Mending the Broken World, Rebuilding the Community—On Positive Biopolitics in Digital Games

This article aims to problematize two major paradigms of positive biopolitics in digital games. The study uses biopolitical analysis tools developed within and without game studies, to explore the positive pole of biopolitics, often neglected by critically oriented game studies. The article presents short case studies of simulation strategy games Terra Nil and The Wandering Village that thematically reference positive forms of governance: rebuilding the community, mending the world after catastrophes, and achieving a social, economic, or ecological utopia. Within these games, I searched for representations of positive biopolitics, understood as good community-oriented governance over life. The analyses broaden the understanding of the biopolitical aspects of environmental governmentality in digital games and provide explanations of two modes of realizing the philosophy of care in ecogames.