Aufschwung Strike. Hegemony and Government in the Post-Socialist Digital Play Space

Abstract

As video games have always been modelled on political and historical processes, it is of little surprise that their play spaces have started to incorporate the post-socialist space immediately after the collapse of the Soviet Union. In so doing, video games drew on certain conventions, structuring the post-socialist situation that was notoriously unclear in reality. Using two prime examples this article aims to show that in video games the postsocialist situation is seen through the lens of hegemony and government, which suggests that the post-socialist transformation is a Western project.