The time since the last update has been a bit of a burden in terms of world politics, and I’ve also found the hand-over-head moments in gaming culture to be rather dominant (exceptions: Boxing fascists with Indiana Jones and the Remembrance Game Remember. The Children of Bullenhuser Damm). Grand Strategy, taking a fascinated but certainly not critical look at the Nazi regime. Indie kitsch that only contributes toxic empathy and historical misrepresentation to a complex historical situation. For me, these are good reasons to continue to be present at the intersection of games and society, offering insights and commentary. And that’s what I’ve been doing over the past few months…
OK COOL HISTORY
Having already shown myself becoming a mighty™ cultural scientist (German only) in Dom Schott’s exciting podcast project OK COOL, I joined the team in November 2024 and will be looking at history in games together with Dom once a month in the future. After a welcome podcast (together with my new colleague Géraldine Hohmann) (German only), the first episode is already online (for Steady supporters): Von Trash bis Dauerbrenner: Zwei Geschichtsfans greifen ins Spielregal (German only)
Der Kulturwissenschaftler Christian Huberts und der Journalist Dom Schott haben eine große Gemeinsamkeit: Sie beide lieben Spiele mit historischen Schauplätzen, vom kleinen Indie-Titel bis zur AAA-Großproduktion. In dieser Folge zeigen sie einander ihr Spielregal und sprechen über die History Games, die sie 2024 gespielt haben – und die einen bleibenden Eindruck hinterlassen haben. Eine Diskussion über Lieblingsspiele, Enttäuschungen und kuriose Überraschungen, liebevoll verpackt im MP3-Format und virtuos für euch auf einem hübschen Teller (euren Ohren) serviert.
Landecker Digital Memory Lab
Since November 2024, I have also become a member of the Steering Committee of the Landecker Digital Memory Lab, funded by the Alfred Landecker Foundation. The project, based at the University of Sussex, is a central hub for international and interdisciplinary knowledge exchange and research on the digital memory of the Holocaust. My role is small and solely supportive, but I am still very grateful to be on board.
Conference: AI Utopia and Dystopia
On November 14, 2024, my former employer, the Foundation for Digital Games Culture, invited me to a conference on the risks and opportunities of artificial intelligence (AI) in game development and games culture. In one of the sessions, I talked with the experts Johanna Pirker and Laura C. Schmidt as well as the moderator Stefanie Langer about the game Tacoma. How can games depict utopian scenarios in the context of AI instead of always just the extermination of humanity by killer robots? An exciting discussion that can be re-watched – alongside all the other, sometimes quite controversial panels – in the full recording of the conference (timecode 3:43:35). Special thanks to Melanie Fussenegger and Malina Riedl for organizing the conference and for the invitation!
Götterdämmerung
The new DLC Götterdämmerung for the strategy game Hearts of Iron IV has caused a bit of a stir. The Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS had already been largely decoupled from Nazi ideology there before, but with the current overhaul of the German Reich in the game, Nazi personnel take on an even more prominent role without Nazi injustice being made visible with a single word. Instead, it celebrates a creepy fascination with »Wunderwaffen« and megalomaniacal architecture. As a historical-political artifact, this creates a real sense of unease, not just for me. That’s why I was able to talk about the game and its periphery in several formats. Firstly in the show Breitband on Deutschlandfunk Kultur with a focus on right-wing extremist content found on the community and distribution platform Steam (German only). And secondly a little later and in more detail in the podcast Indie Fresse (German only):
In dieser Folge sprechen wir über Götterdämmerung, einen DLC zum historischen 2. Weltkriegs-Strategiespiel Hearts of Iron IV. Denn genau dieser DLC hat in der deutschsprachigen Games-Szene für große Kontroversen gesorgt. Und zwar nicht durch die Dinge, die er hinzufügt (sehr viele historische Nazis), sondern die er auslässt. Genauer: Holocaust, Shoah und viele, viele andere Gräueltaten der Nazis.
Darf ein Spiel das? Sollte ein Spiel das? Erleben wir hier die Grenze des Spielbaren? Wir reden drüber mit unserem Freund Christian Huberts, der sich als Kulturwissenschaftler, Kritiker und Autor bereits seit Jahren mit Themen rund um Rechtsextremismus, Games und Erinnerungskultur befasst.
That’s 2025 all wrapped up and I’m looking forward to new challenges in the coming year. More on that in the following update!
I wish you all a wonderful end to the year and a good start to a hopefully less interesting 2025! 🎆