Security games

The coded logics of the playable war on Isis

Bibliographic Data

ID5682278
AuthorsLaini Kavaloski (0000-0001-7764-4283, SUNY Canton, corresponding author)
Year2018
Volume6
Issue1
Pages100-117
Publication date2018-01-02
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueCritical Studies on Security (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2162-4887 • E-ISSN: 2162-4909
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/21624887.2017.1409561
OpenAlexW2780893527
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited19

‘Security Games’ argues that the coded affordances of digital war games mimic and perpetuate the cultural structures that make up contemporary understandings of in/security in the ‘War on ISIS’. By tracing the possible movements and constraints in three shooter games, the logics that structure the habitus (determined by the game code and design) become apparent. While the choices of movement within the games give the player a sense of freedom, an examination of the procedural rhetorics reveal a rigid, pre-determined set of constraints that reify deep cultural narratives of violent redemption. As the game resolution gives the player a sense of procedural closure – a way to find relief from the circulations of fear and adrenaline – it forecloses alternative responses to threats of violence. By focusing on these coded logics, we begin to understand the ways that players rehearse ubiquitous cultural narratives of insecurity along with the subject formations that allow the oppositional rhetorics to make sense in the first place

Aesthetics · Affordance · Art · Cognitive psychology · Cultural capital · Epistemology · Habitus · Literature · Narrative · Political science · Social science · Sociology · Computer Science · Digital Games and Media · Gender, Feminism, and Media · Law · Psychology · Social Media and Politics

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