Full Description
From mobile phones to consoles, tablets and PCs, we are now a generation of gamers. The PlayStation Dreamworld is - to borrow a phrase from Slavoj Zizek - the pervert's guide to videogames. It argues that we can only understand the world of videogames via Lacanian dream analysis. It also argues that the Left needs to work inside this dreamspace - a powerful arena for constructing our desires - or else the dreamworld will fall entirely into the hands of dominant and reactionary forces.
While cyberspace is increasingly dominated by corporate organization, gaming, at its most subversive, can nevertheless produce radical forms of enjoyment which threaten the capitalist norms that are created and endlessly repeated in our daily relationships with mobile phones, videogames, computers and other forms of technological entertainment. Far from being a book solely for dedicated gamers, this book dissects the structure of our relationships to all technological entertainment at a time when entertainment has become ubiquitous. We can no longer escape our fantasies but rather live inside their digital reality.
Contents
Contents
Acknowledgements
Note on the Games
Tutorial: The Pokémon Generation
Level 1.
From Farming Simulation to Dystopic Wasteland: Gaming and Capitalism
Work and Play - Cultures of Distraction - Pastoral Dystopia, Apocalyptic Utopia - No Alternative
Level 2.
Dreamwork: Cyborgs on the Analyst's Couch
Japanese Dreams, American Texts - The Dreamworld - Repetitions and the Dromena - Immersion and Westworld
Level 3.
Retro Gaming: The Politics of Former and Future Pleasures
90s Rational Gaming - Virtual/Reality - Subject, Object, Enjoyment - Jouissance in the Arcades
Bonus Features: How to be a Subversive Gamer
Game Index
Endnotes
