Gaming the Past

This is the first in what will be a series of dialogues with game studies scholar Eugen Pfister. Like all GTP dialogues, we focus on discussing ideas as they seem to us rather than finely proofed essays. Eugen starts us off with a broader question about the appeal of history that will lead us to topics in historical games studies.

EP: So let’s start with that: I am very excited that we are now trying this here. I’ve been waiting for a suitable occasion to do something together for years. (J: Me too!) So let’s talk about our “stuff”: History and Games. This is in fact a particularly good time in my academic biography. I’ve been researching digital games and history for I think about ten years now: history in digital games, the history of digital games and now increasingly also the philosophy of history and digital games. From my school education in a French lycée as well as my university education in Austria, France, Germany and Italy, I was trained to search for a “gain in knowledge” and to develop a pertinent research question in advance of an investigation. In other words, research is supposed to make sense, to help us better understand ourselves in contrast to just describing what we see. Never stop asking questions.

If we are interested in why certain historical periods – the American Civil War for example – are communicated in games, how history is understood in games – as a series of wars for example -, then the next step for me would be to ask myself why there is history in games at all. Why do we want to play history in the first place? The question seems almost heretical, so natural to us is our thirst for history. But I think that’s what makes it so exciting. Somehow you’d like to think that such a central, fundamental question “Why history” has already been discussed and answered so often that we don’t even have to deal with it anymore. 

But then I thought about it for a moment: during my entire degree programme, the question was never raised by a professor. Even in the relevant introductory books, the question is touched on surprisingly rarely and only very cursorily. Of course, I still have a lot of literature ahead of me. But I still find it amazing how far we’ve all come without touching on this fundamental question. Because it’s not just about why games with a story sell. It’s also about the question of why we study history. I’m afraid I have to admit that I never asked myself this question before and during my studies. What was it like for you?

JM: I too am really pleased that we’ve found a forum to talk more!
I agree that this question of “Why history?” or “Why do history?” is not something that necessarily comes up often in university and grad school studies. As a university undergraduate, I think the fact that one was enrolled in a history course was considered proof of interest (which may not, of course, have always been true, though it was for me). Graduate school even moreso; we focused on how to do the craft in ways that were consistent with the discipline. “Why do history?” did not get explored too much. But as I was finishing up grad school, I became acquainted with Classical Studies scholars (with whom I shared an affinity as a Greco-Roman historian) who discussed and talked much about the benefits of studying Classical cultures (and languages). Ultimately the discussion of the late 90s early 2000s about “Why study Classics?” broke into this ground of “Why History?” Then, as a history teacher in a progressive school, history teachers (and social studies as it is called in the US with younger-than-high-school grades) increasingly felt the need to define the value of the field in comparison to science and technology. Those conversations usually focused on skills, I happen to think, because of the unfortunate trend of seeing education as only “valuable” when it adds to market value.

So for me two things drove me to ask the question of myself (not that I’ve answered it yet). The first was teaching high school. After a couple of decades trying to get kids intrigued by history, one starts to wonder often what pitch to use. But I also think that historical game studies poses that question because it is history outside of an educational/academic context: all sorts of people, who are presumably not concerned much with the market value of history skills and “accurate” content, are still motivated to design and play analog and digital games set in the past. Why? At the very least: because it is interesting, appealing. But of course, being interesting and appealing just postpones asking the ultimate question again: Why History?

EP: I think that’s an excellent start for our discussion: Is “history” attractive in itself, or only certain qualities of  history? And above all: why do we find it interesting in the first place? I like to take an autobiographical approach: how long have I dedicated a large part of my life to researching history without really being able to say why I want to do it at all? I’m interested in history, yes, but why? What does this mean? The trouble is, I don’t know the answer. Yet. And I think maybe that’s partly where my fascination with history in games lies. I want to better understand my fascination for history, which probably emerged from my early gaming years. History apparently also works as a selling point and not just for me.

My thesis now would be that the reasons why people play games with history and the reasons why people study history at universities are related. A first step for me to approach this question was to ask around: on Bluesky, Mastodon, Linkedin, Twitter and Discord. I often got similar answers to myquestion “Why history?”: “To learn from history” was often given as an answer, although always with an ironic twist. My friend and colleague Manuel Müller, for example, replied: “Somewhere I should still have my theses on ‘learning from history’, which I wrote when I was 18, before I was reeducated from studying history.”  The concept of the “Usable Past” is probably related to this, although – if I have understood correctly – this also goes in the direction of “identity construction”. (Incidentally, that would be the direction I would go, a discourse analysis of the construction of collective identities.) The idea of “creating meaning” and “reducing complexity” also came up very often. History should/can help us to locate ourselves better in the world – to find our “identity” – but also to understand it better – “learning from history”. I found especially those answers very excitingwhich I hadn’t expected , in particular “history as fantasy” and “history as escapism”, which could be understood as the opposite of sense-making. History as a safe retreat from our complex world. That would bring us back to complexity reduction. And finally, “history as an experience of superiority”, i.e. the feeling that we are superior to the past. 

That was a lot, of course! Sorry! As you see I’m only at the beginning of my reflections, but I think that the initially contradictory answers don’t contradict each other that much. And I have the feeling that they are all “right” for me too. So for the time being, I would leave out the scientific answers to the question and start with these subjective answers. My guess is that these reasons apply to all of us: Researchers, writers, gamers, journalists, politicians, etc. What is your opinion or experience Jeremiah? And if I may ask, what were the triggers for your interest in history?

JM: These are questions that I have not thought about in quite awhile, which is perfectly consistent with what you have found in your journeys, my Socratic friend. It is a fascinating tension. I don’t really, for myself, accept as stated that we  “learn from history” as the idea that reproducible situations can be learned about and guide us when they come around again. (EP: Hear! Hear!)  However at a gut level I do think it is not a clear dividing line because I do believe (in my gut) one can  “learn from history” as being able to understand from past situations how humans can behave in ways that may apply to understanding current humans. I wouldn’t push that too far uncritically. But that identity component resonates with me too: “learn from history” as understanding why we are where we are in time and space. 

I think for me, fundamentally, history’s appeal to me is two fold. First it is the idea that with history I can grok the system–to use a now old fashioned term. That is, I can draw upon a wealth of contextual information that makes a current situation and our current spatial and intellectual (in all thinking forms) more understandable. I feel the excitement that I get it; I see behind the curtain. Even saying that I realize I can do a much better job presenting that joy explicitly to students. 

The other area that I cannot really articulate well is that, for me, history is problem solving about “real” things. As I have aged I find myself less up for reading fictional works (disclaimer: fiction is wonderful and important as are (many) forms of literary analyses; just not my primary interest) and more interested in reading non-fiction. And I think that stems from a similar source. I like to learn more about the specifics of the world, the way specific identifiable agents (individually and collectively) behaved and how they got to those positions. So even though I had a rich reading list of fantasy as a child, I was drawn to biography too because it added to my understanding of the specifics of the world. Does that make sense? Here I am clearly pulling from the Aristotelian idea (complete with its own problems) that Epic/Fantasy is about general realities and history about specifics. I find those specifics fascinating. That was clearly a trigger. I remember clearly in 5th and 6th grade that I loved biographies of famous Americans, and I think that was the draw (interestingly too, I am now not drawn to US history the way I am to World History.)

But back to problem solving. If an orthodox education in a orthodox PhD program in Greco-Roman history did anything, it COMPLETELY turned me on as a fascinating puzzle of source criticism. I mean, our sources for Roman history are SO BAD; REALLY REALLY BAD. There are very few left and they all contradict and dispute. So the appeal of history that I hope I do a pretty good job with is teaching kids about the joys of coming up with credible solutions to puzzles.

So those are the parts that speak to me.

EP: Excellent answers indeed! I think we’re on a good way to reduce this plethora of questions and ideas to something manageable. There are two ideas in your answer I would really like to follow up. The one question being if we can and should try out the concept of “learning from history” on digital games with historical settings. Being a very utilitarian approach it clashes with the idea of fun and entertainment when playing games. I mean, who consciously starts to play Assassin’s Creed Mirage to learn something about history? But then maybe this is also a motive, in the sense, that we are attracted by the foreign and want to see these strange worlds, and immerse ourselves in them to learn new experiences. If a little girl or a little boy is interested in historical pirates for example and chooses to play Assassin’s Creed Black Flag or now Skulls & Bones, can we then talk of learning in the sense of accumulating informations? (The second point I would like to followe up – but maybe later – is the question of having fun while studying history 🙂 ) 

JM: Okay, here we go! I am with you as far as learning being a process of acquiring knowledge and skills and understandings, ways of doing and being and knowing. And that means, of course, that one can learn a lot that is not necessarily “accurate” or pro-social or evolutionarily helpful or whatever. All we educators struggle, I think (is it a me thing? It’s not a US thing is it?), with the idea of learning from history because that concept has been used to justify all sorts of problematic many-during-the-Cold-War actions. The role of contingent events in human and natural world systems pretty much guarantees that history does not really repeat itself, not really. But that doesn’t mean no insight, no learning can be had, and hopefully even some wisdom about the parameters for human action and the potential effects. I hope that my students will benefit from our classes–in addition to all the skill benefits of criticizing sources, and researching, and being able to cogently explain systems and causes in the past–by having an expanded awareness of things humans have done in the past and the effects of those actions. I hope for them to have an evidence-based sort-of expanding repertoire of understanding what ignorance or oppression, or self/national aggrandizement, or hegemonic ideas can lead to and how resistance is possible and meaningful action is possible and so on. So that’s pretty loaded, right?

How do games fit with this? For me, (and Thi Nguyen (Oxford 2020) wrote an awesome articulation of this for games in general), historical games are about historical agency within and around world systems. That’s the core of my Historical Problem Space framework: historical games present the past in terms of goal-oriented player agents making decisions and acting (action-choices) in a world where they are helped and hindered by the systems of the world, whether the laws of physics, or the limitations and affordances of resources, geography whatever. So if historical games do this, it at least begs the question whether this or that historical game (Skull & Bones or the just announced Civilization VII) can encourage historical empathy. And I think they can. We have to be careful though. It is a tired cliche, that of academics and educators insisting games can generate historical empathy for figures then watching as students manage not to gain any “targeted” empathies at all. But as long as we, I think, understand that historical games are problem spaces, at the very least it should be plausible, in a well designed game (just throwing that out there for you or our readers to jump on)  to understand the decision space of the player-agent, even if we do not feel emotional empathy. I think the WWI card game, The Grizzled is a great example of this. One can, and I have definitely had, students who were not powerfully moved by this game about the psychological trauma of the Western Front and the importance of camaraderie to survival. So the historical empathy they had, in terms of an emotional response, was limited. But they certainly “understood”, i.e. were able to intellectually see that the war for everyday soldiers could be seen as a repetitive slog through the terror of artillery, poison gas and attacks on impregnable defensive positions. So there seems to be the opportunity for that kind of “intellectual empathy”. For me, though, at least in my educator role, getting students to identify and reflect on those potential empathies is my job as the educator. It is, very much an open question what a historical game in the wild does or does not teach.

So one is absolutely going to learn some things by playing a pirate game. (I should say in this question of learning generally and video games, I’m a fan of Gee’s work on this (Palgrave Macmillan, 2003); it came out when I was very new to this all.)  What they learn and whether that learning has any particular impact, let alone pro-social impact I would say is very difficult, if not impossible to pin down or predict. Does that track for you?

EP: Ok, so let’s follow the road of “learning via history”. The interesting thing is that we have here many resonances between the broader field “history” and the field “games”, because both are learning centered. And I don’t mean the aspect of learning to be an adult via games – an idea going back to Aristoteles If I remember it correctly. Instead I mean that we have to learn games, their rules, their mechanics to be able to play and win them. So playing games is essentially constant learning. And history is actually maybe somewhat similar in that sense, that we approach history most of the time to learn about history. I suppose that there has always to exist a certain curiosity – i.e. a willingness to learn – when we approach history (voluntarily that is). So if I as a central European voluntarily play a game about the American Civil war, there has to be a certain openness for learning information. Thanks to such games for example I now know that Antietam has nothing to do with the Vietnam war. I cannot say at the moment if this train of thought makes sense but there is this resonance or similitude: that we both approach games and history with a willingness to learn.

I also think that your use of the term empathy here is very inspiring for new thoughts. Because empathy is the willingness to understand the perspective of a historical “other” if I got that right – i.e. a willingness to learn. In that case reading about history and playing history is not so different from watching a soap opera it is the search for emotional experiences with the one difference that we demand a certain amount of factuality in historical settings in contrast to genuine fiction. I could imagine that through this historical legitimization of these experiences, we give them more weight. But I have to be honest and admit that we are already so deep into the field of psychology, which is still a bit strange to me, that I’m afraid to talk my head off.

End of Part I – Part II TBA