The Counterfeit Coin: Videogames and Fantasies of Empowerment

The Counterfeit Coin argues that games and related entertainment media have become almost inseparable from fantasy. In turn, these media are making fantasy itself visible in new ways. Though apparently asocial and egocentric--an internal mental image expressing the fulfillment of some wish--fantasy has become a key term in social contestations of the emerging medium. At issue is whose fantasies are catered to, who feels powerful and gets their way, and who is left out. This book seeks to undo the monolith of commercial gaming by locating multiplicity and difference within fantasy itself. It introduces and tracks three broad fantasy traditions that dynamically connect apparently distinct strata of a game (story and play), that join games to other media, and that encircle players in pleasurable loops as they follow these connections.

Author: Christopher Goetz
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Published: 05/12/2023
Pages: 216
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.65lbs
Size: 9.13h x 6.06w x 0.55d
ISBN13: 9781978825505
ISBN10: 1978825501
BISAC Categories:
- Social Science | Media Studies
- Computers | Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)
- Social Science | Popular Culture

About the Author
Christopher Goetz is an assistant professor in the Department of Cinematic Arts at the University of Iowa, Iowa City. He is one of the founding organizers of the annual Queerness and Games Conference.