TY  - JOUR
A1  - Möring, Sebastian
A1  - Leino, Olli
T1  - Beyond games as political education - neo-liberalism in the contemporary computer game form
JF  - Journal of gaming & virtual worlds
N2  - This article introduces the juxtaposed notions of liberal and neo-liberal gameplay in order to show that, while forms of contemporary game culture are heavily influenced by neo-liberalism, they often appear under a liberal disguise. The argument is grounded in Claus Pias’ idea of games as always a product of their time in terms of economic, political and cultural history. The article shows that romantic play theories (e.g. Schiller, Huizinga and Caillois) are circling around the notion of play as ‘free’, which emerged in parallel with the philosophy of liberalism and respective socio-economic developments such as the industrialization and the rise of the nation state. It shows further that contemporary discourse in computer game studies addresses computer game/play as if it still was the romantic form of play rooted in the paradigm of liberalism. The article holds that an account that acknowledges the neo-liberalist underpinnings of computer games is more suited to addressing contemporary computer games, among which are phenomena such as free to play games, which repeat the structures of a neo-liberal society. In those games the players invest time and effort in developing their skills, although their future value is mainly speculative – just like this is the case for citizens of neo-liberal societies.
KW  - liberalism
KW  - neo-liberalism
KW  - gameplay
KW  - play theory
KW  - game studies
KW  - freedom
KW  - industrialization
KW  - free to play
Y1  - 2016
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1386/jgvw.8.2.145_1
SN  - 1757-191X
SN  - 1757-1928
VL  - 8
SP  - 145
EP  - 161
PB  - Intellect Ltd.
CY  - Bristol
ER  -