PHILOSOPHY OF VIDEO GAMES

Mathieu Triclot

You are facing a video game. You press the keys, move the mouse, press the pad buttons rhythmically. What happens then? What is this state so particular, bordering on vertigo and hallucination?

From the first hackers, who programmed through the night on the giant computers of American universities, to the home console, passing by the arcade room of the 1970s, which was invented each time, over in the history of video games, these are new connections to the machine, new ways of enjoying the screen.

It would be wrong to neglect these small objects which look very much like simple gadgets: they in fact concentrate the most powerful logics of informational capitalism. And this because they combine, like no other cultural form, desire, commodity and information.

Video games are little dust of dreams thanks to which capitalism is shaken from its great slumber, but they are also broken mirrors which reflect a complex image of contemporary subjectivity: by intensifying there, the logics of information management become again visible, accessible to criticism, actionable, reconfigurable, playable.

PUBLICATION DETAILS

LANGUAGE	BINDING	EDITION	ISBN	YEAR	PAGES
French	Paperback	1st Edition	9782355220388	2011	252
French	Paperback	2nd Edition	9782707197672	2018	304