David I. Waddington, "The Hidden Curriculum of Video Games" (McGill-Queen's UP, 2026)

New Books in Technology · Jul 22, 2026 · 40m

Despite decades of inflammatory rhetoric, the real risk of video games lies not in their violent imagery but in the ethical and political sensibilities they normalize. Video games reward speed, efficiency, control, and meritocratic mastery, training players to align with a technolibertarian worldview - one that celebrates individual will, technological power, and skepticism toward collective forms of governance. Rather than asking whether games produce violent individuals, we might more productively ask how they contribute to a commitment to radical capitalism and a belief in highly…