Many video games are using Antiquity in their scenario.
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.One of them has been fascinating gamers and online players for almost 25 years: Civilization.Its principle? To choose one of 18 « civilizations » and lead it from « Stone Age » to contemporary era while confronting other civilizations.
Each step of this « evolution » allows the player to acquire new possibilities and to progress until the final victory.Very sophisticated in terms of technology, this video game is a sort of cultural odds and ends: free of any historical verisimilitude (Caesar can face Napoleon), Civilization draws on uninhibited evolutionism and ethnocentrism.
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.It displays a triumphant imperialism and brings to a climax the theory (and ideology) of « the clash of civilizations », since winning supposes to fight and annihilate the other.
Yet, this game allows the construction and transmission of stereotypes regarding not only the definition of civilization in the occidental contemporary thought, but also the characteristics and the supposed contribution of each civilization (or people) to the world’s history and in particular the special role devoted to Greek and Roman Antiquity in that « great tale » of the « Human History ».Considering that game as an historical object and as an important vector of cultural representations, we propose to ask a few questions: which specific elements are chosen and put forward to make the Ancient Rome and Greece two “civilizations”? What are the special advantages that help them outperform their competitors (the other civilizations)? In that respect, we analyze the use and functioning of topical items such as the « City States », « Golden Age » or the « Marvels ».This survey also explores the way Latin and Greek words are used and diverted in order to form a specific videogames’ idiom, a shared language that creates a fictional universe.