The Limits of Alliance: Rethinking Games, Inclusivity, and Consumer Capitalism
What does it mean to be an "ally"? This talk aims to complicate our concept of the alliance in order to better understand its consequences. Many of us working around questions of inclusivity in gaming have seen our cause benefit from an alliance with consumer capitalism this past decade, where corporate cultures have eagerly embraced the rhetoric of inclusivity in an effort to sell more product. But how sustainable is the alliance between inclusivity and the game industry? And while the implications for those of us working in game studies have a good deal to do with how we understand and appreciate the work of anticolonialism, racial awareness, and feminism in the game industry, the ambition of this talk is far greater as it aims demonstrate how alliances, when embraced uncritically, often work to maintain unjust colonial structures.