The Post-9/11 Video Game: A Critical Examination

The Post-9/11 Video Game: A Critical Examination demonstrates that a new genre of video games arises from the American experience of 9/11. The representations reflect reshaped notions of the (sub)urban spaces, identity and the role of the citizen as a consumer and as a producer of culture. Ouellette and Thompson combine semiotic and rhetorical analysis to bridge the gap between the narratology and ludology strands of game studies in an original interpretation of dominant game franchises Call of Duty, Battlefield, Medal of Honor, Grand Theft Auto and Syphon Filter in both pre- and post- 9/11 game titles. The comparisons reveal striking changes in the iconography of cultural narratives that mainstream audiences were interested in seeing and playing in this period. New York transforms into a symbol of America itself, the mall becomes a symbol of American values, and zombies offer a symbol of foreign invasion. Since these narrative elements can serve differing political purposes and social ends, the focus is not on any particular game, character or narrative aspects but on what those elements come to figure through the genre and what it means to be able to manipulate and to participate in the conflict, at least within the structures, conventions and algorithms of video games. Indeed, these elements transcend traditional genre and platform categories so that post-9/11 representation shapes video games and is shaped by them. Taken together, post-9/11 video games offer a new genre that, in revisiting a national trauma, offers a therapeutic, apolitical solution to the geopolitical upheavals occasioned by 9/11 so that mainstream games become the successor to film and television in the ongoing redefinition American identity, especially masculinity, in times of war and conflict.