Faculty of Humanities, Social Sciences and Education Producing & Playing Hegemonic Pasts Historical Digital Games as Memory-Making Media Emil Lundedal Hammar A dissertation for the degree of Philosophiae Doctor - November 2019 1 Table of Contents i. Abbreviations .................................................................................................................................. 6 ii. List of articles ................................................................................................................................. 6 iii. Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................................ 7 iv. Preface ............................................................................................................................................ 9 Part I Introductory chapter to this dissertation ...................................................................................... 11 1 Overview of the introductory chapter ........................................................................................... 11 2 Research hypothesis and questions ............................................................................................... 12 3 Findings ........................................................................................................................................ 15 4 Methods ........................................................................................................................................ 16 4.1 Formal analysis...................................................................................................................... 16 4.2 Quantitative analysis ............................................................................................................. 16 4.3 Reception analysis ................................................................................................................. 17 4.4 Qualitative interviews ............................................................................................................ 19 4.5 Summary of methods ............................................................................................................. 20 5 Theoretical framework.................................................................................................................. 22 5.1 Memory studies ..................................................................................................................... 22 5.1.1 Collective memory ........................................................................................................ 24 5.1.2 Cultural memory ............................................................................................................ 26 5.2 Encoding / decoding media ................................................................................................... 29 5.3 Hegemony ............................................................................................................................. 31 5.3.1 Mnemonic hegemony .................................................................................................... 33 5.3.2 Mnemonic hegemony, culture, and media..................................................................... 34 5.4 Summary of history, cultural memory, media, and hegemony ............................................. 35 5.5 The encoding and decoding of digital games ........................................................................ 36 5.5.1 Encoding and political economy ................................................................................... 36 5.5.2 Decoding and reception ................................................................................................. 37 5.5.3 Tensions between encoding and decoding .................................................................... 39 5.6 Game analysis........................................................................................................................ 40 5.6.1 Games as cybermedia .................................................................................................... 41 5.6.2 The analysis of historical digital games as cultural memory ......................................... 43 5.6.3 Erll’s intra-, inter-, and –pluri-medial analysis of games .............................................. 45 5.7 Summary of encoding, decoding, and game analysis ............................................................ 47 6 A quantitative content analysis of mnemonic hegemony in realist historical digital games ........ 48 6.1 Research background ............................................................................................................ 48 2 6.2 Selection criteria .................................................................................................................... 48 6.3 Analytical categories ............................................................................................................. 49 6.3.1 Conflict resolution mechanic ......................................................................................... 49 6.3.2 Moral (dis)engagement factors ...................................................................................... 49 6.3.3 Geographical region and historical period..................................................................... 50 6.3.4 Conflict type .................................................................................................................. 50 6.3.5 Transgressivity .............................................................................................................. 51 6.3.6 Budget ........................................................................................................................... 51 6.4 Table ...................................................................................................................................... 52 6.5 Data analysis.......................................................................................................................... 64 6.6 Discussion ............................................................................................................................. 67 6.7 The political economy of the digital games industry ............................................................ 68 7 Selecting games for analysis ......................................................................................................... 74 8 Project findings - the intersection of games, play, memory, hegemony ....................................... 78 9 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................... 80 10. References ....................................................................................................................................... 82 Part II Research Articles 1-4 ............................................................................................................... 101 Article 1: Counter-Hegemonic Commemorative Play: Marginalized Pasts and the Politics of Memory in the Digital Game Assassin’s Creed: Freedom Cry ....................................................... 102 Abstract ....................................................................................................................................... 102 Producing the Past in the Present - Cultural Memory, Hegemony, & Digital Games ................ 102 History as Entertainment Commodity - Freedom Cry & the Assassin’s Creed Series ............... 104 Playing the Past through Representation & Procedures ............................................................. 105 Rising up against Slavery in a Virtual Caribbean ....................................................................... 106 A Holistic Understanding of Representation & Mechanical System.......................................... 107 Simulating Race & Historical Trauma within Hegemony .......................................................... 109 Decoding & Situated Play .......................................................................................................... 112 Counter-hegemonic commemorative play - Recognition of identity & memory ....................... 115 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................. 116 Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................... 117 References .................................................................................................................................. 117 Article 2: Playing Virtual Jim Crow in Mafia III - Prosthetic Memory via Historical Digital Games and the Limits of Mass Culture ....................................................................................................... 121 Short description ......................................................................................................................... 121 Abstract ....................................................................................................................................... 121 3 Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 121 Cultural & Prosthetic Memory ..................................................................................................