Episode Overview

Podcast: New Books Network
Host: Rudolf Inderst
Guest: Rob Gallagher, author of Artgames after GamerGate (Palgrave Macmillan, 2025)
Date: February 6, 2026
Main Theme:
An in-depth conversation with Rob Gallagher about his book Artgames after GamerGate, exploring how independent and experimental video game creators responded to the toxic upheavals of Gamergate, how “artgames” interact with gaming’s past and present, and what these creative works reveal about culture, politics, and identity in the digital age.

Introduction: Author Background and Motivation

[01:04–02:53]

• Rob Gallagher introduces himself as a lecturer at King’s College London, with a background in literary studies and ongoing research interests in digital identity and far-right online cultures.
• The genesis of Artgames after GamerGate arose from his intersecting interests in:
  • Digital subjectivity and identity (from previous work),
  • The Alt-Right’s exploitation of digital media,
  • Games as expressive, autobiographical, and artistic texts.
• Quote [01:39]:
  "This book is really kind of at the center of that Venn diagram. It's looking at Gamergate as a moment that was quite important as a catalyst for this broader rightward turn in digital culture. It's thinking about games as vehicles for thinking about identity, in particular what it means to be a gamer, what that identity is or means." — Rob Gallagher

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Maturity Question & Gamergate's Impact

[02:53–06:06]

• Video games have long grappled with the question: “When will games grow up?”
• By the late 2000s, growing diversity of players and new ways of making/distributing games challenged the stereotypical gamer identity.
• Gamergate represented a violent backlash against the expansion of who makes and plays games—resisting the idea of games as matured cultural or personal expression.
• Quote [03:54]:
  "Gamergate in many ways is a kind of backlash against those attempts to rethink who games could be for, who they could be made by, what they could be about...this optimism about the idea games might be maturing becomes harder to maintain." — Rob Gallagher

2. Artgames: Dialogues With Gaming’s Past

[06:06–09:12]

• Indie/experimental game designers responded to Gamergate in diverse ways.
  • Some wanted to break completely with the past.
  • Others engaged critically with gaming’s history, reusing assets, mechanics, or references from iconic franchises (e.g., Zelda, Sonic, Street Fighter).
• This process, Gallagher argues, is both reclamatory and critical—affirming personal nostalgia while exposing outdated attitudes embedded in classic games.
• The practice resonates with artistic traditions like appropriation and sampling.
• Quote [07:36]:
  "Part of that is saying that these are our games too, this is our history. People who may not fit your model of the gamer archetype have long played and enjoyed these games." — Rob Gallagher

3. Artgames and Social/Cultural Dislocation

[09:12–13:31]

• The book examines games released between 2015–2018, a period marked by political disorientation in the US and beyond.
• These games look back to the 1990s—a time commonly romanticized within gaming and broader American culture as prosperous but now tinged with nostalgia and looming disillusionment.
• Designers explore themes of lost futures, downward mobility, and ideological fractures, sometimes paralleling the nostalgia in MAGA or right-wing movements.
• Quote [12:58]:
  "We're losing faith in the idea that things could ever get better. So they're talking about gaming culture and the nostalgic bent there, but they're also linking that to this tendency to glorify the past that you see in MAGA or these other ascendant right wing movements." — Rob Gallagher

4. Autobiography & Reframing the “Gamer”

[13:31–17:11]

• Biography is key in the analysis: Designers use familiar game assets not just to critique, but to reframe their own life stories.
• The work of scholars like Anna Poletti is invoked to discuss how “getting a life” is a cultural judgment—and gaming is often framed as its antithesis.
• Artgames challenge the archetype of the gamer (i.e., white, cishet, male), illuminating gameplay as a site for identities and experiences usually marginalized in mainstream narratives.
• Autobiographical games leverage gameplay mechanics, nonlinear structures, and code to tell life stories in uniquely interactive ways.
• Quote [15:40]:
  "Once we do that, this archetype of the gamer as a kind of young white cishet male loses a lot of its credibility. It starts to seem quite limited." — Rob Gallagher
• Quote [16:46]:
  "What an autobiographical game could do... using not just text or audio or visuals, but codes, these nonlinear structures, random number generators, what it means to try and encapsulate someone's personality as a set of statistics or probabilities, how you kind of tell a life story through an interactive medium." — Rob Gallagher

5. Methods: Close Playing & Theoretical Pluralism

[17:11–19:52]

• Gallagher’s approach blends close, detailed analysis (rooted in literary studies) with attention to cultural, historical, and political contexts.
• He advocates for tailored, context-sensitive readings, rather than universal taxonomies.
• Recognizes the value of broader methodologies—social science, production studies, player studies.
• Quote [18:44]:
  "I'm not a formalist. I'm not interested in kind of drawing up taxonomies or trying to think about what every possible game that is or could be could do expressively. Instead, I'm trying to think about the bespoke responses that particular creators in particular moments come up with in their context." — Rob Gallagher

6. Diagnosing vs. Transforming Game Culture

[19:52–22:17]

• On whether artgames “move games forward” or just diagnose crisis:
  • Gallagher suggests artgames invite a different perspective, asking what happens when we accept that conventional “maturity” for games might not arrive.
  • These works use the medium’s uncertain status—its failure to “grow up”—to productively mirror society’s own anxieties about progress, adulthood, and lost futures.
• Even as they critically reflect, these games are playful, witty, and fun.
• Quote [20:44]:
  "At the point where you maybe accept games are a dead medium, you then ask, what can we do with this medium? ... They're using the fact that games have this kind of delicate cultural status where they've never quite been taken seriously, to try and think through some of these questions of why we seem so attached to certain models of what the future could look like, and how we maybe reconcile ourselves to the idea that the future we were promised isn't going to arrive." — Rob Gallagher

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

| Timestamp | Speaker | Quote | |-----------|---------|-------| | 01:39 | Rob Gallagher | “This book is really kind of at the center of that Venn diagram... thinking about games as vehicles for thinking about identity...” | | 03:54 | Rob Gallagher | “Gamergate in many ways is a kind of backlash against those attempts to rethink who games could be for...” | | 07:36 | Rob Gallagher | “These are our games too, this is our history...” | | 12:58 | Rob Gallagher | “...they're also linking that to this tendency to glorify the past that you see in MAGA...” | | 15:40 | Rob Gallagher | “This archetype of the gamer as a kind of young white cishet male loses a lot of its credibility...” | | 16:46 | Rob Gallagher | “What an autobiographical game could do... nonlinear structures, random number generators...” | | 18:44 | Rob Gallagher | “I'm not a formalist...I'm trying to think about the bespoke responses that particular creators in particular moments come up with in their context.” | | 20:44 | Rob Gallagher | “At the point where you maybe accept games are a dead medium, you then ask, what can we do with this medium?” |

Timestamps for Important Segments

• Author Introduction & Book Genesis – [01:04–02:53]
• Gamergate & “Maturity” in Games – [02:53–06:06]
• Artgames’ Engagement with Game History – [06:06–09:12]
• 2015–2018: Games & Political/Cultural Disorientation – [09:12–13:31]
• Autobiographical Dimensions of Artgames – [13:31–17:11]
• Game Research Methods & Methodological Reflections – [17:11–19:52]
• The Significance and Limits of Artgames After Gamergate – [19:52–22:17]

Episode Takeaways

• Artgames after GamerGate argues that experimental indie games do not merely reject gaming’s troubled past post-Gamergate, but mine it for raw material—nostalgia, critique, and personal meaning alike.
• These games challenge stereotypes, expand the boundaries of who gets to speak in/through games, and use the medium’s own instability to mirror larger societal anxieties.
• The conversation highlights the value of interdisciplinary, pluralistic approaches to studying games—attending not just to players or systems, but to the messy intersections of culture, politics, biography, and artistic form.

Final Thoughts

[22:17–23:25]

• Gallagher and Inderst reflect on how questions raised by artgames echo debates in game studies itself—can “growing up” or “discipline status” ever be achieved, or are uncertainty and hybridity their own forms of progress?
• The episode concludes with a ringing endorsement for Gallagher’s book as a compelling resource for anyone interested in the cultural and artistic possibilities of games today.

For listeners who want a deeper understanding of how the aftermath of Gamergate shaped the direction of avant-garde game design—and how games can serve as both history and critique—this episode and Rob Gallagher’s book are essential resources.