Ecogames (Sammelband)

The Book

With the climate crisis and its short-term repercussions becoming more and more ‘tangible,’ videogames are increasingly participating in the production, circulation, and questioning of environmental assumptions. Whether they are providing new spaces to practice alternative ways of living, or reproducing ecomodernist fantasies, videogames as well as player cultures are increasingly tuned in to the most pressing environmental concerns. The planned edited volume builds on the growing body of scholarship that explores this phenomenon and aims to situate it within the field of the environmental humanities and, more specifically, green media studies, moving beyond its initial focus on environmental cinema, documentaries, and television.

Our mission is to demonstrate the variety of ways in which environmental questions, hopes, and concerns surface in videogames and player cultures, the different roles they can play in fomenting ecological awareness and activism, as well as the ethical, political, and aesthetic pitfalls that continue to challenge such examples of ludic engagement. To cater to this diversity, as well as to the diversity in the range of approaches and viewpoints apparent in environmental videogame scholarship, the book will comprise four sections. We consider these four sections to cover the scope of the entire field, from human to nonhuman dimensions, questions of gaming and metagaming, to contemporary challenges and future imaginaries.