Gaming

Historical settings have played a prominent role in digital games for several decades. In order to understand the playing of these historical games as a form of reenactment, it is important to recognize reenactments as acts of self-referential performativity. Digital games can best be understood as algorithmic artifacts that dialectically provide a mediated representation, requiring active input from player in order to move that representation forward. From the onset of gaming as a cultural phenomenon in the 1950s and 1960s, the creation of digital games has been firmly embedded in a male-dominated and commercial, entertainment-oriented production network that is militaristic in origin and reproduces Western-centric conceptions of history. The design of the game follows the premises of serious gaming, which is centered on ludic engagement for purposes other than entertainment, namely education and training. More broadly, scholars such as M. Flanagan have argued for the creation of games that aim for artistic expression, critical reflection, and social change.