ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses whether the concepts of 'world-withdrawal' and 'world-decay' that German philosopher Martin Heidegger elaborated for traditional works of art have any currency for contemporary cultural artefacts such as computer games. A computer game is a visual, acoustic or textual artefact that claims some relation to the real world outside the game-world. The problem with the game is that it has been created at a certain moment, a certain decade, a historic context and with a certain place in mind. The chapter discusses few problems related to the computer games: Where is the world in Tetris, and where is the world in abstract art? Are all videogames withdrawn from the world? and Do computer games inform us about the world? Computer games are both appearance and reality. The appearance is the aspect of the world that the game has been withdrawn from. Reality is what Huizinga calls 'the common world' and what Heidegger refers to as 'earth'.
