Playing Dystopia
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Gerald Farca
About this book
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.
Reviews
»Farca ist ein Grundlagenwerk des Computerspiel(en)s gelungen, das Strukturen des Spiels mit den Aktivitäten der Spieler verbindet.«
Supplementary Materials
Topics
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Frontmatter
1 -
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Contents
5 -
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Acknowledgments
9 -
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Introduction
11 - Part I: Towards the Video Game Dystopia
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Preface to Part I
35 -
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1. Utopia and the Dream of a Better World
37 -
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2. Dystopia: Nightmarish Worlds as Distorted Anxiety Dreams
65 -
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3. Warning, Effectiveness, and Targets of the Video Game Dystopia
113 - Part II: Playful Trial Actions in Estranged Gameworlds
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Preface to Part II
155 -
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4. Towards the Implied Player
159 -
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5. Estrangement Through World and Agency
251 - Part III: Playing Dystopia
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Preface to Part III
323 -
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6. Night-Time Dreams and Wish-Fulfilment: The Struggle for Utopia in BIOSHOCK INFINITE
325 -
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7. THE LAST OF US and the Journey to Nature
373 -
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8. Horizons and the Video Game Dystopia
403 -
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List of Abbreviations
409 -
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Glossary
411 -
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Ludography
415 -
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Bibliography
417
