Overview
- Looks at representations of the poor and impoverished in videogames
- Contributes to an established and expanding field concerned with identity in gaming cultures
- Considers how the academic area of inquiry known as game studies has developed over time
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Table of contents (6 chapters)
Keywords
About this book
This book argues that videogames address contemporary, middle-class anxieties about poverty in the United States. The early chapters consider gaming as a modern form of slumming and explore the ways in which titles like The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and World of Warcraft thematize poverty. The argument turns to the field of literary studies to identify analytical frameworks for addressing and understanding these themes. Throughout, the book considers how the academic area of inquiry known as game studies has developed over time, and makes use of such scholarship to present, frame, and value its major claims and findings. In its conclusion, the book models how poverty themes might be identified and associated for the purpose of gaining greater insights into how games can shape, and also be shaped by, the player’s economic expectations.
Reviews
“Representations of Poverty in Videogames is a must-read book for any scholar interested in the intersection of video games, poverty studies, and player experience. Crowley provides a compellingly precise argument that clarifies the often-murky concept of poverty as deployed in the study of video games. His insights will prompt all of us to rethink concepts like poverty, lore, slumming, romance, and economy in the games we play and study.” (Mike Piero, Professor of English, Cuyahoga Community College, USA, and author of Video Game Chronotopes and Social Justice: Playing on the Threshold (Palgrave, 2021))
“Adam Crowley provides a comprehensive structural analysis of game design and play states regarding poverty, the impoverished, and class representations. Impressive in its scope and coverage, Adam’s research is an astonishingly sweeping yet thorough framework for Game Studies in the early twenty-first century, noting the field’s signature research as well as salient predictions for Game Studies’ future as a discipline. Representations of Poverty in Videogames is certain to be referenced henceforth as a seminal work of scholarship that charts our path forward.” (Daniel Reardon, Associate Professor and Associate Chair in the Department of English & Technical Communication, Missouri University of Science and Technology, USA)
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Adam Crowley is Professor of English and Director of Composition at Husson University, USA. He is author of The Wealth of Virtual Nations: Videogame Currencies (2017).
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Representations of Poverty in Videogames
Authors: Adam Crowley
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-00144-4
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media Studies, Literature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-031-00143-7Published: 01 June 2022
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-031-00146-8Published: 02 June 2023
eBook ISBN: 978-3-031-00144-4Published: 31 May 2022
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XI, 163
Topics: Culture and Technology, Popular Culture , Game Development