ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the ways that videogames portray the role of economics in the past. In doing so it summarizes some of the most important trends in economic theory and practice over the last few hundred years, paying particular attention to free-market, Keynesian, and Marxist analysis. It distinguishes between games that focus on micro- versus macro-economics and pays particular attention to how well videogames depict mercantile, free-market, interventionist, and centrally planned economies. This chapter argues that in order to provide players sufficient agency for entertainment, strategy games tend in practice toward mechanics that model central planning, even when their factions and period settings followed radically different economic systems.
