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Where (and what) is "history" in video game promotion?

This paper will discuss the varying uses of “history” in the promotion and branding of contemporary video games. Game developers, marketers, and critics all actively contribute to the curation of historical discourses around the release and reception of these games, but they are not necessarily talking about what history is, or what makes a game “historical,” in a single way. That is, there are layers of potential meaning being constructed. These layers might involve: the history of a game or game developer, their brand and/or reputation for making games; the historical touchstones around a game’s particular experience or representation, and how they have informed or inspired the game’s development; and/or the history of a particular period, place, or wider subject matter, and the approach a developer has taken to (re)mediating it in their game. Ultimately, what this paper will explore is that all of these ideas overlap, but usually with a specific, overall goal: to stake a claim for the “authenticity” of a game’s representation of the past.

Bio: Esther Wright is Senior Lecturer in Digital History at Cardiff University. She researches historical video game promotion and branding. Her first monograph, Rockstar Games and American History: Promotional Materials and the Construction of Authenticity, was published by De Gruyter in 2022, and an edited collection of essays, Red Dead Redemption: History, Myth and Violence in the Video Game West (with John Wills), was published by Oklahoma University Press in 2023.