This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Magnet, S. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

Playing at Colonization

Interpreting Imaginary Landscapes in the Video Game Tropico

University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, IL

This article coins the term gamescape to offer a way of thinking about the implications of the way in which landscape in video games is actively constructed within a particular ideological framework. The author examines the spatial practices used to construct the gamescape in Tropico and their attendant dangers. The author concludes with a discussion of the theming of this gamescape, and the way in which the trope of tropicalization is used to stabilize Tropico as an "Othered" space.

Key Words: video game theory • landscape theory • critical race approaches to technology • postcolonialism • space

Journal of Communication Inquiry, Vol. 30, No. 2, 142-162 (2006)
DOI: 10.1177/0196859905285320


CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?

This article has been cited by other articles:

				K. Schut Strategic Simulations and Our Past: The Bias of Computer Games in the Presentation of History Games and Culture, July 1, 2007; 2(3): 213 - 235. [Abstract] [PDF]