Theory Redux
Series editor: Laurent de Sutter
Alfie Bown, The Playstation Dreamworld
Roberto Esposito, Persons and Things
Graham Harman, Immaterialism: Objects and Social Theory
Srećko Horvat, The Radicality of Love
Dominic Pettman, Infinite Distraction: Paying Attention to Social Media
Nick Srnicek, Platform Capitalism
polity
Copyright © Alfie Bown 2018
The right of Alfie Bown to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in 2018 by Polity Press
Polity Press
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All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.
ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-1806-7
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Bown, Alfie, author.
Title: The PlayStation dreamworld / Alfie Bown.
Description: Cambridge, UK ; Malden, MA : Polity, 2017. | Series: Theory redux | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017010123 (print) | LCCN 2017038696 (ebook) | ISBN 9781509518050 (Mobi) | ISBN 9781509518067 (Epub) | ISBN 9781509518029 (hardback) | ISBN 9781509518036 (paperback)
Subjects: LCSH: Video games--Social aspects. | Virtual reality--Social aspects. | Dream interpretation. | BISAC: SOCIAL SCIENCE / Media Studies.
Classification: LCC GV1469.34.S52 (ebook) | LCC GV1469.34.S52 B75 2017 (print) | DDC 794.8--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017010123
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First I want to thank my wife Kim for all the hours of co-playing and co-analysis. Second, thanks are due to some brilliant editors, Rob Horning at The New Inquiry, Julian Feeld at Outermode, Aaron Schuster at Cabinet, and Jerome Roos at ROAR. These people provided me with platforms for discussions of politics and technology and allowed me to trial some of the ideas found in this book. Thanks also to Srećko Horvat for giving me a concrete theory of subversion, and to Laurent de Sutter for his help and support with the book. Special thanks are due to Mark Fisher, who passed away during the production of the manuscript, for inspiration. Finally, thanks to my dad for my Sega Game Gear in 1994.
For philosophers, texts are referenced in the endnotes academically. For gamers, titles are referenced by the console I considered most relevant to the discussion and by the year of initial release, not by the original platform on which they appeared.
Nostalgia in reverse, the longing for yet another strange land, grew especially strong in spring.
Vladimir Nabokov, Mary (1926)