Constructing the past in video games: The player as consumer and co-author of historical narratives in “Europa Universalis IV”

Abstract

This paper attempts to analyze how the historical content of some videogames is appreciated in relation to game designers' and gamers' views of “historical authenticity” as well as medium restrictions. The steady increase in the number of historical setting games provokes a natural interest among researchers who analyze re-enactment of conceptions of the past in the new media. The project under study, Europa Universalis IV, which encompasses a variety of historical events, demonstrates multiple diverse strategies aimed at constructing the effect of «historical authenticity» in videogames. Analysis of audience reception of this videogame allows us to state that the gamers engage in quite intensive refection regarding the historical content of the videogame. Not only popular beliefs about the past incorporated in a game's mechanics have a research value but also the gamers' modes of interacting with it. Game designers' technical decisions (i. e., the game rules) are interpreted both at play level and at the level of historical narratives constructed by using them.