The neoliberal, capitalist logics that underpin the world are failing. Everyone is exhausted, and video games are not the relaxation tools they are often marketed as. In Gaming Exhaustion, Rainforest Scully-Blaker frames video games as media technologies that inform and are informed by culture. Through studies of popular titles like Animal Crossing: New Horizons, World of Warcraft, and American Truck Simulator, Scully-Blaker shows that games perpetuate hegemonic logics that deplete and oppress, further driving the fatigue that plagues life under capitalism and maintaining an exhausting status quo. However, he argues, it doesn’t have to be this way. Whether by design or through play, video games can help identify and confront exhaustion and offer models of regenerative play which demand more restful ways of being. Speaking against the systemic conditions that leave people too exhausted to live otherwise, Scully-Blaker demonstrates how the critical, revitalizing potential of play can enable us to take our time before it is taken.

Rainforest Scully-Blaker is Assistant Teaching Professor in Digital Media at Northeastern University in Vancouver.