Satire at Play: A Game Studies Approach to Satire

Abstract

The persuasive potential of games and their use in political propaganda and raising social awareness are well-established components of the game studies discourse, and the literature around persuasive games highlights satire among the expressive tones of several games. Despite this, what persuasive games’ literature still lacks is a complete and stand-alone defining account of satire in games, which could be useful in analyzing both analog and digital games used for satirical purposes. Our intention with this paper is to frame satire within the field of game studies through notions and perspectives borrowed from other media studies and narratology. In that pursuit, we initially give an operational definition of satire focusing on concepts such as entertainment, critique, and rhetoric. Subsequently, we explore how this definition relates to, and interacts with, key concepts in game studies, such as procedural rhetoric, and the implied designer.