RAC member, Dr Tom Tyler, had authored a book on the significance and position of non-human animals in video games.
Video games conjure new worlds for those who play them, human or otherwise. They’ve been played by cats, orangutans, pigs and penguins, and they let gamers experience life from the perspective of a pet dog, a predator or a prey animal, or even a pathogen. In Game, author Tom Tyler provides the first sustained consideration of video games and animals and demonstrates how thinking about animals and games together can prompt fresh thinking about both.
Game comprises thirteen short essays, each of which examines a particular video game, franchise, aspect of gameplay or production in which animals are featured, allowing us to reflect on conventional understandings of humans, animals, and the relationships between them. Tyler contemplates the significance of animals who insert themselves into video games as protagonists, opponents and brute resources, but also as ciphers, subjects and subversive guides to new ways of thinking. These animals encourage us to reconsider how we understand games, contesting established ideas about winning and losing, difficulty settings, accessibility, playing badly, virtuality, vitality and vulnerability, and much more.
Written in a playful style, Game draws from a dizzying array of sources, from children’s television, sitcoms and regional newspapers to medieval fables, Shakespearean tragedy and Edwardian comedy; from primatology, entomology and hunting and fishing manuals to theological tracts and philosophical treatises. By examining video games through the lens of animals and animality, Tyler leads us to a greater humility regarding the nature and status of the human creature and a greater sensitivity in dealings with other animals.
- Book launch: Tom Tyler, Game: Animals, Video Games, and Humanity
- Date: 6:00pm until 8:30pm on Thursday 20 October 2022
- Venue: National Videogame Museum, Sheffield
- Cost: Free, no booking required
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