Macromedia University of Applied Sciences

Artistic In-Game Photographs as Media of Care

This paper argues that many works of artistic in-game photography can be understood as media of care, drawing on feminist care ethics, game studies, and photography theory.

• The paper argues that artistic in-game photographs can be read as 'media of care,' showing care structures thematically, structurally, or materially and taking part in discourses on social and ecological responsibility.
• It proposes two care structures: existential care, arising from the obligation to keep avatars alive and sustain play (which persists even when photo mode suspends it), and relational care, adapted from Puig de la Bellacasa's 'matters of care' to describe how games embed in broader ecologies beyond play.
• The analysis is qualitative and media-aesthetic/photography-theoretical; it reports no survey sample or dataset, so its claims rest on interpretation of selected works rather than measured evidence.