Playing Dystopia

Is this hell or beyond? Gerald Farca describes the genre of the video game dystopia and the player's aesthetic response to participating in nightmarish gameworlds.

Video games permeate our everyday existence. They immerse players in fascinating gameworlds and exciting experiences, often inviting them in various ways to reflect on the enacted events.Gerald Farca explores the genre of dystopian video games and the player's aesthetic response to their nightmarish gameworlds. Players, he argues, will gradually come to see similarities between the virtual dystopia and their own offline environment, thus learning to stay wary of social and political developments.In his analysis, Farca draws from a variety of research fields, such as literary theory and game studies, combining them into a coherent theory of aesthetic response to dystopian games.

Auteur

Gerald Farca, born in 1983, did his doctorate at the University of Augsburg (English Literature) and is a member of the Augsburg Cultural Ecology Research Group. In 2016, the digital culture and game studies scholar worked as a visiting researcher and lecturer at the Center for Computer Games Research of the IT University in Copenhagen.

Résumé
»Farcas work [...] provides a valuable perspective on the video game narrative and the relationship between play, player, and video game.« Journal of Fantastic in the Arts, 31/3 (2020) »A valuable perspective on the video game narrative and the relationship between play, player, and video game.« Ashley P. Jones, Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts, 31/3 (2020) »Farca ist ein Grundlagenwerk des Computerspiel(en)s gelungen, das Strukturen des Spiels mit den Aktivitäten der Spieler verbindet.« Lothar Mikos, tv diskurs, 1 (2020) Besprochen in: gmk-Newsletter, 9 (2019)