Suchergebnisse

Abstract
This article starts with the observation that growth-oriented, techno-futurist narratives are predominant in climate change videogames. It then accounts for the lack of variety by arguing that these videogames are privileged expressions of premediation. Premediation cultivates a multiplicity of future scenarios, while at the same time delimiting them to suit presentist concerns, evoking a sense of inevitability and predictability strengthened by repetition. The iterative, branching temporality at work in this logic is deeply ingrained in videogames, as the trope of mastery through repetition and its analysis requires attentiveness to the affective dimensions of gameplay. If videogames are to engage with the climate crisis more productively, they must develop different temporalities in which the potentiality of the future is preserved. In this article, I analyse the games Fate of the World and The Stillness of the Wind to demonstrate how videogames premediate climate change and how they can explore other temporalities latent in the present.

Ecogames, games for change, future worlds, nonhuman epistemologies, metagaming practices

With the climate crisis and its repercussions becoming more and more tangible, games are increasingly participating in the production, circulation, and interrogation of environmental assumptions, using both explicit and implicit ways of framing the crisis. Whether they are providing new spaces to imagine and practice alternative forms of living, or reproducing ecomodernist fantasies, games as well as player cultures are increasingly tuned in to the most pressing environmental concerns. This book brings together chapters by a diverse group of established and emerging authors to develop a growing body of scholarship that explores the shape, impact, and cultural context of ecogames. The book comprises four thematic sections, Today's Challenges: Games for Change, Future Worlds: New Imaginaries, The Nonhuman Turn, and Critical Metagaming Practices. Each section explores different aspects of ecocritical engagement in and through games. As a result, the book's comprehensive scope covers a variety of angles, methodologies, and case studies, significantly expanding the field of green media studies