Dark Play and the Flow Time of Petroculture in Oil-Themed Games

Abstract

This chapter brings video games into conversation with the study of petrocultures-in particular, concepts that speak to the unique affects and temporalities surrounding oil, namely “petromelancholia” and “petromasculinity.” Using these concepts, this chapter unveils in video games a deep-seated desire for oil and its transgressive pleasures. Oil-themed games can be spaces in which to indulge the pleasures of oil, even while they might also acknowledge its incongruity in the present. Specifically, I will argue that video games accommodate oil within a stretched out, flowing present that resists change and is nostalgically oriented to the past. I call this temporality “petroduration.” Aesthetically and experientially, this temporality manifests as flow, a concept bridging video game studies and petrocultures research.