Overview

While the Western was dying a slow death across the cultural landscape, it was blazing back to life as a video game in the early twenty-first century. Rockstar Games' Red Dead franchise, beginning with Red Dead Revolver in 2004, has grown into one of the most critically acclaimed video game franchises of the twenty-first century. Red Dead Redemption: History, Myth, and Violence in the Video Game West offers a critical, interdisciplinary look at this cultural phenomenon at the intersection of game studies and American history. Drawing on game studies, western history, American studies, and cultural studies, the authors train a wide-ranging, deeply informed analytic perspective on the Red Dead franchise--from its earliest incarnation to the latest, Red Dead Redemption 2 (2018). Their intersecting chapters put the series in the context of American history, culture, and contemporary media, with inquiries into issues of authenticity, realism, the meaning of play and commercial promotion, and the relationship between the game and the wider cultural iterations of the classic Western. The contributors also delve into the role the series' development has played in recent debates around working conditions in the gaming industry and gaming culture.

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Andrew Joseph Perez is an actor, singer, stuntman, and jack-of-all-trades based in Los Angeles. He can be heard narrating audiobooks on Audible, iTunes, and elsewhere. He's also voiced characters in Gundam SEED Destiny, Dragon Pilot, English dubs of Netflix shows like Luis Miguel and Unauthorized Living, and Taishi Ci in Dynasty Warriors 9. He's been seen on stage at Musical Theatre West, MainStreet Theatre, A Noise Within, South Coast Rep, American Stage (Florida), Tennessee Shakespeare Co, Next Act and Renaissance Theatreworks (Wisconsin), San Jose Stage, Music Circus, and others. John Wills is reader in American history and culture at the University of Kent. He is the author of Gamer Nation: Video Games and American Culture and Disney Culture. Esther Wright is lecturer in digital history at Cardiff University. She is the author of Rockstar Games and American History: Promotional Materials and the Construction of Authenticity.

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