A Field Guide to Monsters: Practices of Wildlife Watching in Video Games
First author: BianchiYear: 2024
Abstract
Studies in ecocriticism demonstrate the potential of mainstream video games to offer diverse and rigorous considerations for the nonhuman. Continuing conversations about how these artifacts present the nonhuman, this chapter examines games such as New Pokémon Snap and Monster Hunter Rise, which emphasize observing and photographing nonhuman creatures. Specifically, the chapter asks, How do these games characterize practices of observing and documenting wildlife? What do they teach players about producing and circulating wildlife images? To offer answers, the chapter connects video game analyses to beliefs and practices about visually reproducing actual animals. Ultimately, these games demonstrate how video game play might reify troubling aspects of the human–animal divide while also supporting critical perspectives about players’ ecological agency towards the nonhuman.Details
Language: EnglishCountry of affiliation: United States
Published in: Ecogames: Playful Perspectives on the Climate Crisis
Publication type: Book chapter
Source: https://doi.org/10.2307/jj.10819591.30
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