Playful Politics and Political Play: Conceptualizing Videogames as a Political Arena

This paper, authored by Kristine Jørgensen of the University of Bergen and presented at DiGRA 2022, argues that videogames and game culture have become an increasingly pervasive arena for political topics. It proposes a conceptual framework built on "ludo-political mergers," the points where playful and ludic dimensions of games interact with political ideologies, values, and attitudes. Drawing on Bateson's concept of meta-communication and a broad understanding of politics as contests over the distribution of values, resources, and power, the paper identifies two distinct tendencies: political play, in which political issues are inserted into games and playful settings, and playful politics, in which political rhetoric is framed or masked as play, a tactic associated with alt-right and right-wing groups seeking recruits in gaming communities.

The paper's central claim is that these two tendencies carry fundamentally different implications. Political play is embedded within games and their discourses and is often welcomed by those who find politics meaningful in gameplay, while playful politics is characterized as a subversive strategy that exploits the ludic for purposes beyond play, including masking harassment and toxicity. The author suggests that both tendencies extend well beyond game culture into internet culture generally.

The methodology is phenomenological, drawing on ethnographic traditions and focusing on player emotion and interpretation. The author combines a review of existing scholarship with qualitative analysis of forum data and research interviews with players. The stated aim of this fieldwork is to understand how players respond to political content in games and the extent to which the playful medium may soften otherwise contentious topics. The paper is a conceptual and exploratory contribution, and its scope is framed primarily around game culture as a social and discursive environment rather than around a quantified sample or specific geographic population.