Critical Distance: Keywords in Play
Leisure:Video Games
Esther Wright is Lecturer in Digital History at Cardiff University. Her work is situated within the field of Historical Game Studies, critically examining how digital representations of the past found in popular visual media have the potential to shape public understandings of history. Her PhD, awarded by the University of Warwick in August 2019, is a study of Rockstar Games as developer-historian, and the company’s long-established project of negotiating and representing U.S. History in their games – in particular, focussing on Red Dead Redemption (2010), Red Dead Redemption 2 (2018), and L.A. Noire (2011). This project is forthcoming as a book entitled Rockstar Games and American History: Promotional Materials and the Construction of Authenticity (De Gruyter, 2022). Esther argues for the importance of studying promotional materials, developer branding strategies, and other kinds of paratextual materials associated with the development and release of historical digital games. These materials are important digital sites and spaces through which game developers, like Rockstar, perform the role of historian and manage expectations for "historical authenticity" among players and critics. She uses promotional materials to offer more nuanced interpretations of the influence of dominant understandings of U.S. History on game development and marketing decisions. These hegemonies, established by and through the conventions of pre-existing cultural "genres" like the Western and film noir, and popular narratives long-centred on the white and male experience, lead to games that exclude and marginalise other people and identities, and promotional practices that reaffirm exclusionary stories about America’s “real” past. Esther is also a convener of the Historical Games Network https://www.historicalgames.net/
Please consider supporting Critical Distance at https://www.patreon.com/critdistance
Production Team: Darshana Jayemanne, Zoyander Street, Emilie Reed.
Audio Direction and Engineering: Damian Stewart
Double Bass: Aaron Stewart
Transcription: Charly Harbord
Keywords in Play Episode 31 - Brendan Keogh
Keywords in Play Episode 30 - Xavier Ho
Keywords in Play Episode 29 - Stephanie Harkin
Keywords in Play Episode 28 - Felania Liu
Keywords in Play Episode 27 - Tingting Liu
Keywords in Play Episode 26 - Gejun Huang
Keywords in Play Episode 25: Florence Smith-Nicholls
Keywords in Play Episode 24: Mahli-Ann Butt, Amanda Cote, Emil Lunedal Hammar and Cody Mejeur
Keywords in Play Ep. 23: Everest Pipkin
Keywords in Play Ep. 22: Alesha Serada
Keywords in Play Ep. 21: Gregory Whistance-Smith
Keywords in Play Episode 20 - Jaroslav Švelch
Keywords in Play Episode 19 - Regina Seiwald and Ed Vollans - Paratexts
Keywords in Play Episode 17 - April Tyack on Ordinary Player Experience
Keywords in Play Episode 16 - Felan Parker on Cutural Intermediaries
Keywords in Play Episode 15 - Leon Xiao
Keywords in Play Episode 14 - Adrienne Shaw
Episode 13 - Alenda Y. Chang
Keywords in Play Episode 12 - Aaron Trammell
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
Survival Horror Podcast
The Zelda Cast
The GlockN9ne Show
Dear Dwyery
Fallout Lorecast - The Fallout Video Game & TV Lore Podcast