Th e Anthropocene and its Relationship with the History of Video Games

Abstract

Th is paper presents an overview of technological development during the twentieth century that focuses on video games, technological obsolescence, and digital garbage. In addition to mapping this trajectory, this article problematizes the relationship between games and ideas about the Anthropocene using examples of electronic games that incorporate environmental narratives in their gameplay. We demonstrate that the video game industry emerged synchronously alongside military development during the twentieth century, became an environmental problem by producing digital garbage, and, in the first two decades of the twenty-first century, incorporated concerns about Anthropocene-related crises in the gameplay of its games.