Apocalypse postponed. Discourses on video games from noxious objects to redemptive devices

• Main Authors: Marco Benoit Carbone, Paolo Ruffino
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Ass.ne Culturale Ludica 2012-05-01
• Series: G|A|M|E The Italian Journal of Game Studies
• Subjects: Gamification; Discourse
• Online Access: http://www.gamejournal.it/apocalypse-postponed-discourses-on-video-games-from-noxious-objects-to-redemptive-devices/

Over the last decade, a new narrative has emerged in favour of the medium of the video game. Games are now being described as a series of practices which improve our mental and physical skills (see Johnson, 2005, or the marketing and reception of Nintendo’s 2007 game Wii Fit); they are targeted to a mature audience, and are no more associated with antisocial teenagers (see Prensky, 2006); they are capable of unprecedented aesthetic achievements (see the reception of games like Rockstar Games’ 2011 L.A. Noire); and their consumption allegedly reveals a seemingly never-ending user growth, making them a globalized, pivotal media for the solution of social and political issues on the scale of the whole planet (McGonigal, 2011).