Story Mode
Video Games and the Interplay between Consoles and Culture
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- $25.99
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- $25.99
Publisher Description
Once considered niche, fringe, and the hobby of only outsiders or loners, video games have rapidly become one of the most popular and influential artistic forms of this century. Their imagery is near ubiquitous—children, adults, and even professional athletes know what a Fortnite dance is without having played the game, and every conversation about violence in media eventually turns toward Grand Theft Auto. We’ve reached a point where, through streaming platforms like Twitch, games don’t even need to be played to be enjoyed, as whole robust communities form around watching others play. Games have grown into more than just products; they’re touchstones, meaning that they’ve become popular enough for something radical to have happened: even while culture shapes our games, games have simultaneously begun shaping our culture.
In Story Mode, video games critic and host of the No Cartridge podcast TrevorStrunk traces how some of the most popular and influential game series have changed over years and even decades of their continued existence and growth. We see how the Call of Duty games—once historical simulators that valorized conflicts like World War II—went “modern,” complete with endless conflicts, false flag murders of civilians, and hyperadvanced technology. It can be said that Fortnite’s runaway popularity hinges on a competition for finite resources in an era of horrific inequality. Strunk reveals how these shifts occurred as direct reflections of the culture in which games were produced, thus offering us a uniquely clear window into society’s evolving morals on a mass scale.
Story Mode asks the question, Why do video games have a uniquely powerful ability to impact culture? Strunk argues that the participatory nature of games themselves not only provides players with a sense of ownership of the narratives within, but also allows for the consumption of games to be a revelatory experience as the meaning of a game is oftentimes derived by the manner in which they are played.
Combining sharp criticism of our most beloved and well-known video game series with a fascinating discussion of how our cultural values form, Story Mode is a truly original examination of the unique space games now occupy, from one of the sharpest games critics working today.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this perhaps too thorough debut, video game critic Strunk, host of the No Cartridge podcast, plumbs the world of gaming "to think about... culture in more expansive ways." While "a game's story may be trivial," he argues, "it is almost certainly transformatively important to someone, not in spite of but because of that triviality." He considers several series and genres—including survival horror (best exemplified by Resident Evil and Outlast), first-person shooters, and Hideo Kojima's Metal Gear Solid series—to unpack how video games have become "catalysts for blame" (namely in promoting violence), but also how they've pushed back against certain narratives and have engaged with contemporary politics. For example, when discussing the Call of Duty franchise, he illuminates how the game "pair fairly rote jingoism with a sly sense of self-critique." This "complex dance of propaganda-cum-consent" serves as a central premise: Are the Falloutgames, he wonders, a sly allegory about how not even apocalypse can stop capitalism? And are franchises such as Final Fantasy destined to "abandon their more radically interesting ideas in favor of conservative ideas that please their audiences"? While the theories are thought-provoking, the mixture of history, social commentary, and philosophical analysis can sometimes make for a rather bloated work. This one's for serious gamers only.
