Empirico-theoretical contributions to the fundamentals of gameactivism

Abstract

The aim of this study is to identify the guiding principles of game activism to contribute to possible definitions of the movement, allowing similar phenomena to be identified and distinguished from other activisms. The territoriality of the research is built on the confrontation between the categories of games and their articulation with activism and the streets. Starting from the basic concept of game activism as the use of electronic games in the articulation of these languages with social and political objectives, the article will go through the movements in their different fronts of action, such as educational use, promoting social causes and criticizing the games industry. As part of ongoing research, it is based more on hypotheses than conclusions: the nature of the video game, when considering its genealogy - in this context, from commercial battles to maintaining the aesthetic ideal of graphic performance - is competitive and commercialized and a deconstructed video game demands more than inclusion policies. The deconstruction of the video game demands and participates in the dismantling of communities, commercial exchanges, labour and aesthetic concepts; the military past and the financial nature of the video game-product define a category of game, but do not limit the creative power of the video game. Crossing the debate on gamification or educational games, the question of the console, platforms and hacking in the colonizing principle of the game or narrative as power, game activism is developing in a complex context that requires careful evaluation to question the limits and possibilities of this emerging language of activism.