The Playful Undead and Video Games: Critical Analyses of Zombies and Gameplay

287 Pages·2019·3.647 MB·English

by  Stephen J. Webley (editor), Peter Zackariasson (editor)

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The Playful Undead and
Video Games
This book explores the central role of the zombie in contemporary
popular culture as they appear in video games. Moving beyond traditional
explanations of their enduring appeal—that they embody an aesthetic
that combines horror with a mindless target; that lower age ratings for
zombie games widen the market; or that artificial intelligence routines for
zombies are easier to develop—the book provides a multidisciplinary and
comprehensive look at this cultural phenomenon.
Drawing on detailed case studies from across the genre, contributors
from a variety of backgrounds offer insights into how the study of zombies
in the context of video games informs an analysis of their impact on
contemporary popular culture. Issues such as gender, politics, intellectual
property law, queer theory, narrative storytelling and world-building,
video game techniques and technology, and man’s relation to monsters
are closely examined in their relation to zombie video games.
Breaking new ground in the study of video games and popular culture,
this volume will be of interest to researchers in a broad range of areas
including media, popular culture, video games, and media psychology.
Stephen J. Webley is a lecturer and researcher in the School of
Computing & Digital Technology at Staffordshire University UK. He has
had a lifelong obsession with zombie games and the works of George A.
Romero, both of which he understands as cultural artefacts that have
changed the landscape of contemporary popular culture.
Peter Zackariasson, PhD, associate professor in marketing at University
of Gothenburg, has published on different parts of cultural industries.
In his two latest edited volumes he has tried to gather a diverse set of
texts on the topics: the business of gamification (with Mikolaj Dymek),
critically examining the new concept, and arts and business (with Elena
Raviola), where these two fields will meet and interact.
Routledge Advances in Game Studies
Understanding Counterplay in Video Games
Alan F. Meades
Video Game Policy
Production, Distribution, and Consumption
Edited by Steven Conway and Jennifer deWinter
Digital Games as History
How Videogames Represent the Past and Offer Access to
Historical Practice
Adam Chapman
New Perspectives on the Social Aspects of Digital Gaming
Multiplayer 2
Edited by Rachel Kowert and Thorsten Quandt
Fans and Videogames
Histories, Fandom, Archives
Edited by Melanie Swalwell, Helen Stuckey and Angela Ndalianis
Identity and Play in Interactive Digital Media
Ergodic Ontogeny
Sara M. Cole
Videogames, Identity and Digital Subjectivity
Rob Gallagher
Evolutionary Psychology and Digital Games
Digital Hunter-Gatherers
Edited by Johannes Breuer, Daniel Pietschmann, Benny Liebold,
and Benjamin P. Lange
The Playful Undead and Video Games
Critical Analyses of Zombies and Gameplay
Edited by Stephen J. Webley and Peter Zackariasson
The Playful Undead and
Video Games
Critical Analyses of Zombies
and Gameplay
Edited by Stephen J. Webley
and Peter Zackariasson
First published 2020
by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
and by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa
business
© 2020 Taylor & Francis
The right of Stephen J. Webley and Peter Zackariasson to be
identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors
for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with
sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this title has been requested
ISBN: 9781138895461 (hbk)
ISBN: 9781315179490 (ebk)
Typeset in Sabon
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
Contents
ContentsContents
Notes on Contributors vii
STEPHEN J. WEBLEY
Zombies Zombies Everywhere, What Is One to Think? 1
STEPHEN J. WEBLEY
1 Zombies, Again? A Qualitative Analysis of the
Zombie Antagonist’s Appeal in Game Design 15
MATTHEW BARR
2 Resurrecting “Obsolete” Video Game Techniques From
Alone in the Dark and Resident Evil 30
MATTHEW BARTON
3 The Undead Past in the Present—Historical Anxiety and
the Nazi Zombie 44
ADAM CHAPMAN
4 The Zombification of Skyrim 57
PENNY DE BYL
5 Fantasies of Full Employment: Zombies, Video Games,
and Violent Labour 72
MICHAEL EPP
6 Resident Evil and Infectious Fear 85
CHRISTINA FAWCETT AND ALAN MCGREEVY
7 Zombie Video Games, Eros, and Thanatos: Expressing and
Exploring the Life and Death Drives Through Video Gameplay 99
VANESSA L. HADDAD
vi Contents
8 Through the Eyes of the Other: The Relationship Between
Man and Monster in Siren: Blood Curse 112
MADELON HOEDT
9 Dead Rising and the Gameworld Zombie 126
KRISTINE JØRGENSEN
10 Proliferation, Blockages, and Paths of Escape in
Resident Evil and Call of Duty 138
BRANDON KEMPNER
11 Zombies, Play, and Uncertainty in Red Dead Redemption:
Undead Nightmare 151
MITCHELL C. LILLY
12 “A Jill Sandwich”—Gender Representation in Zombie
Video Games 164
ESTHER MACCALLUM-STEWART
13 It’s Never About Zombies—Post-Apocalyptic
World-Building, Interactive Storytelling, and
The Walking Dead 180
KSENIA OLKUSZ, SVEN DWULECKI, AND KRZYSZTOF M. MAJ
14 The Pace and Reach of Video Game Zombies 197
BERNARD PERRON
15 Zombies Ate Democracy: The Myth of a Systemic
Political Failure in Video Games 216
EUGEN PFISTER
16 Queering the Zombie 232
TANJA SIHVONEN
17 The Law of the Playful [Un]Dead: The Influences of
Intellectual Property Law on Zombie Video Games 246
TIMOTHY A. WISEMAN
18 “The Romeroesque”—Playing With Ethics and Ideology in
Zombie Games, From Indie to Mainstream and Around Again 259
STEPHEN J. WEBLEY
Index 274
Notes on Contributors
Notes on ContributorsNotes on Contributors
Matthew Barr is a lecturer in the School of Humanities at the University
of Glasgow, where he convenes the game studies course and is the edi-
tor of the peer reviewed student game studies journal Press Start. He
is also a lecturer at Glasgow Caledonian University, where he teaches
on the games development programme. He is the vice chair of British
DiGRA and sits on the board of the Scottish chapter of the IGDA.
Dr. Matthew Barton is an English professor at Saint Cloud State Univer-
sity, where he has served on the faculty since 2005 after receiving his
PhD in rhetoric and composition from the University of South Florida.
His published work includes six books, several articles, reviews in top
academic journals, and a feature film documentary, Gameplay: The
Story of the Videogame Revolution. He also hosts a YouTube pro-
gramme called Matt Chat, which features in-depth retrospectives and
interviews with luminaries of the video games industry.
Adam Chapman is a senior lecturer at the University of Gothenburg. His
research focuses on historical games, i.e. those games that in some
way represent, or relate to, discourses about the past. He is the author
of Digital Games as History: How Videogames Represent the Past
and Offer Access to Historical Practice (Routledge, 2016), alongside
a number of other publications on the topic of historical games. He is
also the founder of the Historical Game Studies Network.
Sven Dwulecki is a PhD candidate at the University of Tübingen and
member of the editorial board of the Facta Ficta: Journal of Theory,
Narrative & Media (factafictajournal.com). His research is focused on
rhetoric of video games and their influence on consumers; in his field
of expertise, he combines business and digital rhetoric with an empha-
sis on marketing strategy, innovation, and the entertainment industry.
Dr. Penny de Byl is CEO of online game development for the education
provider Holistic3D and former professor of games, Bond University,
Australia, and associate professor of serious games, Breda Univer-
sity, The Netherlands. She is the recipient of university awards for
teaching excellence, a Queensland government award for game-based
viii Notes on Contributors
educational experiences, a Unity/Google award for curriculum devel-
opment, and an Australian Government Citation for University Teach-
ing Excellence.
Michael Epp is an associate professor of English literature and cultural
studies at Trent University. He is also the director of Trent’s Theory,
Culture & Politics MA programme and its Cultural Studies PhD pro-
gramme. He has published on print culture, humour, durability, and
war; his current research theorises the relationship between the state,
the public, and violent labour.
Dr. Christina Fawcett is a monster theorist with a PhD from the Univer-
sity of Glasgow. She teaches courses in science fiction, fantasy, fairy
tales, and horror at the University of Winnipeg. She is a member of
the Centre for Research in Cultural Studies (CRiCS) and Centre for
Research in Young People’s Texts and Cultures (CRYTC) at the Uni-
versity of Winnipeg.
Vanessa L. Haddad is a professor and chair of general studies at the State
University of New York (SUNY) Erie, and a senior lecturer of sociol-
ogy at Niagara University. Her work focuses on video games, and
how they can be used to improve everyday life. She currently resides
in Buffalo, NY.
Dr. Madelon Hoedt is a senior lecturer in drama at the University of
|Huddersfield. She has published and presented papers on topics such
as scare attractions, Hell Houses, zombie events, performance magic,
and horror video games. Her current research continues its focus on
horror and the Gothic and concerns itself with immersive experiences,
with a particular interest in issues of narrative, stagecraft, and embodi-
ment in live performance and video games.
Kristine Jørgensen is full professor in media studies at University of Ber-
gen. She is the author of A Comprehensive Study of Sound in Com-
puter Games (Mellen Press, 2009) and Gameworld Interfaces (MIT
Press, 2013), and the co-editor of Transgressions in Games and Play
(MIT Press, 2018). As of 2018, she is heading the research project
Games and Transgressive Aesthetics.
Brandon Kempner is a professor of American literature at New Mexico
Highlands University (USA). He received his PhD in English from
Pennsylvania State University in 2006. He studies a broad range of
popular culture topics and has written essays on The Walking Dead,
Evil Dead, iZombie, Jurassic Park, Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett, and
the literature of 9/11.
Mitchell C. Lilly received his MA in literary studies from Marshall Uni-
versity, where he now teaches literature and composition courses, to
Notes on Contributors ix
include writing courses themed around the study of zombies in popu-
lar culture. His publications include a scholarly article in ImageText
on the trauma comic Mother, Come Home and an article in Poe Stud-
ies on Edgar Allan Poe’s The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym as
a work of unnatural narrative fiction, which received the James W.
Gargano Award from the Poe Studies Association for best scholarly
essay published on Poe in 2015.
Esther MacCallum-Stewart is an associate professor of games studies at
Staffordshire University. Her work examines the ways in which play-
ers understand narratives in games, and she has written widely on sex,
sexuality, and gender in games. She is currently researching board-
games cultures and Hidden Object Games.
Krzysztof M. Maj, PhD, is an assistant professor at AGH University of Sci-
ence and Technology in Kraków, Faculty of Humanities. His research
interests include world-building, transmediality, transfictionality, and
postclassical narratological approaches to the fantastic; he is the editor-in-
chief at Creatio Fantastica academic journal (creatiofantastica.com);
he authored the book Allotopie. Topografia światów fikcjonalnych
[Allotopias: Toward the Topography of Fictional Storyworlds] (2015)
as well as a number of Polish and English articles in game studies,
literary theory, transmedial narratology, world-building, and (e)uto-
pian/dystopian studies.
Alan McGreevy is an instructor in microbiology and health sciences
at the University of Winnipeg and a registered microbiologist with
the Canadian College of Microbiologists. He completed his MSc in
medical microbiology from the University of Manitoba studying viral
haemorrhagic fever in the Special Pathogens Unit at the National Cen-
tre for Foreign Animal Disease.
Ksenia Olkusz, PhD, is a literary historian, critic, and theorist; she is
assistant professor at the head of Facta Ficta Research Centre in
Kraków as well as editor-in-chief of open access Facta Ficta: Journal of
Theory, Narrative & Media (factafictajournal.com); she has authored
the books Współczesność w zwierciadle horroru. O najnowszej pol-
skiej literaturze grozy [The Contemporaneity in the Mirror of Horror:
On the Newest Polish Gothic Fiction] (2010) and Materializm kontra
ezoteryka: drugie pokolenie pozytywistów wobec “spraw nie z tego
świata” [Materialism Versus Esotericism: The Second Generation of
Polish Positivists and the Otherworldly] (2007, 2017) as well as edited
volumes Zombie w kulturze [Zombies in Culture] and Światy grozy
[Worlds of Terror] (2016).
Bernard Perron is full professor of film and game studies at the Univer-
sity of Montreal. He has co-edited The Video Game Theory Reader