Migration and interactive narrative in video games: scale, ethics, and experience

Abstract

ABSTRACTA number of contemporary video games (and particularly independently developed or ‘indie’ games) explore migration in ways that are designed to elicit productive discomfort in Western audiences. In this article, I build on a combination of games research, narrative theory, and migration studies to examine how these games enrich and complicate the cultural representation of migration. My focus is on how different scales of migration converge in game experiences (and in the narratives bound up with those experiences), immersing the player in moral dilemmas that have no clear solution or ideal outcome. I study four indie games that deploy this conceptual and emotional dynamic within different genres: Papers, Please (2013), Bury Me, My Love (2017), Frostpunk (2018), and Where the Water Tastes Like Wine (2018). By putting the player in touch with a variety of fictional migrants, these games walk a fine line between empathy for individual migrants and understanding of the large-scale factors that shape the lived experience of migration and the discourse surrounding it. Games thus mirror the real-world complexity of migration but also afford opportunities for more critical, or distanced, reflection than is possible in engaging with, for example, factual representation in the media.KEYWORDS: Storytellingmigrationethicsdigital narrativevideo games Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 An early draft of this paper was presented at a workshop on ‘Narratives of Mobility in the Anthropocene’ (Ghent University, May 2023). I would like to thank the workshop participants for their helpful feedback.2 I am using the term ‘negotiation’ in a technical sense here: it refers to how narrative may bring up a certain cultural topic (in this case, migration) and explore or illuminate some aspects of that discussion. See Herman and Vervaeck (Citation2017) for a fuller account.3 For more on serious gaming, see Rockwell and Kee (Citation2011).4 Also relevant here is Stefano Gualeni’s (Citation2022) discussion of ‘philosophical games’, which serve as a springboard for philosophical reflection (including reflection on ethical themes). Papers, Please, discussed below, is one of Gualeni’s examples.5 For an introduction to games research, including the various methodological options available to researchers, see Daneels et al. (Citation2022).6 For further discussion of scale in relation to media accounts of migration, see Adinolfi and Caracciolo (Citationunder review).7 Grand Theft Auto IV (Citation2008), which centers on the experiences of an illegal migrant from Eastern Europe to the United States, was perhaps one of the earliest AAA games to offer an in-depth view of migration.8 Through its foregrounding of movement, Where the Water Tastes Like Wine can also be read as a ‘walking simulator’. See Kagen (Citation2017) for further discussion of this category.9 See this website for an overview of the game’s story lines and endings: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-u4gTrLDim4EVx73ZcqxV14I_d5swEgvOPuMOIVkCjc/edit.10 See Split/Screen Documentaries (Citation2019) for a helpful ‘making-of’ video, where Maurin also discusses Lifeline as a source of inspiration.11 The player of Bury Me, My Love can decide to switch off the delay, so that Nour’s messages appear as soon as Majd says something, without any pause. The developers thus tried to cater to different play styles, including impatient players who don’t want to wait for Nour’s responses, but from the interview with Maurin (Split Screen Documentary Citation2019) there is little doubt that the game was designed with the delay in mind.12 Media psychologists discuss this type of closeness to fictional characters as a form of ‘para-social interaction’. See, e.g., Giles (Citation2002).13 The role that digital technologies play in the daily lives of migrants has been the subject of stimulating work in migration studies, see Ponzanesi and Leurs (Citation2022) for an overview.14 https://www.lemonde.fr/international/visuel/2015/12/18/dans-le-telephone-d-une-migrante-syrienne_4834834_3210.html.15 For more on her involvement and how the game came about, see again Split/Screen Documentaries (Citation2019).16 See Sicart (Citation2013, 98–106) and Bosman (Citation2019) on wicked problems and game design.17 For more on the subject of complicity and political engagement in games, see also Schrank (Citation2014, chap. 5).18 I define game mechanics as possibilities of interaction offered by the game as a designed system. See also Sicart’s (Citation2008) comprehensive discussion.19 This idea is also related to what Monika Fludernik (Citation1996, 13) calls the ‘anthropomorphic bias’ of narrative, which is also a bias towards the human-scale world. For more on tellability, see Baroni (Citation2013).20 Rob Nixon (Citation2011) influentially formulated a version of this argument in discussing environmental destruction in the Global South—a phenomenon that, due to its slow pace and gradual effects, tends to resist narrative representation.21 For discussion of the complexities surrounding the player-controlled character or avatar in games, see Vella (Citation2013).22 See https://wherethewatertasteslikewine.fandom.com/wiki/The_anonymous_grave.23 This is the emphasis on authenticity typical of indie games, according to Juul (Citation2019).24 See also my analysis of environmental storytelling in Where the Water Tastes Like Wine in Caracciolo (Citation2022, chap. 7).25 See, on this topic, Mary Flanagan and Helen Nissembaum’s (Citation2014) account, which is geared towards how developers can embed certain political or moral values in games.Additional informationFundingThis work was supported by H2020 Societal Challenges [grant number 101004945].