Gameworld Geographies: Simulated Realities and Abstracted Geopolitical Futures in Videogame Spaces

This research will explore the unique convergence between real world geopolitical affairs and the increasingly complex virtual spaces of twenty-first century videogames. The role of popular culture in the making and remaking of human geographies has been termed 'popular geopolitics' in academic spheres, with more scholars publishing work on the significance of geopolitical narratives within film and comic books (Aitken & Zonn, 1994; Dittmer, 2010 & 2014; Dodds, 1996; Dunnett, 2009). Unfortunately, despite hosting a multiplicity of processes beyond the realm of possibility in traditional media, videogames are largely neglected in scholarly studies due to their stigmatisation as low forms of art with a negative societal impact. However, despite being commonly branded as childish and base, these simulative worlds are a progressive area of academic interest (Ash, 2009; Flanagan, 2009; Lastowka, 2009; Shaw & Warf, 2009).

This project aims to explore the mediation between human experience and computational technologies in creating the individual cyborgian experience associated with playing videogames (Haraway, 1991). Digital technologies have enabled the creation of new geographic dimensions which were once inconceivable. These simulated spaces and 'lived abstractions' are emergent, constantly in the making, increasingly reflective of real-world processes of spatial coding, embedded with ever-expanding degrees of individual agency, and developing new ways of harnessing the 'affective potentials' of human emotion (Massumi, 2011; Shaw, 2009). Geopolitical debates are gradually being introduced into videogame settings, with recent studies conducted on the virtual geographies of Tomb Raider, Call of Duty, and Grand Theft Auto IV (Bos, 2015 & 2016; Hughes, 2010; Salter, 2011). However, research into the real world implications of 'imaginary play spaces' has yet to be explored (Shaw & Sharp, 2013: 3).

Proposed Research Questions
i. How are the utopian and dystopian worlds of videogames spatially and temporally influenced by and mimetic of real world geopolitical conditions?
ii. What are the motivations behind the creation and development of these unique virtual worlds by particular game developers?
iii. Can the alternate geopolitical realities of the gameworld be used as a speculative tool to pre-empt the future?

Using modern open-world videogames such as the post-apocalyptic role-playing game Fallout 4 (2015) as case studies, this research will expand the frontier of ethnographic study. Videogames liberate ethnography from the confines of physical human experience, and accommodate the labyrinthine passage of real-world performances into the gameworld of hyperbolic action. Gameworld environments were once considered to be virtual worlds isolated from reality by a computative membrane known as the 'magic circle'; however, this research proposes the gradual dismantlement of the boundaries between reality and simulation, through the increasingly comprehensive construction of interactive abstracted worlds (Malaby, 2007). Brian MacNamee (2009) claims that the simulative worlds of videogames produce an 'illusion of life', but this project argues that these representational worlds are less illusionary, and more visionary.

Through the amalgamation of auto and cyber-ethnographic methods, plus more traditional ethnographic research methods, the construction of unique gameworld assemblages will be assessed from a critical geopolitical perspective. The motives behind the development of individual gameworld environments, and their differences and similarities to the real world will be addressed though interviews with game developers, such as the American company Bethesda Game Studios. In addition to this, ethnographic interviews will be conducted with the everyday players who immerse themselves in the simulated worlds of videogames, through an engagement with gaming communities.