No. 22 (2022): Videoludic narratives and digital society: contemporary problems in pixel format

Our societies are increasingly playful and the video game is one of the spaces where a large part of the subjectivity and aesthetic education of the population is built, including the youngest. The video game, in its different genres and categorizations, has an enormous power of centrality and social representation due to its relationship with the construction of cultural identities, the diversity of its expressive forms or its projection as a universal language. Both developers and the community of players are capable of projecting on them the realities that are close to them.

As a cultural artifact, the video game carries an implicit ideology, which, like the construction of meaning, is reflected and carried out through the gaming experience, commonly known as gameplay. As such, it brings with it problems of a political, economic or social nature. War conflicts, humanitarian crises (famine, refugees), the consequences of neoliberalism, climate change, loneliness, suicide, sexual identity, racism or marginalization, are just some of them.

In this sense, video games must be understood as socio-spatial practices in which the physical world and the playful space feed off each other, especially in those video games that reflect armed conflicts inspired by real or plausible situations, as is the case of Tom Clancy's The Division franchise (2016-2018) or visions of the world with a marked colonialist character such as the Sid Meier's Civilization strategy video game saga (1991-2016). Although, as with other media, a large part of the proposals are in line with the status quo, there are others that are riskier than themes such as loneliness, relationships or the consequences of economic crises, such as Nigh in the Wood (Infinity Fall , 2017), The Stillness of the Wind (Fellow Traveler, 2019) or Kentucky Zero Route (2011-2020).

Being an eminently interactive medium, the video game as an expressive-artistic medium allows exploring the themes proposed by each particular title in a totally different and active way than the predecessor media. With this monograph we intend to analyze in depth how typical problems of our time and societies are reflected in the videoludic worlds and through the defining elements of the language of the medium. There can be no full citizenship without a playful literacy in which citizens can access the video game, can understand its meaning and can create content through the medium.