Power Games: Towards the Rhetoric of Energy in Speculative Video Games

• Published in: Er(r)go (Katowice) Vol. 1; no. 44; pp. 75 - 94
• Main Author: Frelik, Paweł
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: University of Silesia Press 2022; Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego
• Subjects: Culture and social structure; Energy and Environmental Studies; Media studies; Anthropocene; science fiction; energy humanities; video games
• ISSN: 1508-6305; 2544-3186
• DOI: 10.31261/errgo.12332

The article maps the intersections of energy and videogames, one of the newest among speculative media, and approaches the question concerning the extent to which such games can be vehicles in raising awareness of the role of extractivism and energy sources in the Anthropocene. It first identifies the gaming medium’s engagement with the broader questions of climate crisis, of which energy issues constitute an important aspect. It then outlines several analytical approaches which help disentangle the games’ procedural rhetoric concerning energy. Finally, it proposes a preliminary grouping of game genres and their potential to engage the centrality of fuels and energy in speculative games. As a whole, it constitutes a preliminary mapping of the status of energy in speculative video games, an intersection that remains largely unexplored, and uses several case studies to illustrate certain regularities emerging in the discussions of the nexus of environment, economy, and energy in speculative video games.