Barry Atkins
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Managing the real
Reading SimCity

This chapter discusses how SimCity sheds light on how the narratives through which we now explain the world to ourselves are beginning to change in their encounter with the computer and the computer game. It argues that SimCity works as a game, and as a narrative, because we already know the story we are supposed to tell and already accept that the narrative reference made is not to the historical, but to the myth of American utopian futures. SimCity does not attempt to use British imperialism and colonialism or Nazi militarism as its model, but however the expectations of the game are communicated, whether in its title or not, they establish limits above all else.

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More than a game

The computer game as fictional form

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