Gaming in Its Social and Political Context of Recent Years

Abstract

This article is the first of two articles in the series, where the goal is to analyze the social function of gaming as a modern social institution. The purpose of the article is to analyze the situation that has developed inside and outside the game environment — communities of people who have been playing computer games for a long time, including those who do it on a professional level. The modern game environment is characterized by wide coverage and involvement of various groups of society; First of all, we are primarily interested in the target preferences of young people. The author proceeds from the position that in the matters of transmitting socio-cultural codes, game developers are influenced by the media and other social agents. The basic theories for analysis were the provisions of the Chicago school (in particular, sociological and psychological approaches) and part of the provisions of cultural Marxism (G. Marcuse). The analysis of the game environment was carried out through the provisions of the theatrical performance approach, flow states (flow is a feeling of happiness) and in the context of a challenge to the values of an industrial society from the perspective of a post-industrial society. For this purpose, the coverage of post-apocalyptic scenarios in games and their role in mind control were analyzed.