Experimenting in legal dystopia. Conceptualising and interrogating socio-legal and jurisprudential problems in science fiction video games

Abstract

Science fiction allows us to interrogate imagined societal changes and potential, not yet-realised futures. Inevitably, imagined dystopian futures have been a central motif in science fiction. Science fiction texts provide consumers with an opportunity to reflect upon their own contemporaneous societies and can perform an educative function by creating a meaningful dialogue around socio-legal subject matter and jurisprudential themes that often lie at the heart of such dystopian visions. Video games provide the consumer with a space through which to experiment with such themes. Key motifs often centre on players challenging imagined dystopian power structures and it is within this experimentation that a deeper cognition of socio-legal problems and jurisprudential concepts occurs, encouraging reflection and conceptualisation of these oft abstract concepts. This chapter will examine the user experience in a range of popular video games and will consider how such sources prompt the consumer to challenge or uphold the dystopian status quo therein. This work will argue that video games provide a space for active experimentation and a site of reflection, replication, and conceptualisation of socio-legal and jurisprudential themes, and have a meaningful impact on the ability of consumers to transition such understandings from the lifeworld of the game into their own lifeworld.