The Subject of Games. Cartesian Anxiety in Game Cultures, Game Studies, and Gameplay

Abstract

This article argues that game studies must directly confront the heretofore implicit conflict between different constructions of the human subject at the center of games research and criticism. The conception of a self-coherent and rational player is at odds with a relativistic notion of the player as a malleable surface of inscription, and this tension manifests as Cartesian anxiety. But both these constructions of the subject are bound to the figure of the cogito and thus to the present. Lacan’s theory of the split subject is advanced as one possible way forward, as it postulates a thinking, reasoning subject that is nevertheless irreconcilably sundered from the libidinal and affective dimensions of its being. This theory of the subject is articulated to an approach to games analysis that centres gameplay, the agonistic interplay of forces animating players’ engagement with games, and illustrated through a discussion of the public outcry around the release of No Man’s Sky (2016) and its subsequent updates and patches.