Videogames, the Anthropocene, and Other Problems of Scale:Methodological Notes for the Study of Digital Games in Times of Ecological Crisis

In this article I critique and evaluate a number of methodological approaches to the study of videogames and their relationship to the Anthropocene. I identify two dominant tendencies. Firstly, videogames are seen as tools that can potentially inform and educate their players about humanity’s impact on our planet, and possibly suggest virtuous behaviours. Secondly, videogames are analysed for their strategies of representing the Anthropocene, for example, for the ways in which they depict the natural environment or imagine a post-human world. I call these the ‘instrumental’ and ‘representational’ approaches. Both methods of research and game design are valid and useful in many ways, and both rely on their scalability: through repeated engagement with videogames that draw on the instrumental and/or representational approach, players’ reflections on their experience are argued to scale up and influence future behaviour and thinking in real life. I suggest that, in parallel with these methods of critique and design, we can consider the possibility that the Anthropocene is transpiring and leaking into our entertainment practices, becoming visible through molecular and situated encounters. Players might occasionally articulate their fears and anxieties about the ‘Age of Man’ while responding to videogames that are not explicitly about the Anthropocene. This article argues that the scalability of players’ interpretations can be re-evaluated in all its complexity and unpredictability when exploring the potential of the medium of videogames to open up a post-anthropocentric imagination. This article considers a number of examples from game design, drawing on Timothy Morton’s notions of hyperobjects and subscendence, and Joanna Zylinska’s and Anna Tsing’s reassessment of the notion of scale.