ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses Destiny and Kim Kardashian: Hollywood as examples of how contemporary videogames encourage players to manage the flow of time and cultivate gendered subject positions. While one is a ‘hardcore’ first-person console shooter about an alien invasion and the other a ‘casual’ free-to-play smartphone game about becoming a reality TV star, the two games turn out to have much in common. Both use ‘gamified’ reinforcement techniques to keep players coming back, and both perpetuate the neoliberal fantasy of working one’s way to the top through hard entrepreneurial graft. In terms of their business models, meanwhile, they speak to the dominance of data capitalism in the contemporary games industry. But if, in these respects, Destiny and Hollywood exemplify digital culture’s reigning norms, the debates they have sparked among players suggest that not everyone is content to accept those norms. The chapter concludes with two texts that articulate alternative understandings of play, value, gender and time: Porpentine’s interactive fiction Skulljhabit and Dennis Cooper’s novel God Jr.
