worldviews in games such as BioShock and Assassins Creed. It does so in light of the theo- and technological affordances that shape these discussions through the platforms of digital games and internet forums. Is the predominance of religion in games, as noted by other scholars, actually a topic of discussion for players themselves? And if so, which games afford discussion? What attitudes are displayed? And what are the motivations behind these attitudes? A multi-method approach is presented, analyzing 91 discussions and 20 interviews; rooted in extensive familiarization with the relevant games. Research outcomes include a typology of user attitudes, part of which actively seek out enchantment in the face of secularization. These are theorized in the context of two affordances: the theological affordances of some interactive systems to invite play with religious worldviews in a secularizing world; and the technological affordances of the internet forum as a platform that affords but shapes forum discourse.

Playing the Other: Role-playing religion in videogames

In contemporary ‘post-secular society’, videogames like Assassin’s Creed, BioShock Infinite or World of Warcraft are suffused with religious elements. Departing from a critique on studies perceiving such in-game representations as discriminatory forms of religious Othering, the main research question of this article is: how does role-playing the (non-)religious Other in games affect the worldview of players? The study is based on a qualitative analysis of in-depth interviews held with 20 international players from different (non-)religious backgrounds. Rather than seeing religion in games as representations of ‘Othering’, the analysis demonstrates that players from different (non-)religious beliefs take on different worldviews while role-playing the (non-)religious Other. Atheists relativize their own position, opening up to the logic of religious worldviews; Christians, Hindus and Muslims, in turn, compare traditions and may draw conclusions about the similarities underlying different world religions. Other players ‘slip into a secular mindset’, gradually turning towards the position of a ‘religious none’. It is concluded that playing the religious Other in videogames provides the opportunity to suspend (non-)religious worldviews and empathize with the (non-)religious Other. The relevance of these findings is related to broader sociological debates about ‘post-secular society’ and the alleged increase of religious fundamentalism, conflict and mutual Othering.

Enstranging Play: Distinguishing Playful Subjecthood from Governance

How to theorize the subject of play? The modern field of game studies knows two paradoxical ontologies of the subject of the player. One tradition regards the ‘rehearsal’ of subject positions within ludic structures as a construction of Althusserian interpellated subjects (DyerWitheford & de Peuter, 2009). Another tradition regards players as principially demystifying (Friedman, 1995) or deconstructing agents (Raessens, 2011) that, through playing, dismantle the game along with any seductive ideology or bias. My presentation works through this paradox with the aid of Miguel Sicart’s ‘skinsubject,’ and Michel Foucault’s concept of governance in order to provide a model of the subject of play as one necessarily split between the played, playing and player-subject. Firstly, philosopher and game scholar Miguel Sicart proposes a perspective on games as spaces of morality in which the player can be present. This presence of the player does not fully correlate with the player as moral subject, but is rather a “skin-subject in contact with the world outside the game, which in return does have influence over how a player experiences a certain game” (2009, 102). Already, we may distinguish in this skin-subject the played entity of the avatar among the other presented content of the game; and distinguish it from the person outside of the game. As a case study, Galactic Cafe’s The Stanley Parable (2007, 2013) proves a case in point: the game takes a lot of effort to rhetorically differentiate these distinct subjects within the context of the game.