Alfie Bown: Where Politics and Gaming Meet

“I think there’s great potential in video games. In some ways, they are the primary space in which the culture wars are now being fought.”

On December 28th, Al Binns was joined by Alfie Bown for a conversation about the relationship between video games and politics, particularly politics of the progressive variety. Dr. Bown is a lecturer at Royal Holloway, University of London and a contributor to a variety of publications, including The Guardian and The Paris Review. He is also the author of the 2017 book The PlayStation Dreamworld, which is discussed in this interview. The following discussion, which emerged from Mr. Binns’ recent Merion West article “An Experiment in (Lefty) Roleplaying?,” explores the idea of gaming being inherently political, as well as how certain roleplaying games might be used to contribute to political or social changes.

Good afternoon, Alfie. Thank you for your time today.

Thanks for speaking with me.

In your 2018 Guardian piece “Video games are political. Here’s how they can be progressive,” you argue that video games are a product of their society and are, thus, inherently political. What role can they play in not only helping us understand our society but also in influencing political change?

I think there’s great potential in video games. In some ways, they are the primary space in which the culture wars are now being fought. I mean, it is well-documented how big the games industry has grown to be—now even bigger than film and TV. Games are changing what it means to be a person, but this argument gets more resistance than you would think. You know, one would not argue that Hollywood films did not change what it meant to be a person in the 50s and 60s, for example. And, equally, one would not argue that music did not transform what it meant to be a subject in the 70s and 80s. In this respect, it is strange that some people still hold on to the idea that games are apolitical or somehow not socially transformative. They are, and they are changing who we are and how we relate to each other. As a product of our society, games have obviously always been political, and yet we find, for the large part of gaming history, people have refused to confront this fact or have assumed that they are simply means of escapism, separate from politics in some way.