The Intersection Between Public History and the Cultural Industry in Video Games

Abstract

In this article, I aim to demonstrate the intersection between so-called Public History and the theory of Culture Industry, using the video game as a sociocultural object of study. In the contemporary world, the “commodity logic” has come to structure the relations of production, circulation and consumption, and I argue that this is fundamental to understanding historical representations over the last century. Thus, the hypotheses guiding this work are: the intertwining of Public History and the Cultural Industry, and the paradigm of the cultural commodity. To explore these hypotheses, I engage in theoretical analysis and present two case studies: namely, the so-called “strategy games”, which I examine through the Civilization and Age of Empires series; and the Assassin’s Creed franchise.