Description
Book SynopsisColin Milburn examines the relationships between video games, hackers, and science fiction, showing how games provide models of social and political engagement, critique, and resistance while offering a vital space for players and hacktivists to challenge centralized power and experiment with alternative futures.
Trade Review"This is a detailed and precise account, with a clear narrative that identifies the course of the elements used and their evolving style and context. But among the many intertwined stories, the clever quotes and the endless virtual environments, what keeps emerging is a strong value of responsibility, taking sensible decisions, showing a proper understanding of what Milburn calls as 'technogenic life.'" -- Aurelio Cianciotta * Neural *
"This is an accessible work that might give ardent gamers newfound appreciation of the social sciences, and it does an excellent job of neither raising up nor tearing down the historical processes it documents. . . . Recommended. All readers." -- P. L. Kantor * Choice *
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Respawn offers a detailed analysis of the entanglements of broader game cultures, political activism and the sociotechnical dilemmas of our present. Drawing on a plethora of game examples and their histories, online discussion threads and occasionally humorous imagery, the book is an engaging account for everyone working at the intersections of digital media theory, game studies, political theory and science and technology studies." -- Yana Boeva * LSE Review of Books *
"This author is a worthy bard, and the stories he tells are hella helpful for making sense of the somewhat ephemeral moments of resistance that emerge within, alongside, and out of gaming culture. Using schlxr skillz like research and archives, he weaves together tales of gamer resistance with careful attention to detail, but not without a few lulz, some lite L337speak, and some deep philosophical reflection on what it means to pwn." -- H-Cat * Slingshot *
"Respawn is a valuable and ambitious intervention in the field of video game studies that locates important issues in the context of this technogenic philosophy. . . . Even as the words 'gaming' and 'gamer' continue to evolve and grow more ephemeral, Milburn’s look at technogenic philosophy through gaming and hacktivist history will remain persistently relevant." -- Andy Fischer Wright * Velvet Light Trap *
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Respawn will be accessible and interesting to a wide range of readers. Milburn has distilled his ideas and arguments, framed them with easy-to-engage theories, and connected them with a compelling narrative that effortlessly carries readers along. . . . The book deserves to be on library shelves, and in this era of increasing austerity, its open-access edition should be linked in libraries’ online catalogs, many of which look like technogenic life via baked-in communication, collaboration, and social networking tools." -- Jason W. Ellis * Extrapolation *
“Balancing detail and systemic overview, Milburn’s book is one of the most perceptive, incisive, and clear analyses of the dynamic imbrications of sf imaginaries, video games, and contemporary digital culture in a while.”
-- Pawel Frelik * Science Fiction Studies *
Table of ContentsIntroduction. All Your Base 1
1. May the Lulz Be with You 25
2. Obstinate Systems 51
3. Still Inside 78
4. Long Live Play 102
5. We Are Heroes 134
6. Green Machine 172
7. Pwn 199
Conclusion. Save Point 217
Acknowledgments 227
Notes 231
Bibliography 271
Index 293
