Fighting hyperreality with hyperreality: History and death in World War II digital games

Abstract

To describe the virtual worlds of digital games as hyperreal and simulacra has become almost a cliché. The perfect copy without an original, complete and even flowing over with signs adding to its real appearance but simultaneously disguising a basic loss of referentials-many of the games can be looked on as substitutes for the real world (if there is such a thing). In this article, I use World War II digital games as examples of hyperrealities, using some of Baudrillard's thoughts on hyperreality and simulacra, on our relation to history and on what he considers to be a fundamental longing for reality that has been lost to us in (post)modern Western society. © 2007 Sage Publications.