Digital Games as History

Adam Chapman is a Post-Doctoral Fellow in Historical Games in the Department of Education, Communication and Learning at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden

This book provides the first in-depth exploration of video games as history. Chapman puts forth five basic categories of analysis for understanding historical video games: simulation and epistemology, time, space, narrative, and affordance. Through these methods of analysis he explores what these games uniquely offer as a new form of history and how they produce representations of the past. By taking an inter-disciplinary and accessible approach the book provides a specific and firm first foundation upon which to build further examination of the potential of video games as a historical form.

• Part I: Digital Games as History1. Introduction 2. Interacting with Digital Games as History Part II: Digital Games as Historical Representations 3. Simulation Styles and Epistemologies 4. Time and Space 5. Narrative in Games: Categorising for Analysis 6. Historical Narrative in Digital Games Part III: Digital Games as Systems for Historying 7. Affording Hertiage Experiences, Reenactment and Narrative Historying 8. Digital Games as Historical Reenactment 9. Digital Games as (Counterfactual) Narrative Historying Part IV: Digital Games as a Historical Form 10. Conclusions.