Video Games and the Global South: A Review

Please play the introduction video (1:32) below to begin:

Diversity & Inclusion - Being inclusive of people of varying backgrounds, including gender, race, ethnicity, socioeconomic and creed.

Diversity and inclusion is often a focus in the world of education and specifically, in higher education institutions. However, there is not a simple definition for the complexities of an individual’s diversity and how institutions can include everyone.

The purpose of my article today is to share these complexities as outlined in the anthology, Video Games and the Global South, edited by Phillip Penix-Tadsen and written by multiple authors, outlining their unique experiences with games and learning. Penix-Tadsen states that the anthology, “...show[s] just how much of the “big picture” of gaming is lost when we neglect experiences outside of the presumed norm, and just how much perspective can be gained by understanding games as complex technological and cultural products whose creation, circulation, consumption and meaning are shaped by concerns and practices that are fundamentally local and situated in nature.” (Penix-Tadsen, 2019, p. 6).

From a personal perspective, as a staff member in higher education for over five years and over an additional decade in education and international travel, diverse thoughts and opinions benefit individual’s growth and can strengthen groups. Having the privilege to work and interact with individuals from varying cultures and backgrounds assists in aiding creative ideas, solutions and intersecting experiences. To put it simply, diversity and inclusion matters. And, in the context of games and learning, diversity and inclusion helps aid in creative and engaging play.

In Video Games and the Global South, Walter Mignolo describes the global south as “...not a geographic location; rather it is a metaphor that indicates regions of the world at the receiving end of globalization and suffering the consequences.” (Penix-Tadsen, 2019, p. 7). Thus, the definition of the Global South spans multiple regions, countries and cultures.

Some of the ideas that I’ll touch upon from this anthology are included by country in the infographic below for India, the United States, South Africa, China and Australia:

Reviewing each of the different gaming environments in each country’s example showcases that although games and play differ based on several factors with socioeconomic and cultural relationship beliefs as main factors, there can also be crossover with game titles and how these games are played.

In Video Games and the Global South, the following games were discussed. A game title can be further explored by selecting each game title:

India

Bhagat Singh (1999)

Yoddha (1999)

Bird of Light (Zen Labs, 2016)

Switch - or die trying (Threye Interactive, 2017)

Hanuman: Boy Warrior (SCEE, 2009)

Street Cricket (SCEE, 2011)

United States

Killbox (Biome Collective, 2016)

Quakes III: Arena (iD Software, 1999)

dead-in-Iraq (Joseph DeLappe, 2006)

America's Army (US Army, 2015)

South Africa

Dota 2 (Valve Corporation, 2013)

ShareIt (no-data WiFi to copy images from other's devices)

Library - Snow Bros (Capcom, 1990), Mortal Kombat (Midway, 1992), Pac Man (Namco, 1980), Metal Slug (SNK, 1996)

Library Arcade - Wii Sports (Nintendo, 2006) & Wii Sports Resort (Nintendo, 2009)

China

League of Legends (Riot Games, 2009, later LoL)

Dota 2 (Valve Corporation, 2013)

Starcraft (Blizzard, 1998)

Minecraft (Mojang, 2009)

Australia

Farmville (Zynga, 2009)

Skype for long distance board games:

-Scrabble (Brunot, 1938)

-Trivial Pursuit (Hasbro, 1979)

Pokemon Go (Niantic, 2016)

Candy Crush (King, 2012)

Shogun: Total War (Electronic Arts, 2000)

Mass Effect (Electronic Arts, 2008)

What are some similarities and differences that you notice from each of the countries in the anthology and the games discussed? Although cultures vary and the individuals discussed from each chapter differ, many commonalities exist such as the desire of players to use gaming to connect with friends and family and using gaming to escape the realities of day-to-day life.

Accessibility is also a broad overarching theme through Video Games in the Global South and, in my mind, uses realistic examples for how the need for accessibility touches all people, regardless of their backgrounds. In the chapter, “Replaying the Digital Divide: Video Games in India” by Souvik Mukherjee, accessibility comes in the form of gamers in India working around limitations from the reality of poverties and limited access to PC-games and gaming consoles, by choosing mobile phone-based games, as well as using piracy to share games with friends. “Poverty problems aside, there are several cultural and technological barriers to games in India. Most of India’s large population lives in over-crowded cities with poor infrastructure. Our traffic jams are so severe that more often than not, we lose mobile internet when stuck in one.” (Mukherjee, 2019, p. 41). In this context, gamers work hard to still engage in gameful learning while adjusting to limitations from poverty and access to specific devices.

While the chapter, “Playing Killbox: Didactic Gaming and Drone Warfare” by Jenna Ann Altomonte has higher technologies in the form of advanced drone imagery being transferred to games simulating real-world warfare, this still showcases the differences in gaming by country and culture. The game, Killbox (Biome Collective, 2016), in Altomonte’s article was then transformed into the game, America’s Army (US Army, 2015), which the U.S. Army paid $7.5 billion in 2002 to produce. America’s Army uses telepresent technology, such as drones and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), to challenge gamer’s viewpoints on these types of technologies in real-world situations (Altomonte, 2019). The ability to access advanced technology to gain data on users, as well as for users to access violent situations in warfare simulations is an example of experiences that a non-expert wouldn’t normally be able to participate in without game technology.

South Africa’s gaming culture and accessibility to gaming was touched on in two chapters in the “Video Games and the Global South” anthology. First, the game, Dota 2 (Valve Corporation, 2013), is used to explain how real-world racism is sometimes mimicked in game play by Jules Skotnes-Brown in ”Colonized Play: Racism, Sexism and Colonial Legacies in the Dota 2 South Africa Gaming Community”. Dota 2 is influenced by “South African identity politics and cultural problems of racism” (Skotnes-Brown, 2019, p. 146). And, characters in Dota 2 lack diversity, further exhibiting some player’s real-world racism transferring to the game, where only two out of 25 characters were not white males and by mid-2014, 45% of the complaints to the South African Human Rights Commission were race-related (Skotnes-Brown, 2019). However, in spite of the history of social issues in South Africa, in “Whose “Game Culture” Is It Anyway?: Exploring Children’s Gameplay across Cape Town” by Nicola Pallitt, Anja Venter and Muya Koloko, gamers utilize local resources to access protections against local racism and violence. For example, although the cost of data is too great for children to use for playing mobile games, they have adapted to playing games such as the “swapping game” where images are copied from each other’s devices using no-data WiFi. At the local library, there are computers that players can use for free for 45-minute time periods, as well as a library arcade. Games in the library arcade, such as Wii Sports’s (Nintendo, 2006) boxing, helps players learn to defend themselves from real-life violence in the surrounding neighborhoods. Having the access to the library is also pivotal in order to stay safe after school in a public building compared to possible unsafe play on the streets (Pallitt et al., 2019).

Reviewing the world of eSports in China in the chapter, “eSports Gamers in China: Career, Lifestyle and Public Discourse among Professional League of Legends Competitors” by Boris Pun, Yiyi Yin and Anthony Fung, the world’s largest online gaming community with 566 million active users in 2016 is discussed. Prior to 2009, “the state has sought to hinder the development of gaming in Chinese society for the purpose of “protecting the ideological thinking and morality of young people.” (Pun et al., 2019, p. 185). Therefore, the dichotomy between the popularity of eSports in China and eSports players against the background of Chinese news labeling gaming as a negative activity associated with criminals and threatening the very fabric of society’s values, creates complexity to the access of this gaming community. Whereas eSports gamers and their popularity with fans creates a world of unlimited access through social media apps, such as Weibo, and players model their own merchandise, they’re also under constant pressure to perform and to give insights to fans into their personal lives, including who they’re dating. The cultural construct of “saving face” in several countries in Asia, including China, allows for a balancing act between having an open discourse with eSports and maintaining historical social expectations. This is a prime example of cultural values morphing with games as younger generational values encroach on historical values.

Next, the last chapter that I’ll discuss, by Joshua Wong, William Balmford, Larissa Hjorth and Ingrid Richardson, “Mobility through Games: Asian International Students and Gaming Cultures in Melbourne”, demonstrates how gaming allows 19 international students from varying countries in Asia, to connect with distant friends, as well as connecting to local Australian peers. Wong et al. states, “Given the broadness of play as a category that spans cultural practice, the role of play in establishing a sense of “place” and connected co-presence is a key characteristic with regard to the way co-presence and location manifest through play for Asian international students living in Melbourne.” (Wong et al., 2019, p. 261). From utilizing Skype, a video chat platform, to play board games with friends in different countries or playing social games such as Pokemon Go, mobile phone access is crucial to the international students studying in Melbourne, Australia. However, just as far-reaching relationships are important, learning the local game culture with Australian peers and the technologies used are important. As some of the international students pointed out, while their friends back home primarily game play via chat due to internet or device restrictions, Australian gamers often play PC-games with high-tech microphones to chat during game play. Differences in accessibility exist, but the purpose of connecting via game play remains the same.

Throughout Video Games and the Global South, although different perspectives of gaming were portrayed by each author in this anthology on cultural influences on games and learning, similar patterns of connectedness and creative play resonated throughout. If you’re interested in a real-world read that takes you on an adventurous journey through politics, social values and cultural nuances, this book is the perfect introduction to traveling through the world of gaming. I highly recommend this book for connecting with shared ideas, as well as ideologies to expand your own world viewpoint.

Obviously, the complexity of accessibility intermingled with different cultures is ever changing and open to interpretation. However, the base understanding that we can stay connected during times of distance and join with other cultural gaming practices creates a welcome gaming community. Whether you can only play mobile games on WiFi or you have the nicest PC-game set-up, diversity and inclusion co-exists flawlessly in being able to access games. And, the commonalities that are exhibited with players through game play naturally connect us all. Who can you reach out to to game with today?

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