Our Towns: The Development of Cultural Engagement in Video-Game Worlds

Abstract

In the 2007 essay “Prismatic Play”, John Tynes argues that video-games are not ‘engagist’ -- which is to say, they do not engage with real-world topics applicable to their audience’s lives, citing in particular the topics of religion, politics, and culture. While scholars have discussed, before and since this article, the engagement of religion and politics in video-games, there has been scant research done into the engagement of culture. Using Tynes’ standards for engagism as a basis, this thesis will examine successful engagements of culture in the decade following his essay to prove that, whether or not examples existed prior to 2007, they have come to exist since. To collect this study of cultural engagement under a manageable topic and invite proper comparison of case studies, the specific topic of cultural engagement with video-game worlds has been selected. Video-games, more than any other medium, are adept at creating interest in space, so titles depicting the culture of spaces are easier to find than titles depicting other forms of culture. Across three case studies of video-games depicting the culture of real-life American cities by recreating them as interactive worlds -- L.A Noire and Los Angeles, Blackwell Epiphany and New York City, and Fallout: New Vegas and Las Vegas -- we will discuss how the medium has developed its use of interactivity and spatial design in particular to facilitate engagement. Though the techniques for cultural engagement in video-games have developed, they have not developed broadly enough for the medium to be considered engagist as a whole, the goal set by Tynes at the outset of his essay. This thesis will conclude with an examination of how the case studies provided show the potential for video-games as an engagist medium in the future, as its cultural engagements develop greater sophistication in the decade to come.