'Anecdotal Evidence': A Holistic Approach to the Ecological Analysis of Videogames

Abstract

Videogames, the games industry, and game studies all find themselves at a crossroads of ecological crisis. Considering the entanglement of games with ecological crisis in terms of their environmental impact, their ecological textuality, and the sustainability of game development, this paper explores the methodology of anecdotal evidence to study games' ecological relations. Doing so requires that the analysis of games comes to appreciate their innate politics to cultivate ecopolitical negotiation. By reviewing the lineage of ecomedia theory in game studies, this paper retrospectively identifies anecdotal method as capable of bridging between situated knowledge and planetary realities. Prospectively, this paper suggests future directions for anecdotal analysis.