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The World Is Born From Zero: Understanding Speculation and Video Games
The World is Born From Zero is an investigation into the relationship between video games and science fiction through the philosophy of speculation. Cameron Kunzelman argues that the video game medium is centered on the evaluation and production of possible futures by following video game studies, media philosophy, and science fiction studies to their furthest reaches. Claiming that the best way to understand games is through rigorous formal analysis of their aesthetic strategies and the cultural context those strategies emerge from, Kunzelman investigates a diverse array of games like The Last of Us, VA-11 Hall-A, and Civilization VI in order to explore what science fiction video games can tell us about their genres, their ways of speculating, and how the medium of the video game does (or does not) direct us down experiential pathways that are both oppressive and liberatory. Taking a multidisciplinary look at these games, The World is Born from Zero offers a unique theorization of science fiction games that provides both science fiction studies and video game studies with new tools for thinking how this medium and mode inform each other.
206 pages, Paperback
First published July 18, 2022
13 people are currently reading
208 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
January 3, 2024
Really enjoyed this, particularly chapters 2 and 3. Despite not being an academic I found it easy to understand and there's sections I think require no previous knowledge and I could recommend without having to also warn people of impending headaches, but some previous exposure to game studies ideas definitely helps.
January 28, 2025
A fresh perspective on how videogames, specifically sci fi videogames, have the potentiality of shaping our worldview through small triggers theorized here as mechanics of speculation.
This book follows an interesting and robust conceptualization with its application in three different kinds of game, with different outcomes to illustrate the potential and palpability of these mechanics of speculation.
Above all, it broadened my own vocabulary when thinking and talking about games in general.
This book follows an interesting and robust conceptualization with its application in three different kinds of game, with different outcomes to illustrate the potential and palpability of these mechanics of speculation.
Above all, it broadened my own vocabulary when thinking and talking about games in general.
June 20, 2023
worried i might be a big ol nerd
June 24, 2024
Mega příjemný, rozmanitý, mohl mi teda deleuzeho a afekt vysvětlit víc, ale kapitola o potenciální (nemateriální) práci v kyberpunk bartender hře a rasismu skrytému ve vizuální taktice cut-scén Last of Us 2 se mnou zůstane.
February 27, 2025
Cameron Kunzelman argues that videogames are a potent platform for the mechanics of speculation, the way that our games place us in positions to think about the outcomes of our action, and how science fiction games in particular encourage speculation in potentially radical ways. After a brief introduction, the book consists of four chapters, each of which investigates a combination of theory, science fiction, videogames, and ways of thinking about the world. In the first chapter, he expands on what he means about speculation in this context, using a comparison of the games Tacoma and Everyone's Gone to the Rapture to explain the distinction between sci fi games that go towards extrapolation vs. speculation. In the second chapter, he explores immaterial labour and subjectivity in the modern workforce through an investigation of the bartending in VA-11 HALL-A. In the third chapter, through a very thorough examination of The Past of Us Parts 1 and 2, he explores its anti-blackness, which is encouraged through its aesthetic design. And in Chapter 4, he discusses a variety of games and the potential of displaying climate change meaningfully in games, in terms of exploring systems, creating affective responses, and arguing for direct intervention.
This is a great book. I've followed Kunzelman's writing for a long time, both academically and in pop culture outlets; I was expecting something ethically engaging, deep, and interesting. This book is all of these things, but it's also extremely accessible, in ways that I feel like I've learned not to expect from academia. Kunzelman states plainly in the introduction that he is aware of this trend and actively working against it, that "I try to hold with the thinkers, the ideas, and the aesthetics I am reading long enough so that my claims are clear and as precise as I can make them." It's something that I wish more academics would do, as it does a truly excellent job of drawing together all of his theory. Game studies often feel siloed but its practitioners, and that's very thankfully not the case here. And each of the chapters is individually great as well; I feel like every one had something significant to say, while encouraging conversation. I took a ton of notes here on things to read and thoughts to write on, and inspiring that kind of response is a sign of a really great piece of writing.
This is a great book. I've followed Kunzelman's writing for a long time, both academically and in pop culture outlets; I was expecting something ethically engaging, deep, and interesting. This book is all of these things, but it's also extremely accessible, in ways that I feel like I've learned not to expect from academia. Kunzelman states plainly in the introduction that he is aware of this trend and actively working against it, that "I try to hold with the thinkers, the ideas, and the aesthetics I am reading long enough so that my claims are clear and as precise as I can make them." It's something that I wish more academics would do, as it does a truly excellent job of drawing together all of his theory. Game studies often feel siloed but its practitioners, and that's very thankfully not the case here. And each of the chapters is individually great as well; I feel like every one had something significant to say, while encouraging conversation. I took a ton of notes here on things to read and thoughts to write on, and inspiring that kind of response is a sign of a really great piece of writing.
July 3, 2025
If you enjoy the following sample, please read the essay at my website and support independent internet!
You cannot have Sinclair’s The Jungle anymore because looking deeply into the meatpacking industry would simply be a reality show, its nightmares leading not to regulation but to ratings. We’ve monetized the shock out of exploitative labor practices: reality programming had a chance to shift away from pure exploitation, and it said “I’d prefer not to.”
I cannot stop thinking about how all things great and small have been reduced to “content,” made to fit the pre-existing forms and formats, to be consumed rather than engaged with or entertained or appreciated. “Content Creator” covers the width and breadth of creative human output, and yet we all know what it means: fluff pieces; eating challenges; unboxings; rants and raves; physical violence; gotcha pranks. Content, things that are contained. “The potential for a revolution of workers is foiled because the way that they become transparent, or the way that they come to be represented, is as the smiling face of the humanized capitalist worker.”
Platform exploitation–also known as monetization–of creative and/or immaterial labor is uniquely capable of being represented through gameplay elements. Capital accumulation is an easier thing to program than spiritual fulfillment. The player character in VA-11 HALL-A can “...either perform consumer behaviors or facilitate the consumer behaviors of others.”
If you cannot get outside the system of exploitation through transparency–everyone already knows what it means to be personally exploited by the system because it is how we live, now–then you must move further into it, through representational gameplay, through alienation in extremis.
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To see the rest of the essay, click to continue reading at my website.
You cannot have Sinclair’s The Jungle anymore because looking deeply into the meatpacking industry would simply be a reality show, its nightmares leading not to regulation but to ratings. We’ve monetized the shock out of exploitative labor practices: reality programming had a chance to shift away from pure exploitation, and it said “I’d prefer not to.”
I cannot stop thinking about how all things great and small have been reduced to “content,” made to fit the pre-existing forms and formats, to be consumed rather than engaged with or entertained or appreciated. “Content Creator” covers the width and breadth of creative human output, and yet we all know what it means: fluff pieces; eating challenges; unboxings; rants and raves; physical violence; gotcha pranks. Content, things that are contained. “The potential for a revolution of workers is foiled because the way that they become transparent, or the way that they come to be represented, is as the smiling face of the humanized capitalist worker.”
Platform exploitation–also known as monetization–of creative and/or immaterial labor is uniquely capable of being represented through gameplay elements. Capital accumulation is an easier thing to program than spiritual fulfillment. The player character in VA-11 HALL-A can “...either perform consumer behaviors or facilitate the consumer behaviors of others.”
If you cannot get outside the system of exploitation through transparency–everyone already knows what it means to be personally exploited by the system because it is how we live, now–then you must move further into it, through representational gameplay, through alienation in extremis.
-------------
To see the rest of the essay, click to continue reading at my website.
September 11, 2024
I’m not especially acclimated to academic writing, so take my review with a grain of salt. By and large, I found the book to be well-considered, clear and thorough with it’s reasoning and citations, and compelling in its analytical content.
The overall theoretical construction that’s developed in the book becomes less focal as the chapters proceed, and by the end I felt a bit of distance between the specific readings of games and the ways that they invoked or benefited from the core theoretical framework of “mechanics of speculation”. I think I can see how to fill in these gaps myself, but the connections were laid out less clearly than elsewhere in the book, at least the way I understood it.
I appreciate the focus on the affective and ethical outcomes of games, especially in the context of when they are or are not attempting to convey a specific ideological stance. The strength of the argument lies in its application to both cases, and it’s interesting to see it applied deeply across a few broad examples.
In many ways, I think my response to this book is muted by my distance from any academic practice in which I could apply it, but it’s still an interesting analytical lens to bring with me into my own personal critical readings of video games. In that way, it’s an approachable introduction to a much deeper field, and I frequently found citations that I might be curious enough to follow up on.
The overall theoretical construction that’s developed in the book becomes less focal as the chapters proceed, and by the end I felt a bit of distance between the specific readings of games and the ways that they invoked or benefited from the core theoretical framework of “mechanics of speculation”. I think I can see how to fill in these gaps myself, but the connections were laid out less clearly than elsewhere in the book, at least the way I understood it.
I appreciate the focus on the affective and ethical outcomes of games, especially in the context of when they are or are not attempting to convey a specific ideological stance. The strength of the argument lies in its application to both cases, and it’s interesting to see it applied deeply across a few broad examples.
In many ways, I think my response to this book is muted by my distance from any academic practice in which I could apply it, but it’s still an interesting analytical lens to bring with me into my own personal critical readings of video games. In that way, it’s an approachable introduction to a much deeper field, and I frequently found citations that I might be curious enough to follow up on.
June 8, 2023
Extremely clearly written and thoroughly argued, and scratches an affect theory itch I've missed since grad school while offering a compelling theory of speculation in games. Kunzelman's focus on mechanics of speculation within video games is measured and the limits of the theory are well-defined, but even so, the potential possibilities still feel vast for what analyzing and thinking about how games (not just video games) prompt speculations about the world at the moment of your interaction with their mechanics is fascinating. Perhaps even more compelling are his readings of how games determine and restrict those speculations over the course of play in ways both potentially liberatory and oppressive. The second chapter examining anti-blackness in The Last of Us and sci-fi more broadly was especially interesting and gave me plenty of additional reading to do on the pervasive structured absences of blackness in modern American science fiction!
June 13, 2025
It's been a while since I've read something that lit me up like this book. So perfectly constructed, so readable, so incisive. Kunzelman does an incredible job of summarizing the work that he's building off of in such a way that leads a reader along without bogging them down in an overload of information. It all just flows really well.
The "big idea" of this book, the "mechanic of speculation," is something that, once theorized here, feels so central to the medium that it's a wonder that it hadn't coined before, and the range of essays in this book are a display of just how broad and useful of a concept it is. Really incredible stuff. Inspiring!!
The "big idea" of this book, the "mechanic of speculation," is something that, once theorized here, feels so central to the medium that it's a wonder that it hadn't coined before, and the range of essays in this book are a display of just how broad and useful of a concept it is. Really incredible stuff. Inspiring!!
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews