Playing the Panopticon
Procedural Surveillance in Dark Souls
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2409571 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Tom Van Nuenen (0000-0002-8357-2316, Tilburg University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2016 |
| Volume | 11 |
| Issue | 5 |
| Pages | 510-527 |
| Publication date | 2016-07-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Games and Culture (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1555-4120 • E-ISSN: 1555-4139 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/1555412015570967 |
| OpenAlex | W2329349793 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 10 |
| References cited | 25 |
This article investigates discursive procedures in From Software's 2011 videogame Dark Souls. By combining procedural rhetorics, discourse analysis, and autoethnographical research play, it is argued that Dark Souls features post-Panoptical gameplay mechanics of both continuous surveillance and playful exhibitionism and a hybrid gameplay experience of both subjectivation and empowerment. Players randomly confront one another in a notoriously difficult and unforgiving game space that requires commitment and perseverance. The game, it is shown, provides a metaphor for online surveillance mechanics in which players/netizens are not just democratically gazing at each other but subjected to a procedural system determining who can see whom. Simultaneously, players are offered a number of procedural methods and moral archetypes to normalize and empower them
Aesthetics · Archetype · Art · Citizen journalism · Empowerment · Epistemology · Exhibitionism · Game studies · Liminality · Media studies · Metaphor · Panopticon · Perspective (graphical · Political science · Sociology · Computer Science · Digital Games and Media · Gender, Feminism, and Media · Law · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Media and Politics · Social Psychology · Artificial Intelligence
Disruption of Natural Order in Video Game Dark Souls
‘Thank you for your compliance’
Trash or Treasure
Fantasies of Adequacy
(Mis)Representations of Prison
Actions and digital empathy in the interactive storytelling of serious games
Procedural (E)motion
Myth, ideology and utopia in Dark Souls
Virtual Total Control
Using panopticism to theorize the social role of the body in competitive gaming and electronic sport
The electronic eye
The simulation of surveillance
Towards a Critical Theory of Surveillance in Informational Capitalism
Writing Culture
Identity Technologies
The Right to Look
Unit Operations
The Googlization of Everything
On Postmodern Uses of Sex
The Video Game Theory Reader 2
Surveillance after September 11
The Political Philosophy of Michel Foucault
Persuasive Games
Software Takes Command
Webcams, TV Shows and Mobile phones
What's New About the "New Surveillance"? Classifying for Change and Continuity
Liquid Surveillance
Cam Era' - the contemporary urban Panopticon
Sousveillance
Panopticon in Poona
On Postmodern Uses of Sex
The birth of biometric security
Post-Panopticism
| Unique citing works | 10 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2016 - 2026 (11) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 10 |