Don’t Go With The Flow or The Right to Unhappiness
Queer Counter-Flow As An Affective Resource in Digital Gaming
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.19132/1807-8583.56.136474Keywords:
Digital Gaming, gender, SexualityAbstract
This article seeks to provide a critique and alternative to the so-called flow theory present in game design. Present as a theory that defines what a good game should be, the flow is historically an optimizing experience tool linked to the production of “happiness”. However, this experience is composed of ideological substrates, used as a tool for the maintenance of the current system, which must remain uncritical. Using the presupposition of the flow in digital game design, American avant-garde queer scenes propose an instance called counter-flow: a use of flow intended to disrupt the escapist fun proposed by the mainstream flow. These are possible due to LGBTQ and feminist historical subjective positions based on feelings of anguish, frustration, and sadness. These strategies produce a critical proposition of the flow, showing its ideological and political relations.
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