[Book Chapter] Moments of Political Gameplay: Game Design as a Mobilization Tool for Far-Right Action

In this chapter, I develop the critical framework of moments of political gameplay using an approach informed by radical relationism, microethnography, and performativity, in order to produce detailed readings of how video games and their players reproduce (far-right) political action. I form this concept through two qualitative case studies from two seemingly different games: Angry Goy II (AG2), a game developed with politics at its forefront; and Red Dead Redemption 2 (RDR2), a game that allows the players to “do whatever they want”. This concept does not consider video games as technologies that produce new violence on its players. Rather, this framework argues that in order to map the stages of gameplay that affect players, we must see political gameplay as made up of the coming together of multiple ingredients: the human, the technological, and the political. Each ingredient is fundamental in creating a final output: a racist, misogynist, or anti-progressive moment of gameplay. Hence, the object of study here is the processes by which players reproduce a political worldview from their involvement with gameplay. In doing so, I outline how spotting moments of political gameplay allows us to trace the processes which produce political features of play, mobilize the player to digitally enact and perform far-right play, concretize the political identities of its player, and outline the breadcrumbs that lead the player towards far-right recruitment.