Assembling Video Game Worlds

Abstract

Orbited by two moons, ‘White Lady’ and ‘Blue Child,’ Azeroth is a world inhabited by elves, humans, dwarves, goblins, trolls, gnomes, and dragons. It is a world comprised of three main continents, with islands spattered across its dangerous seas. Azeroth’s geography ranges from lush forests with wild fauna, to lonely snow-capped mountains and enchanted cities. This strange universe is the setting for the award-winning online video game, World of Warcraft – home to 11 million subscribers. Beneath this quite extraordinary virtual community lies a complex assemblage of software code and hardware technologies that enable a seamless virtual experience. Defying traditional megaengineering materialities and geographies, such online communities blur the distinction between ‘reality’ and ‘virtuality.’ Taking its cue from this unclear interface, this chapter elaborates on video games as complex assemblages that constantly slide between concrete and imagined geographies. Deploying the conceptual blueprint of ‘assemblage theory’ from Manuel DeLanda, I argue that games such as World of Warcraft are spaces produced by a hybrid assemblage of material and representational components, and that, far from ever being ‘closed,’ are worlds engineered to be in a deliberate and constant state of transformation. The chapter is composed of the following sections. First, it explores the economics of the video game industry, noting the transfer between real and virtual currency. Second, it explores the multiplayer aspect of games through Xbox Live. Third, the chapter takes hold of some of the controversy in the literature surrounding racist, gendered, and violent on-screen representations. Fourth, the ‘military entertainment complex’ is explored through America’s Army. Finally, the main theoretical contribution of the chapter is made, with assemblage theory used to construct an analysis of video games based on the interaction of material, representational, territorializing, deterritorializing, and coding components.