Playing with the Past: Digital Games and the Simulation of History. Edited by Matthew Wilhelm Kapell and Andrew B. R. Elliott (New York, Bloomsbury, 2013) 400 pp. $39.95

Abstract

This book charts a path through the various methodological and theoretical approaches to game studies as they pertain to historians and historiography. The editors argue that history bridges the two theoretical camps that have emerged in game studies—ludology and narratology. Ludology is concerned with games as systems of rules and of the possible actions within those rules (thus, its focus is on the player and agency), whereas narratology explores the narrative that envelops those rules and creates the story. In games concerned with history, players must negotiate complex sets of rules that are bound, in part, by the conventional understanding of the story depicted (the history). By playing with and within a historical narrative, games allow players to engage with the contingency and causality of the past, thus developing the habits of thought that are the hallmark of historical thinking.The book is structured with an opening apologia that frames the editors’ and contributors’ approach. Subsequent chapters are preceded by an introduction that highlights how each chapter speaks to the various elements discussed in the opening apologia. The volume concludes by gathering the strands in the introduction and considering them in the light of the individual conclusions, focusing on the intersection between myth and history, in which myth is understood in accord with Lincoln’s formulation of “‘ideology in narrative form.’”1 Games allow players to create their own ideology in narrative form; “while the facts of any specific game may be erroneous, the experience may enable the player’s engagement with more traditional historical narratives to increase by virtue of their exposure to some of the most important parts of the historians’ toolkit” (363).For the most part, the individual contributors handle their parts in this ambitious program well. Each chapter involves a kind of ethnographic exploration of its particular game space, often with first-person reports (though not always) about the game, coupled with close readings of the code itself (as in the chapter by Rebecca Mir and Trevor Owens, “Modeling Indigenous Peoples: Unpacking Ideology in Sid Meier’s Colonization”). Contributors come from multiple disciplines—history, media studies, political science, art history, religious studies, communications, and library studies. Individually, the chapters fall easily within the narratology or ludology folds as understood from game studies. Without the tightly knit apologia, the section introductions, and the conclusion, this volume would be an excellent collection of case studies within the wider field of game studies. The editors’ historical overview, however, makes the case for “digital games and the simulation of history” as a crucial locus for playable historiography. Trépanier recently argued (from a perspective that, ironically, recommends games as teaching tools) that “video games are subject to limitations that make them incapable of conveying the full nuance and complexity of good historiography.”2 This volume argues forcefully to the contrary.