Emergent ecological dynamics in videogames
What player paratexts reveal
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7557/ejcgc.v16i2.7849Keywords:
ecocriticism, videogame ecologies, player paratexts, emergence, assemblageAbstract
Videogames invite players to inhabit virtual worlds that often represent or simulate ecologies. Existing conceptual frameworks for understanding these dynamics and experiences as they arise from play emphasise the role of the videogame text in structuring such meaning. This article introduces the concept of emergent ecological dynamics to explain how, within the situated and ephemeral experience of playing a videogame, new ecocritical meaning can emerge, and can be captured in user-created paratexts. Undertheorised in ecocritical game studies are player experiences of ecologies and environments that emerge in ways unanticipated and unintended by gamemakers. By drawing on explanations of assemblage, emergence, and the materiality of digital media, this article suggests a latent potential for all videogame texts to convey ecocriticality. The methodological value of addressing player paratexts—as a means for scholars to access and analyse otherwise transitory emergent ecological dynamics—is also explored. The capacity of such user-created artefacts to manifest players’ revelations of ecological entanglement, development of ecological awareness and encounters with potent sensations of affect drawn upon as examples.
References
Abraham, B. (2018a). Video game visions of climate futures: ARMA 3 and implications for games and persuasion. Games and Culture, 13(1), 71–91. https://doi.org/10.1177/1555412015603844
Abraham, B. (2018b). What is an ecological game? Examining gaming’s ecological dynamics and metaphors through the survival-crafting genre. Trace: A Journal of Writing Media and Ecology, 2. http://tracejournal.net/trace-issues/issue2/01-Abraham.html
Abraham, B. (2022). Digital games after climate change. Palgrave Macmillan.
Abraham, B., & Jayemanne, D. (2017). Where are all the climate change games? Locating digital games’ response to climate change. Transformations, 30, 74–94. http://www.transformationsjournal.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Trans30_05_abraham_jayemanne.pdf
Andiloro, A. (2023). Understanding genre as atmospheric assemblage: The case of videogames. Television & New Media, 24(5), 559–570. https://doi.org/10.1177/-15274764231171076
Apperley, T. H. (2018). Counterfactual communities: Strategy games, paratexts and the player’s experience of history. Open Library of Humanities, 4(1). https://doi.org/10.16995/olh.286
Apperley, T. H., & Jayemanne, D. (2012). Game studies’ material turn. Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture, 9(1). https://doi.org/10.16997/wpcc.145
Backe, H.-J. (2017). Within the mainstream: An ecocritical framework for digital game history. Ecozon@, 8(2). https://doi.org/10.37536/ECOZONA.2017.8.2.1362
Bedau, M. A. (2008). Downward causation and autonomy in weak emergence. In M. A. Bedau & P. Humphreys (Eds.), Emergence: Contemporary readings in philosophy and science (pp. 155–188). MIT Press.
Beer, D. (2013). Popular culture and new media. Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137270061
Bennett, J. (2010). Vibrant matter: A political ecology of things. Duke University Press.
Bianchi, M. (2014). Rhetoric and recapture: Theorising digital game ecologies through EA’s The Sims series. Green Letters, 18(3), 209–220. https://doi.org/10.1080/14688417.2014.963881
Bianchi, M. (2017). Inklings and tentacled things: Grasping at kinship through video games. Ecozon@: European Journal of Literature, Culture, and Environment, 8(2), 136–150. https://doi.org/10.37536/ECOZONA.2017.8.2.1354
Bianchi, M. (2019). Ecoplay: The rhetorics of games about nature. In S. I. Dobrin & S. Morey (Eds.), Mediating nature: The role of technology in ecological literacy (pp. 15–29). Routledge.
Bianchi, M. (2024). Beyond barren wastelands: The greening of the post-apocalypse in video games. Journal of Games Criticism, 6(A). https://gamescriticism.org/2024/09/06/bianchi-6-a/
Birke, D., & Christ, B. (2013). Paratext and digitized narrative: Mapping the field. Narrative, 21(1), 65–87. https://doi.org/10.1353/nar.2013.0003
Caracciolo, M. (2021). Animal mayhem games and nonhuman-oriented thinking. Game Studies, 21(1). https://gamestudies.org/2101/articles/caracciolo
Carter, M. (2015). Emitexts and paratexts: Propaganda in EVE Online. Games and Culture, 10(4), 311–342. https://doi.org/10.1177/1555412014558089
Chakrabarty, D. (2017). Anthropocene 1. In I. Szeman, J. Wenzel, & P. Yaeger (Eds.), Fueling culture: 101 Words for energy and environment (pp. 39–42). Fordham University Press.
Chang, A. Y. (2019). Playing nature: Ecology in video games. University of Minnesota Press.
Chang, A. Y. (2024). Change for games: On sustainable design patterns for the (digital) future. In L. op de Beke, J. Raessens, S. Werning, & G. Farca (Eds.), Ecogames: Playful perspectives on the climate crisis (pp. 73–88). Amsterdam University Press.
Consalvo, M. (2007). Cheating: Gaining advantage in video games. MIT Press.
Crutzen, P. J., & Stoermer, E. F. (2000). The “Anthropocene.” IGPB (International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme) Newsletter, 41(May), 17–18.
DeLanda, M. (2016). Assemblage theory. Edinburgh University Press.
Felczak, M. (2020). Ludic guilt, paidian joy: Killing and ecocriticism in the theHunter series. Journal of Gaming & Virtual Worlds, 12(2), 183–200. https://doi.org/10.1386/jgvw_00013_1
Fernández-Vara, C. (2014). Introduction to game analysis. Routledge.
Gan, E., Tsing, A., Swanson, H., & Bubandt, N. (2017). Introduction: Haunted landscapes of the Anthropocene. In A. Tsing, H. Swanson, E. Gan, & N. Bubandt (Eds.), Arts of living on a damaged planet: Ghosts and monsters of the Anthropocene (pp. 1–14). University of Minnesota Press.
Genette, G. (1997). Paratexts: Thresholds of interpretation. Cambridge University Press.
Ghosh, A. (2016). The great derangement: Climate change and the unthinkable. University of Chicago Press.
Golding, D. (2013). To configure or to navigate? On textual frames. In Z. Waggoner (Ed.), Terms of play: Essays on words that matter in videogame theory (pp. 28–46). McFarland & Company.
Gray, J. (2010). Show sold separately: Promos, spoilers, and other media paratexts. New York University Press.
Hammar, E. L., Jong, C., & Despland-Lichtert, J. (2023). Time to stop playing: No game studies on a dead planet. Eludamos: Journal for Computer Game Culture, 14(1), 31–54. https://doi.org/10.7557/23.7109
Hertz, G., & Parikka, J. (2012). Zombie media: Circuit bending media archaeology into an art method. Leonardo, 45(5), 424–430. https://doi.org/10.1162/LEON_a_00438
Jenkins, H. (2004). Game design as narrative architecture. In N. Wardrip-Fruin & P. Harrigan (Eds.), First person: New media as story, performance, and game (pp. 118–130). MIT Press.
Juul, J. (2005). Half-real: Video games between real rules and fictional worlds. MIT Press.
Keogh, B. (2018). A play of bodies: How we perceive videogames. MIT Press.
Klein, N. (2014). This changes everything: Capitalism vs the climate. Simon & Schuster.
Lamerichs, N. (2024). Sustainable fandom: Responsible consumption and play in game communities. In L. op de Beke, J. Raessens, S. Werning, & G. Farca (Eds.), Ecogames: Playful perspectives on the climate crisis (pp. 543–558). Amsterdam University Press.
Lewes, G. H. (1891). Problems of life and mind: The foundations of a creed (Vol. 2). Houghton, Mifflin and Company.
May, L. (2021). Digital zombies, undead stories: Narrative emergence and videogames. Bloomsbury Academic.
May, L., & Hall, B. (2023). From aesthetics to asymmetry: Contradictions of ecological play in Cities: Skylines. Games and Culture. https://doi.org/10.1177/-15554120231219729
May, L., & Hall, B. (2024). Thinking ecologically with Battlefield 2042. Game Studies, 24(1). https://gamestudies.org/2401/articles/mayhall
McCracken, E. (2013). Expanding Genette’s epitext/peritext model for transitional electronic literature: Centrifugal and centripetal vectors on Kindles and iPads. Narrative, 21(1), 105–124. https://doi.org/10.1353/nar.2013.0005
McFarlane, C. (2011). Assemblage and critical urbanism. City, 15(2), 204–224. https://doi.org/10.1080/13604813.2011.568715
Moore, J. W. (2016). Introduction: Anthropocene or Capitalocene? Nature, history, and the crisis of capitalism. In J. W. Moore (Ed.), Anthropocene or Capitalocene? Nature, history, and the crisis of capitalism (pp. 1–11). PM Press.
Mukherjee, S. (2015). Video games and storytelling: Reading games and playing books. Palgrave Macmillan.
Nicoll, B. (2023). Enjoyment in the Anthropocene: The extimacy of ecological catastrophe in Donut County. Distinktion: Journal of Social Theory, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/1600910X.2023.2188439
Nixon, R. (2013). Slow violence and the environmentalism of the poor. Harvard University Press.
op de Beke, L. (2020). Anthropocene temporality in Gaia games. KronoScope, 20(2), 239–259. https://doi.org/10.1163/15685241-12341470
op de Beke, L. (2021). Procedural futurism in climate change videogames. Alluvium: 21st-Century Writing, 21st-Century Approaches, 9(3). https://lauraopdebeke.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/from-website-procedural-futurism-in-climate-change-videogames.pdf
op de Beke, L. (2024). Dark play and the flow time of petroculture in oil-themed games. In L. op de Beke, J. Raessens, S. Werning, & G. Farca (Eds.), Ecogames: Playful perspectives on the climate crisis (pp. 295–310). Amsterdam University Press.
Parikka, J. (2015). A geology of media. University of Minnesota Press.
Parikka, J. (2016). A slow, contemporary violence: Damaged environments of technological culture. Sternberg Press.
Ruffino, P. (2020). Nonhuman games: Playing in the post-Anthropocene. In M. Coward-Gibbs (Ed.), Death, culture & leisure: Playing dead (pp. 11–25). Emerald Publishing Limited. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-83909-037-020201008
Ruffino, P. (2022). There is no cure: Paratexts as remediations of agency in Red Dead Redemption 2. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 28(2), 345–358. https://doi.org/10.1177/13548565221081062
Salen, K., & Zimmerman, E. (2003). Rules of play: Game design fundamentals. MIT Press.
Scully-Blaker, R. (2024). Reframing the backlog: Radical slowness and patient gaming. In L. op de Beke, J. Raessens, S. Werning, & G. Farca (Eds.), Ecogames: Playful perspectives on the climate crisis (pp. 505–524). Amsterdam University Press.
Seiwald, R., & Vollans, E. (2023). Introduction: Video games as networked texts. In R. Seiwald & E. Vollans (Eds.), (Not) in the game: History, paratexts, and games (pp. 1–12). De Gruyter Oldenbourg.
Sicart, M. (2011). Against procedurality. Game Studies, 11(3). http://gamestudies.org/1103/articles/sicart_ap
Sicart, M. (2022). Playthings. Games and Culture, 17(1), 140–155. https://doi.org/10.1177/15554120211020380
Steinkuehler, C. (2006). The Mangle of Play. Games and Culture, 1(3), 199–213. https://doi.org/10.1177/1555412006290440
Švelch, J. (2020). Paratextuality in game studies: A theoretical review and citation analysis. Game Studies, 20(2). https://gamestudies.org/2002/articles/jan_svelch
Taylor, T. L. (2009). The assemblage of play. Games and Culture, 4(4), 331–339. https://doi.org/10.1177/1555412009343576
Trepanier-Jobin, G., Charre-Tchang, M., & Largeaud-Ortega, S. (2024). The underrealized ecocritical potential of ABZÛ. In L. op de Beke, J. Raessens, S. Werning, & G. Farca, Ecogames: Playful perspectives on the climate crisis (pp. 311–332). Amsterdam University Press.
Watson, J. (2021). Infrastructures of play: Labor, materiality, and videogame education. Transactions of the Digital Games Research Association, 5(3) https://doi.org/10.26503/todigra.v5i3.120
Webber, N. (2023). The past as (para)text – relating histories of game experience to games as texts. In R. Seiwald & E. Vollans (Eds.), (Not) in the game: History, paratexts, and games (pp. 81–98). De Gruyter Oldenbourg.
Wright, E. (2022). Rockstar Games and American history: Promotional materials and the construction of authenticity. De Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110716610
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Lawrence May
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
How to Cite
