{"id":14727,"date":"2014-12-30T00:48:46","date_gmt":"2014-12-30T00:48:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/dreamingdigitalplay-we-understand-videogames\/"},"modified":"2014-12-30T00:48:46","modified_gmt":"2014-12-30T00:48:46","slug":"dreamingdigitalplay-we-understand-videogames","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/dreamingdigitalplay-we-understand-videogames\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

dreamingdigitalplay<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

we understand videogames, historically, as the aesthetic form of rationalization<\/a><\/p>\n

~<\/p>\n

we therefore argue that any engagement with videogames as a medium must be conscious of the context of their production in a capitalist system<\/p>\n

~<\/p>\n

we know that any analysis of videogames and their place within global capitalism must move beyond contexts of development and play to the extraction of resources<\/a> and the production of material technologies<\/a><\/p>\n

~<\/p>\n

we are skeptical towards technological progressivism \u2014 the belief, rampant in videogames culture, that technological development is linear and universally positive<\/p>\n

~<\/p>\n

we see contemporary problems in videogames cultures as going beyond negative representations and the entitlement of white male consumer-kings<\/a>, ultimately connecting to deeper issues around the dominant forms of videogames themselves<\/p>\n

~<\/p>\n

we appreciate, nonetheless, the ability of digital games to facilitate playful relationships between people<\/p>\n

~<\/p>\n

we consider play to be a powerful force<\/a> for building relationships and imagining beyond our current circumstances<\/p>\n

~<\/p>\n

we believe that games serve play<\/a> and not the other way around<\/p>\n

~<\/p>\n

we recognize games as abstractions designed by human beings<\/p>\n

~<\/p>\n

we respect careful abstraction while reminding ourselves that the map is not the territory and that maps are political artifacts<\/p>\n

~<\/p>\n

we build small things<\/a> in resistance to the fantasy of the perfect simulation and the notion that scale correlates with importance<\/p>\n

~<\/p>\n

we describe polish as poison not out of a romantic appreciation of roughness but because polish is an imperative of capital<\/p>\n

~<\/p>\n

we value the glitch<\/a>, not as crude aesthetic, but because it disrupts fantasy<\/p>\n

~<\/p>\n

we distrust avatars because they too often function as glorified digital limbs<\/p>\n

~<\/p>\n

we emphasize the giving<\/a> and receiving<\/a> of care as valuable functions of digital games and because caring has been marginalized<\/a> as a form of feminine labour in favor of shocking, disturbing or, at best, enabling the player in the worst possible sense<\/p>\n

~<\/p>\n

we cherish escapism insofar as it is a queer escape<\/a> that challenges us to imagine beyond the here and now<\/p>\n

~<\/p>\n

we dream of utopic worlds through play in the midst of bleakness \u2014 contrary to those who would dismiss our dreaming as a luxury \u2014 because it is in the bleakest moments that visions of alternatives are the most necessary<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

dreamingdigitalplay: we understand videogames, historically, as the aesthetic form of rationalization ~ we therefore argue that any engagement with videogames as a medium must be conscious of the context of their production in a capitalist system ~ we know that any analysis of videogames and their place within global capitalism must move beyond contexts of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-words"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6PWot-3Px","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14727\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}