“A shot in the face of the new normal”: exploratory analysis of digital games on the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

With the emergence of the health crisis caused by the new coronavirus at the beginning of 2020, the whole society found itself involved in a public communication effort, intersecting specialties or fields such as health communication, risk communication, and scientific and technological popularization. In addition to news about the pandemics' evolution and the preventive measures to be adopted by the population to fight it, this effort also strove to challenge disinformation (fake news), rooted in scientific denialism and political polarization. Upon these premises, we analyze how alternative digital games (indie games) addressed such issues related to COVID-19, understanding them as communication media endowed with intrinsic characteristics, which also establish a determined representation of reality. As our theoretical basis, we use Ian Bogost’s work, with his analysis of the use of games from a media ecology perspective, and his theorization on persuasive games and procedural rhetorics. Based on a survey of 41 game titles present in a digital games platform covering the period between 2020 and 2022, we qualitatively analyze in an exploratory scope the themes addressed, as well as media framings adopted, which would ultimately impact public perception of the pandemic and its effects. Our results point to two broad categories: skill games signaling the virus as an enemy and using the war metaphor to provide casual, habituation, and throwaway experiences, and strategy and simulation games oriented towards reflective thinking and potentially endowed with procedural rhetorics that would help to bring science closer to society, in its confrontation with denialism.