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Postcolonial Perspectives in Game Studies
Since the first key publications in the nineties on videogames research in Humanities and Social Sciences contexts, the field of Game Studies has become an established platform for discussion and debate on how games contribute to our cultural, social and aesthetic experiences. Game Studies has, consequently, taken up debates on diversity and inclusion, time and again. Following the return of radical reactionary and conservative forces across the globe, the recent bigoted GamerGate controversy provoked incisive discussions on gender, and questions of race in games have also been at the forefront of such debates. Not much, however, has been said about the representation of colonialism, empire and neo-colonialism in videogames although some of the very earliest games have featured these issues, sometimes in problematic ways. As games perpetuate past and present global power structures in relation to inequalities in material wealth, exploitation of labor, and hegemonic articulations of history and the Other, it is necessary for game studies not only to bring these issues to light, but also critically to analyse the relationship between videogames and existing postcolonial power relationships. Analysing games as disparate as Age of Empires, Far Cry 2 and Assassin’s Creed: Freedom Cry reveal intrinsic questions about how the ludic relates to colonialism and how it informs the postcolonial experience.

Postcolonial Perspectives in Game Studies

Casual Empire: Video Games as Neocolonial Praxis
Casual Empire: Video Games as Neocolonial Praxis

Sabine Harrer

2018-01-30 Volume 4 • Issue 1 • 2018 • 5

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Special Collection: Postcolonial Perspectives in Game Studies

Geralt of Poland: The Witcher 3 Between Epistemic Disobedience and Imperial Nostalgia
Geralt of Poland: The Witcher 3 Between Epistemic Disobedience and Imperial Nostalgia

Tomasz Z. Majkowski

2018-01-30 Volume 4 • Issue 1 • 2018 • 6

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Special Collection: Postcolonial Perspectives in Game Studies

Who Made Your Phone? Compassion and the Voice of the Oppressed in Phone Story and Burn the Boards
Who Made Your Phone? Compassion and the Voice of the Oppressed in Phone Story and Burn the Boards

Víctor Navarro-Remesal and Beatriz Pérez Zapata

2018-02-19 Volume 4 • Issue 1 • 2018 • 11

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Special Collection: Postcolonial Perspectives in Game Studies

Facing Fanon: Examining Neocolonial Aspects in Grand Theft Auto V through the Prism of the Machinima Film Finding Fanon II
Facing Fanon: Examining Neocolonial Aspects in Grand Theft Auto V through the Prism of the Machinima Film Finding Fanon II

Steffen Krüger

2018-02-23 Volume 4 • Issue 1 • 2018 • 12

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Special Collection: Postcolonial Perspectives in Game Studies

The Work of Postcolonial Game Studies in the Play of Culture
The Work of Postcolonial Game Studies in the Play of Culture

Soraya Murray

2018-03-01 Volume 4 • Issue 1 • 2018 • 13

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Special Collection: Postcolonial Perspectives in Game Studies

Settler Colonialism in the Digital Age: Clash of Clans, Territoriality, and the Erasure of the Native
Settler Colonialism in the Digital Age: Clash of Clans, Territoriality, and the Erasure of the Native

Jacob Euteneuer

2018-03-23 Volume 4 • Issue 1 • 2018 • 14

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Special Collection: Postcolonial Perspectives in Game Studies

Counterfactual Communities: Strategy Games, Paratexts and the Player’s Experience of History
Counterfactual Communities: Strategy Games, Paratexts and the Player’s Experience of History

Tom Apperley

2018-03-23 Volume 4 • Issue 1 • 2018 • 15

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Special Collection: Postcolonial Perspectives in Game Studies

Representations of Colonialism in Three Popular, Modern Board Games: Puerto Rico, Struggle of Empires, and Archipelago
Representations of Colonialism in Three Popular, Modern Board Games: Puerto Rico, Struggle of Empires, and Archipelago

Cornel Borit, Melania Borit and Petter Olsen

2018-04-10 Volume 4 • Issue 1 • 2018 • 17

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Special Collection: Postcolonial Perspectives in Game Studies

Hybridity, Reflexivity and Mapping: A Collaborative Ethnography of Postcolonial Gameplay
Hybridity, Reflexivity and Mapping: A Collaborative Ethnography of Postcolonial Gameplay

Sybille Lammes and Stephanie de Smale

2018-04-10 Volume 4 • Issue 1 • 2018 • 19

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Special Collection: Postcolonial Perspectives in Game Studies

CosmoCult Card Game: A Methodological Tool to Understand the Hybrid and Peripheral Cultural Consumption of Young People
CosmoCult Card Game: A Methodological Tool to Understand the Hybrid and Peripheral Cultural Consumption of Young People

Wilson Roberto Bekesas, Mauro Berimbau, Renato Vercesi Mader, Joana Angelica Pellerano and Viviane Riegel

2018-04-24 Volume 4 • Issue 1 • 2018 • 21

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Special Collection: Postcolonial Perspectives in Game Studies

Decolonising the Games Curriculum: Interventions in an Introductory Game Design Course
Decolonising the Games Curriculum: Interventions in an Introductory Game Design Course

Hanli Geyser

2018-06-11 Volume 4 • Issue 1 • 2018 • 33

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Special Collection: Postcolonial Perspectives in Game Studies

Introduction to the Special Issue on Postcolonial Perspectives in Game Studies
Introduction to the Special Issue on Postcolonial Perspectives in Game Studies

Souvik Mukherjee and Emil Lundedal Hammar

2018-11-06 Volume 4 • Issue 2 • 2018 • 33

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Special Collection: Postcolonial Perspectives in Game Studies

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