[Commlist] CfP: Special Issue in Games & Culture on Games of Empire

*Call for Papers: Games of Empire 10 Years Later - Special Issue in 
/Games & Culture/*


2019 marks ten years since the publication of Nick Dyer-Witheford and 
Greig de Peuter’s seminal /Games of Empire/. Adopting the concept of 
Empire from Italian autonomous Marxist authors Michael Negri & Antonio 
Hardt, the book is considered one of the hallmarks of videogame cultural 
criticism. Situated within Western video game scholarship of the early 
2000’s, the book reminded many that critical analysis informed by social 
theory is vital to capturing the phenomena of videogame production 
processes, and the power hierarchies they derive from and reproduce.

Ten years later, today, it is impossible to ignore the significance that 
the book – despite its flaws – has shown in addressing the 
under-researched political aspects of the global videogame industry and 
cultures. At the same time, it is impossible to ignore the ever-pressing 
need for cultural and materialist criticism within game studies. There 
are many elephants in the room – the inequities of the global games 
labour market, the growing Game Workers unionization and the 
international solidarity necessary for it, the games industry’s 
contribution to the expansion and consolidation of global corporate 
interests, the revitalization of fascism in and around games, and the 
reproduction of colonialism under conditions of globalised supply chains 
and markets. In light of this, many researchers are returning to the 
question of how conditions of production highlight the inherently 
politicized nature of videogames as a global 21st century cultural 
industry, prompting them to explore how it can be subjected to critical 
analysis, to inform interventions both by scholars and by workers in the 
sector. /Games of Empire/, specifically, while an opportune starting 
point for critical analysis everywhere, is not without its limits. 
Indeed, while Dyer-Witheford and de Peuter and others (e.g., Banks & 
Cunningham, 2013; Nieborg, 2011; O’Donnell, 2014; Deuze, 2007), have 
shown that it is possible (and publishable) to inspect and critique the 
role of the videogames industry in the world, much remains to be said 
about both.

Contemporary phenomena emblematic to videogames’ culture and industry 
require scholarly and critical addressing – issues such as the cultural 
and economic imperialism of global videogame companies; the 
platformization of culture (Nieborg & Poell, 2018); the privileging and 
problematization of indie and intersectional production (Martin & Deuze, 
2009; Ruffino, 2012; Shaw, 2009); the consolidation of cultural and 
economic power via the dynamics of monopoly capitalism and imperialism, 
including the exploitative structure of platforms that turn players into 
workers and information into commodities capturing the cultural activity 
of play as seen in free-to-play and so-called lootbox business models 
(Joseph 2017); the mutually beneficial relationship between corporate 
grassroots movements such as Gamergate and multinational companies’ 
exploitation of their workers (Keogh 2018; Polansky 2018); the material 
and ecological ramifications of always-online infrastructures, planned 
obsolescence, videostreaming, and so-called cloud-based gaming; the 
cultural and economic conditions that maintain and reproduce what Fron, 
Fullerton, Morie, & Pearce called “the Hegemony of Play” (2007) ; the 
game industry’s intersecting matrix of domination (Collins 2002) along 
racial, gendered, sexual, class, language, ethnic, and bodily 
dimensions; and so on. Even within the nebulous discipline of game 
studies itself, questions of Empire are in dire need of addressing 
(Russworm 2018), especially against the background of positionality , 
the politics of citation, academia as a colonial force, bourgeois 
conferences overrepresenting Western, privileged and tenure-track 
participants able to pay extravagant fees (Butt, et al., 2018), as well 
as the relationship between industry and research. As such, the initial 
discussions motivated by Dyer-Witheford and de Peuter’s research remain 
as, if not more, relevant than ever. It is crucial that similar critical 
investigations are contemporarily re-articulated to highlight paths and 
strategies to understand videogames today as symptoms of a deeply unjust 
state of the world, and perhaps to transform the structures that 
reproduce this state.

To do so, this special issue of /Games & Culture/ invites authors in 
game studies, cultural studies, production studies, and related 
disciplines to engage in a dialogue with /Games of Empire /and the 
themes of global capitalism, videogame production as global cultural 
industry, and related themes of Empire, inequality, and hegemony. This 
dialogue can be based on contemporary and ongoing research, both 
theoretical and empirical, into videogame production today. Possible 
papers could include themes such as:

  * /Empire and multitude in the contemporary games sector///
  * /Cognitive capitalism and work in the globalised production chain///
  * /Machinic subjects in the post-platform era///
  * /Social theory in game studies (post-Empire)///
  * /Platform capitalism///
  * /Working conditions in videogame production///
  * /Nomad game making///
  * /Major and minor subjectivity in game production///
  * /Making desiring subjects///
  * /21st century imperialism and monopoly capitalism///
  * /Comparative production cultures: difference and continuity between
    (national) production cultures///
  * /Postcolonialism, empire, and emancipation///
  * /Cultural production in the margins: Games & workers of the
    so-called global south.///
  * /Unionization efforts among game workers (Game Workers Unite,
    #AsAGameWorker, etc.)///
  * /Empire through & within academia and game studies///
  * /The Military-Industrial-Media-Entertainment Network, in and outside
    of the imperial core///
  * /The ecological and material aspects of the global games industry in
    the Age of the Capitalocene///

These themes can be interpreted broadly. When submitting an extended 
abstract, please identify explicitly how your proposed submission 
responds to /Games of Empire/, including developing one of its concepts, 
critiquing its arguments, or reflecting back on its significance in 
contemporary research.

*Timeline*

Extended abstracts should be submitted by *March 1st 2019*. Notification 
of abstract acceptance by April 1st 2019.

Full manuscripts (approximately 5.000 words) of accepted abstracts are 
due *September 6th 2019*. Notification of manuscript acceptance by 
November 4^th 2019.

Final publications of 5-6 accepted articles in /Games & Culture/ are 
expected around *June 2020*

**

*Submission process*

Submissions should comprise of

  * Extended abstracts between 800-1000 words excluding bibliography.
  * Author information (short biographical statement of 200 words)
Please submit to Emil Hammar ((emil.hammar /at/ uit.no) 
<mailto:(emil.hammar /at/ uit.no)>) by *March 1^st 2019*.


---------------
The COMMLIST
---------------
This mailing list is a free service offered by Nico Carpentier. Please use it responsibly and wisely.
--
To subscribe or unsubscribe, please visit http://commlist.org/
--
Before sending a posting request, please always read the guidelines at http://commlist.org/
--
To contact the mailing list manager:
Email: (nico.carpentier /at/ vub.ac.be)
URL: http://nicocarpentier.net
---------------