1 Introduction

Figures 1.1–1.4: In one video game, an old lady staggers through the graveyard. In another, a cat witnesses the 1953 coup in Iran. In one, you play the drab role of an immigration officer in a fictional Eastern European country. In another, you solve puzzles in a pixelated world of wonder. In another game, the character goes through hormone replacement therapy. Two rabbit-like creatures quip existentially about burning up in lava. Stanley works in an office, doing only what he is told, the narrator says—but what if you do something different? A lonely man wanders around a national park, seeing the sun rise and set. In what looks like an adventure game, you must wait hours in real time to partake in the art exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art.