“Playing Perpetrators: Interrogating Evil in Videogames about Violent Conflicts” by Holger Pötzsch and Emil Lundedal Hammar

Media scholars Holger Pötzsch and Emil Lundedal Hammar argue that videogames, through their performative narratives that rely on player-made decisions and actions, can serve to interrogate the notion of the perpetrator. The authors first outline established game theory in relation to perpetration, and attest that most virtual worlds present a dichotomous outlook on violent conflict, where there are clear rights and wrongs. Potentially aggressive actions that are taken in this space to combat the deemed evildoer, are justified by this lack of a gray zone. Additionally, violent conflict is painted as a site for heroism, where even violent action can be commendable as long as it serves to overthrow whoever is deemed to be the perpetrator, and this incites moral distancing from the player’s actions and their consequences. 

However, as the authors show using three case studies, games can also be powerful tools of education regarding the role of perpetrators, how they are identified, and what living through violent conflict is really like. The first case study, Spec Ops: The Line?, subverts  clear evil-good dichotomy and invites reflection on the players’ complicity, responsibility, and decision-making process in a time of violent conflict. The second case study, This War of Mine, focuses on how perpetrations originate and are justified. The game thereby undermines the idea that eradicating “evil people” is the solution to all conflict, and investigates the gray zone by illustrating how violent conflict can make anyone a perpetrator, and that retaining a heroic attitude, as many player-characters have, is difficult and perhaps even unattainable. The third case study, Mafia III, focuses specifically on racial oppression in the United States of America in the 1960s, and provides opportunities for the player to take action against this in ways not always possible in real life. It thereby recontextualizes the hegemonic frame of the revenge-crime genre to address and make evident larger societal issues that often underlie various forms of violent conflict. 

Evidently, while it is important to retain a critical attitude, games can be useful sites where people can actively interact with simulated sites of violent conflict, and thereby learn and understand more of the factors that play a part in such a zone. Games have the possibility to invite ethical reflection, to generate broader understanding of the conditions of life in a violent conflict, as well as of the role of for example civilians and the military, and challenges conventional perception of perpetrators and worlds that are morally dichotomous. Specifically, games can emphasize how violent conflict can foster perpetration and perpetrators, as well as originate from them, and thereby complicate concepts such as perpetration, complicity, responsibility, and morality. Additionally, games can unearth aspects of violent conflict that would otherwise remain unseen to specific audiences, as is the case with racial oppression in Mafia III. Clearly, games have great potential for education and awareness regarding perpetration and perpetrators. Specifically their performative nature, which directly involves players of the game with the simulated conflict and engenders responsibility for their actions within these games, makes this a site of exploration that is uniquely useful to the field of perpetrator studies, and can only expand on the power of movies and novels when it comes to dealing with this field’s complex questions, both on an academic and everyday level. 

Author of this entry: Nienke Veenstra

Pötzsch, H.; Lundedal Hammar, E. “Playing Perpetrators: Interrogating Evil in Videogames about Violent Conflicts.” The Routledge International Handbook of Perpetrator Studies. Routledge, 2019, p. 343-356.