Harnessing the Soft Power of Videogames in Digital Diplomacy

Amanda Rodríguez Espínola's article, published in the 2026 special issue "Beyond Play" of Gamevironments, argues that video games are well suited to digital diplomacy because their participatory, rule-based design allows players to perform and internalize the values of other cultures. Against a backdrop of mediatized society and a shift from one-way public diplomacy toward dialogue-based engagement, the work contends that interactivity lets games convey worldviews more deeply than passive media. Its central claim is that games generate soft power through both narrative and procedural rhetoric, with the indigenous-developed Never Alone (2014) offering the principal case study.

The analysis draws contrasts across several categories of games. State-sponsored titles such as the U.S. Army's America's Army and the World Bank's Urgent: EVOKE are shown to struggle with credibility abroad, while organically successful products, including Japan's Nintendo-driven Cool Japan strategy and Poland's The Witcher, achieve broader resonance. Anti-war and culturally rooted games such as This War of Mine, Honor of Kings, and Black Myth: Wukong are presented as capable of building empathy and subtly aligning foreign audiences with national values. The author also cautions that games risk reinforcing stereotypes such as digital Orientalism, and that state control can erode their persuasive credibility.

Within an Arctic-focused, multipolar context, the work frames Never Alone as a vehicle through which Inuit non-state actors advance climate advocacy and indigenous sovereignty, with tangible gains including museum exhibitions and economic self-determination. A companion analysis positions the Inuit as an intermestic transnational actor grounded in the 2009 Circumpolar Inuit Declaration on Arctic Sovereignty, arguing that the game supports the Inuit Circumpolar Council's youth leadership goals and fosters transnational solidarity around resource sovereignty and climate justice. Across these analyses, the central conclusions rest largely on theoretical argument; none of the sources measure actual changes in player attitudes.