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All the animals are gone? The politics of contemporary hunter arcade games.

journal contribution
posted on 2010-03-26, 00:00 authored by Naarah Sawers, Kristin DemetriousKristin Demetrious
Recent proliferation and popularity of personal computer and console games has meant that scholarship around video arcade games has been largely ignored. Arcade games had their halcyon days during the 1970s and 1980s when 'Space Invaders', 'Pong' and 'Donkey Kong' were household names. The inception of scholarship into games occurred in the 1990s; a time when arcade games were writ small in the cultural imagination, at least compared to the newer home computer and video games. Thus in games theory they are typically discussed only in terms of their role as antecedents to their more popular kin. Moreover, they seem innocuous because they are so publicly accessible. Against this assumption, and lack of scholarship, this paper explores a selection of contemporary arcade games which we describe as 'hunting' games. Arcade hunting games are first-person shooter (FPS) involving one or more players shooting simulated wild animals. They are commonly situated in cinema foyers, hotels, and family entertainment centres. However, despite a presumption of institutional moderation afforded by the public accessibility of these spaces, this paper argues that this genre works through a range of political modalities that require more scholarly consideration than currently given.

History

Journal

Continuum : journal of media and cultural studies

Volume

24

Issue

2

Pagination

241 - 250

Publisher

Routledge

Location

Melbourne, Vic.

ISSN

1030-4312

eISSN

1469-3666

Language

eng

Publication classification

C1 Refereed article in a scholarly journal

Copyright notice

2010, Taylor & Francis

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