I have been contemplating this course with my good friend, Nicko Caluya from the Department of Information Systems and Computer Science. We both share the love for computer games (and giggle over history-based digital games). We share the experience of losing sleep over playing Sid Meier’s Civilization series, Europa Universalis, Imperialism, Age of Empires, Assassin’s Creed among others. History-based games can be quiet addicting especially to the young but at the same it can be instructive and educational.
During our casual chat, Nicko and I came to realize that there are so many interdisciplinary issues revolving around history-based games. For example, how historically accurate are the games being played? How does historical consciousness affect the “playability” of the digital game? How do game mechanics alter the historicity of games? How do digital games engage with the “politics of representation”?
If this was the case, then playing history-based digital games deserve an academic exploration. We envision a course where history-based games can be studied and investigated by using historical method (the game as a body of work) and computational science (the game as a digital entity).
Some of the Possible Topics to look into:
- The history within history-based computer games
- Historical accuracy, precision, and consciousness in game play
- Critical historiographies in digital games: Metahistorical, Modern(Orientalism), Postmodern, and Revisionism
- The Problem of Civilization
- The Age of Empire: Rome and Greece
- The Age of the Machine and War-Making
- The Cold War and the Space Race: Positioning Humanity in the Future
Possible games:
- Civilization V
- Age of Empires
- Rome: Total War
- Assassin’s Creed
- Command and Conquer: Red Alert
References:
- Nicolas Trepanier. “The Assassin’s Perspective: Teaching History with Video Games” (2014)
- Kappell, Matthew and Elliott Andrew. Playing with the Past: Digital Games and the Simulation of History (2014)
- Diamond, Jared. Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fate of Human Societies (2001)
- Plunkett, Luke. “Can Games handle History?” (2009)
- Chapman, Adam. “Is Sid Meier’s Civilization history?” Rethinking History: the Journal of Theory and Practice (2013)
- Spring, Dawn. “Gaming history: Computer and video games as historical scholarship.” Rethinking History: the Journal of Theory and Practice (2014)
- Chapman, Adam. “Privileging Form over Content: Analysing historical videogames.” Journal of the Digital Humanities (2012)
