The game used the idea of the collapse of society and an impending civil war to set up the game’s heroes – the titular “Division” – and the player’s motivation. The Division 2 stepped into controversy by using politics as setup for its narrative and setting. But The Division 2 gives the best foundation for looking at this topic. In all honesty, I could have chosen just about any military shooter for this purpose. Now the focus of this case study will be on the controversy from a couple of years ago surrounding Tom Clancy’s The Division 2, a military shooter. This means that a game that is “not political” is still examined through the lens of things like politics, culture, morality, and society to see how the game handles those themes well or poorly.
Finally, games can be interpreted as political. This means that the game uses political themes more as a springboard for some other purpose, but in doing so still says or implies some kind of political message. Games can also be unconsciously political.
This means that the game is exploring political themes or engaging in a direct or indirect praise or criticism of political systems. So in summary of the previous material, games can be political in three ways. If you didn’t read last week’s essay, this will provide some terms to understand what’s going on. At worst, it can also be damaging in its effects.īefore leaping into the study itself, I wanted to do a brief recap of the three ways that a game could be considered “political,” to help orient us. I plan on using this case study as a way of showing that even if someone isn’t trying to make a game political, the game still ends up being political in a way that is at the very least open to criticism. We can certainly choose to ignore that role, but to criticize that role mistakes what art and entertainment are and how they work, not to mention often resorting to bad faith attacks on the politics we don’t like while allowing and normalizing the politics we do like.įor this essay I wanted to engage in a case study to help examine the role of politics and the responsibility of anyone working in video games to take care about how politics is playing a role in video games. Politics – or culture/morality/society if you prefer a broader array of concepts – is a major force in our lives, and plays a role in art and entertainment. So last week I had examined the role of politics in video games.
Words: 2416 Approximate Reading Time: 15-20 minutes
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