Class Games and Culture

Game Design

Game and Culture

1. Games as a means to a definition of contemporary culture - Are the games narrative oriented or game oriented?  2. The games as cultural products:  

- The game as an art form, as an advertisement, as a business model, as an educational object model. 3. The games and their boundaries:  

- The colonization of games and their penetration in daily social life. 

- The games and the "normality" of the narrative contents. 

4. The games as self-reflective object:  

- The players and their identity. 

- From hypersexualized representation to racial dominance in games. 

- Why do games have races and classes? 

5. The games as a representation of the near future: 

- speculative fiction, posthumanism, technophilia, and technophobia. 

- The role of games in the current ecological crisis.

A series of innovative methodologies are implemented in all the sessions of this curricular unit:

- Active methodologies, in which the teacher mediates the training so that the student can present their point of view in class and increase their critical sense.

- Use of STEAM resources.

- The Maker Movement, as several disciplines and teachers are involved in the development of this course;

- Project-orientated teaching, in which students work in groups, with peer review, to solve challenges proposed (problems) by the class.

Chang, A. (2019). Playing Nature: Ecology in Video Games. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press 

Galloway, A. (2012). The Interface Effect. Malden: Polity Books. 

Heise, U. (2017). Imagining Extinction: The Cultural Meanings of Endangered Species. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 

Muriel, D. & Crwaford, G. (2018) VIDEO GAMES AS CULTURE Considering the Role and Importance of Video Games in Contemporary Society. London: Routledge. 

Murray, S. (2018). On Video Games The Visual Politics of Race, Gender and Space. London: I.B.Tauri. Willis, J. (2019). Gamer Nation: Video Games and American Culture. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.