Playing Utopia

The anthology examines playful utopias from two perspectives: utopias in digital games as well as utopias of the digital game.

Media narratives inform our ideas of the future and Games are currently making a significant contribution to this medial reservoir. On the one hand, Games demonstrate a particular propensity for fantastic and futuristic scenarios. On the other hand, they often serve as an experimental field for the latest media technologies. However, while dystopias are part of the standard gaming repertoire, Games feature utopias much less frequently. Why?This anthology examines playful utopias from two perspectives. It investigates utopias in digital Games as well as utopias of the digital game; that is, the role of ludic elements in scenarios of the future.

Auteur
Benjamin Beil (Prof. Dr. phil.) is Professor for Media Studies & Digital Culture at the Department of Media Culture & Theatre at the University of Cologne.Gundolf S. Freyermuth (Prof. Dr. phil.) is Professor of Media and Game Studies and founding co-director at the Cologne Game Lab of TH Koeln-University of Technology, Arts and Sciences, as well as Professor of Comparative Media Studies at the ifs international film school of Cologne.Hanns Christian Schmidt is a professor for Game Design at Macromedia University for Applied Sciences (Cologne) and a research assistant at the Institute of Media Culture and Theater at the University of Cologne.