Gaming Eastern Europe: Production, Distribution and Consumption

This is the first special issue of Studies in Eastern European Cinema that addresses computer game culture within the region of Eastern Europe. The reasons for doing so are twofold. The first has to do with the idea of convergence between industries. The film and game industries are increasingly overlapping, meaning that separating the two on the levels of production and consumption is unproductive. This does not mean that films become computer games, or games become films – in the form of one media product being translated into another as transmedia adaptations. Instead, the relationship between the two industries is much more dynamic; for example, film production is borrowing tools from game production. In virtual production, large studios use computer game engines to render sets while shooting live action scenes, which make shooting faster and more effective to meet the demands of major streaming services. Another example of industry convergence is the fact that computer games are moving closer to immersive forms, where head-mounted-displays are essential for the ultimate experience of a work, which is often less ludic and more geared toward experience design and performance arts, something that lies at the foundation of cinema. This cross-over illustrates how technological environments are converging to facilitate storytelling on a different level.

The second issue that grounds this turn towards games is the fact that computer games are played by large audiences. As more and more film students emerge with gameplay experience in their toolkits, the way we study screen media, including social media and television, needs to address the media ‘next door’, of which the computer game is an important one. The current generation of university students has grown up playing games on a daily basis and are likely to continue this activity in some form. In short, it is unproductive to remain ignorant of developments in computer games while our students are playing games as well as watching films. However, this puts the spotlight on a problematic issue; namely, how we should study games and how is studying games different from studying cinema? Highlighting this here might get some game scholars out of their seats, arguing that game studies has already had this debate in the early 2000s, with Janet Murray and Esben Aarseth as the leading scholars. Some readers would argue that the field of game studies is already past this discussion, having formed its own discipline - game studies. However, game studies are still a divided field dependent on which perspective we are looking at the game and indeed dependent on what kind of game is being analysed. It is still the case that many academic divisions ‘claim’ games as a core division – computer science, sociology, linguistics, education, and the arts and humanities. Regional studies, too, have to be attuned to this development, which is something that we hope to reflect through this special issue.

Regional studies are also at the foundation of this journal. The founding editors saw that there was a need for a journal with a special focus on Eastern European cinema, which has been neglected by the more established journals in cinema studies. Eastern European cinema was simply not ‘sexy’ enough for the leading journals unless articles were wrapped up in exceptionalism, underground movement and heavy auteurism. Regular studies on production, distribution and consumption were passing under the radar and only being published in limited national language publications. This is true for Eastern European game development as well. While there is a strong and viable scene for game scholars in Eastern Europe, there is very little discussion about regional specificities in the field. It is predominantly on a national level that discussions are being held on specific game histories. However, there is a vibrant exchange of knowledge through CEEGS (Central and Eastern European Game Studies Conference), which organises annual events where game scholars from Central and Eastern Europe can share findings and concerns related to regional topics. The latest conference was in Tallinn, Estonia, in October 2022.

Publications in English are also starting to appear and, while they are predominantly from national perspectives, they do make reference to regional frameworks. Let me name just a few examples that originate from a national perspective but reach for comparisons outside the nation state. In New Media Behind the Iron Curtain, Maria B. Garda accounts for the history of computing in Poland, concluding that its development was not dissimilar to other Eastern European countries, nor in fact to other Western European countries such as Great Britain or Finland (Sitarski, Garda and Jajko 2021, 164). Jaroslav Švelch, in his monograph Gaming the Iron Curtain (2018), accounts for games travelling to Czechoslovak players via Eastern European countries with more liberal trade regulation with Western Europe, for example Yugoslavia (Švelch 2018, 127). These are just two scholars on Eastern European game development that point to larger configurations than exclusively national parameters. Furthermore, it is worth noticing that both publications have ‘iron curtain’ in their titles, suggesting some level of exoticisation aimed at readership outside the region. Both Maria B. Garda and Jaroslav Švelch appear in this issue, with pieces on games from Poland and the Czech Republic.

In this vein, this issue seeks to add to the existing scholarship. In particular, with regard to game development in Eastern Europe, it argues that we need to look past and beyond national borders – the specifics of one nation’s game development – to find similarities and differences. Graeme Kirkpatrick’s study on early users of computers in Poland and the UK can function as an example of how comparative analysis can shed light on communalities and specificities when looking at one particular aspect in the history of computer games (Kirkpatrick 2007). The diversity that Kirkpatrick (2007, 229) finds among the users challenges our perception of how computer technology creates cultural sameness through globalised and universalised experiences – as if these are ‘fundamentally opposed to local and particular cultures’. Such comparative studies dispel what Melanie Swalwell (2021, 2) calls ‘grand narratives’ of game history, where single events, typically in the USA or Japan, are thought to have seismic impact on the whole of the game industry. It is Swalwell’s intention to instead direct the focus towards ‘local’ phenomena and away from dominant narratives about the development and history of computer games, and, according to Swalwell, Eastern European game culture is as an important piece of the puzzle that makes up the history of the computer game (Swalwell 2021, 3–4).

As a gaming region, Eastern Europe might seem an odd constellation, encompassing countries in the Baltic to the southern Balkan sphere and Albania. It is not always meaningful to look across the region for similarities – often it is too large a production field to the target of specific analyses. However, there are issues that overlap with regard to historical development and socio-political formations after the fall of communism, which could be important to highlight when writing about particular game histories of the region. There are similarities in the technological development of the region with respect to the introduction of computers into educational institutions and, later, private homes and living rooms (Švelch 2018; Sitarski, Garda, and Jajko 2021, 112–171). On the other hand, the consumption of computer games does not divert significantly from the consumption of other media products in Eastern Europe – foreign brands are preferred over local games (Ţăruş et al. 2009). That said, there are specificities to computer games that are different from other media productions; in particular, when it comes to the influence and sociological hold on the player through economic transaction and gameplay interaction.

Known as dark game design (Zagal, Björk and Lewis 2013), the player can be tricked through game design to keep playing or to continue paying for services that are unrelated to gameplay. This has led to computer games being categorised as an addiction by the World Health Organisation in 2018. The game industry in Eastern Europe will have to face these concerns, and game scholars need to further investigate the causality between playing computer games and lack of self-control. There is an interesting paradox in the fact that computer games thrive on the notion of freedom and emancipation of the player, while having to fend off accusations of forming psychological relationships between game and player that share similarities to bondage. As an example, there is an interesting discussion going on concerning Cyperpunk 2077 as a stagnating and limited world, despite its promise to be the opposite (Kaniewska 2022; Maj 2022). There are several ways in which such a paradox could be investigated, but this is certainly worth looking at from a regional perspective, given that the post-1989 era has been dominated by discussion of libertarian ideas trumping authoritarian ones. In the last couple of decades, we have seen a return to a period of conservative nationalism, which could be seen as reflected in the limited and stagnating features of Cyperpunk 2077. The fact that we are living in a shrinking world is felt more acutely in Eastern Europe, where Cold War divisions are being re-imposed – not exactly the same as the ‘iron curtain’ mentioned above, but a similar frontier of irreconcilable differences that shrinks parts of the world into isolated islands. In such a context, what is the attraction of a computer game with a grand-scale, free-roaming storyworld? How do we account for the local context of game production in a meaningful way? This is something that we are keen on exploring in the future.

In the end, this special issue is not an attempt to reignite old tribal wars about the academic ‘home’ of the computer game. Instead, the issue seeks to say something about the development of computer games in Eastern Europe, to investigate peculiarities that are specific to Eastern Europe, and in this way also to point to the fact that the field of game studies lacks a geographical mapping that is sensitive to local, regional and national specificity. Computer games are more often than not approached from the national framework of Eastern European countries, but there are also tendencies of uneven attention in this regard, as some countries are more valued or covered than others. As mentioned above, Poland and the Czech Republic have a developed body of literature on local game development, while other countries are only just starting this process. National frameworks are also envisioned in the contributions to this special issue, and the challenge for future issues will be to have articles working more coherently under a single theme or topic.

National histories are likely to be preferred over transnational ones, but, as this journal asserts, transnational traces are far more valuable in terms of understanding underlying trends with regard to important social and economic shifts. Furthermore, looking comparatively across national borders adds the possibility of writing against large hegemonic narratives, which seek to dominate discourse on history, cinema or the computer game. The history of the SEEC started as an attempt to counter a hegemonic focus on cinema history. The blank spots on the world map of film production had to be addressed in new ways and from specialists in this particular region. Within the current situation of game studies, there is a similar gap when it comes to the history of computer games and game development, where minor clusters get less attention from scholars. Where in film studies the shift was towards focusing on minor cinemas rather than cinema from large producing countries, we now see the potential of approaching game development through the same lens, fully aware that large triple-A game studios are also located in Eastern Europe. This leads to the issue of localization, which a few of the papers published here touch upon.

Localization in game studies has been associated with issues of translation of content, but it is also more than just translating words into another language. For example, different countries and regions have different rules and laws for implementing computer games locally. For example, in-game assets and structures, such as loot boxes and other online purchases, are an area each game company needs to navigate while developing their game. Furthermore, when games go live in a global market, gameplay can be translated in different ways, and game developers need to be sensitive to this so that the game is met at the right level of gameplay. Localization in particular applies to Eastern European games when the topic of the game is of an historical nature. Here the game has to be responsive to the level of understanding of local and national histories. A certain historical event in Bohemia might be common knowledge in today’s Czech Republic, but requires specialised proficiency in other parts of the world. Localization can be considered to relate to three issues: (1) linguistic issues; (2) content and cultural issues; and (3) technical issues, as with loot boxes above (Toftedahl 2021). With each layer, the game has to be attuned to national and regional differences. Thus, we arrive at the need to explain particularities for a mass audience, which resembles the discourse on cultural hegemonies and the dominance of certain cultures. It would be interesting to see the application of postcolonial theory in Eastern European game development, for example as proposed by Souvik Mukherjee in Videogame and Postcolonialism (2017). It is always worth asking questions about for whom localizations are implemented. Who gets to tell (hi)stories and for whom are these stories told?

Another issue that the contributions look at is games on the transition period, often with the purpose of educating or teaching the player about a time that has not been personally experienced. The idea is that through play the player will learn about this particular period of time when communism was peacefully or violently overthrown. Why focus on the transition in these games? Likely because of the time span. Young people are now growing up without personal experiences of these events, but are also likely interested in the topic because funders (state or private) are encouraging game development in this direction. Contrary to film funding, game making is not always valued as a media that helps to preserve national culture and therefore is not included in support schemes of national states. Another reason games are excluded from these funding schemes is due to their commercial prowess – the general perception being that games do not need production support, or that games are inaccessible to non-playing audiences, and therefore do not qualify for national funding. This is likely to change in the future – when games will become a natural part of a given nation’s cultural expression. As an example of this we can look at games from the transition period. These games are particularly worthy of attention, because in them we can see a certain aesthetic impression manifested. Furthermore, in these early games of the region we can glance back at games of resistance that had subliminal messages that only a few at the time could reach through play, but also messages that are well worth preserving for the future.

In the first article by Alesha Serada, we learn about the Belarusian game MENSK (1998), which was developed for MS-DOS in Minsk. It was one of the first computer games produced in Belarus and is a highly political game. Consequently, it continues to have a huge influence on game developers today in Belarus; one of the paper’s strong points is its evidence-gathering of the impact of MENSK among current computer game developers in Belarus. MENSK is an excellent example of a ‘homebrew’ game omitted from writings on game history but quintessential for local game development. A similar case is presented in the following article. Żulionerzy, from 2001, is a computer game produced by the emergent Polish indie industry. According to authors Mateusz Felczak and Maria B. Garda, Żulionerzy broke ground by being a self-published online game and by using parody to mock the political ease with which the transition from state socialism to capitalism took place. Formed as a guerrilla game adaptation of the popular TV program Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?, the game produces a rather less glamorous context for the players than the TV show. Just as with the Belarusian game MENSK, Żulionerzy is full of jokes and word puns on the theme of alcohol consumption, to the point of being a game with auteurist self-reflective features.

In the next article, by Tereza Fousek Krobová, Justyna Janik and Jaroslav Švelch, we move away from homebrew and parody games to the horror game, in particular looking at how local features of postcommunist space are made appealing to global players. The games under analysis are Someday You’ll Return (2020) and The Medium (2021), where the authors find both stereotypes of Eastern European space as well as new horror aesthetics that add to the overall genre development. The theme of representation is a classic in game analysis, but it is rarely narrated from an Eastern European point of view. In the article that follows, Regina Seiwald and Alex Wade look at Czechoslovak games from the Cold War period of the late 1980s through the lens of the hyperreal and Jean Baudrillard. The authors argue that since Eastern Europe functioned as opposition to the hyperreal of the West, games like The Adventures of Indiana Jones on Wenceslas Square in Prague on January 16, 1989 (1989) can be seen as underground games forming antitheses to both Western capitalism and Eastern communism. This further underlines the fact that early use of computers in making games in Eastern Europe was a clandestine business with far-reaching political implications.

In the next two games that are accounted for by Vít Šisler, Jan Švelch, Shawn Clybor, and Ondřej Trhoň, Attentat 1942 and Svoboda 1945: Liberation, we move further back into history, but through the phenomenon of serious games or game-based learning. Blending academia and game development, the authors are both scholars and developers seeking to advance the field of educational games. In their article, they highlight specific problems in adapting historical events to ludic gameplay and in particular how to narrate national history that is complex and contested to international audiences. The focus here is whether game localization can be achieved without losing accuracy and authenticity. In the final article, by Zsófia O. Réti, we are playing a dystopian future, but with recognizable iconography from Romania of the late Ceausescu period. In Black: The Fall (2017), the author detects how this indie game uses various historical tropes that are particular to Eastern Europe under communism to distinguish the game from other contemporary games. For a player who has not lived through Romanian communism, Black: The Fall offers an ‘immersive fantasy’ that, through its futuristic scenario, focuses on authentic experience rather than historical accuracy. The game might be a fantasy, but the gameplay is meant to feel real – like living under the regime of Ceausescu.

As part of looking into the future, the contemporary field of game development must also be highlighted; therefore, we decided to include an interview with two game developers of the region, Ágnes Karolina Bakk and Alexey Izvalov. They have been selected since they reflect the wide range of game development that the journal seeks to address, from more performative and immersive configuration of play and game to more concrete game design in computer games.

The issue concludes with our usual short article section, which this time includes three book reviews, an obituary and a response article. Mélisande Leventopoulos discusses Ana Grgić’s Early Cinema, Modernity and Visual Culture. The Imaginary of the Balkans, Bori Máté introduces Experimental Cinemas in State-Socialist Eastern Europe edited by Ksenya Gurshtein and Sonja Simonyi, and Jan Čulík reviews Veronika Pehe’s book Velvet Retro: Postsocialist Nostalgia and the Politics of Heroism in Czech Popular Culture. András Szekfü commemorates the life and the career of the Hungarian filmmaker Lívia Gyarmathy. Finally, in The Artist and the Work, our reader will find Agnieszka Piotrowska’s response to Ewa Mazieska’s article Roman Polanski (and Others) on Trial.

In the first issue of any given year, we announce the winner of the best article published in this journal in the previous year. This time the winner is Larson Powell, who is an author of Fantasy and latency: Rainer Simon’s late DEFA films. We congratulate Larson for his thought-provoking piece!