Högskolan i Skövde

Videogames have a long, and complex, relationship with “non-Western” countries. Game narratives and ludic symbols are fraught with implicit, or explicit, imperialist history and ideologies. In some games, such as Sid Meier’s Colonization, the connection is fairly obvious. But a game doesn’t have to be about colonization to present a colonialist narrative. Souvik Mukherjee is a game researcher at the front of a growing discussion on this topic. In his work, he analyses games from different perspective (media analysis, philosophy, and sociology) to present a holistic understanding of the way games represent, and constructs, different cultures, people, political systems, ethics, and societal issues. This chapter is an edited transcript of an interview with Souvik, where we talked about everything from his academic work, to how he modded Age of Empires in his childhood.