Historian Kevin Impellizeri shares a story of a video game controversy to his friends: Phil Thomas, and Andy Hunter. In this episode, we take a closer look at Destructive Creations, the team behind previous episode Hatred. We examine the other controversy connected to Hatred, one that was connected to the beliefs of its creators, and how a team that claimed to make a statement against politics in gaming made some political games in the years to follow Hatred's release.
Content warning: Discussions of racism, Islamophobia, homophobia, transphobia, fascism, and Neo-Nazis.
Topics discussed include: A brief history of Polish right-wing politics, Alan's conflict with his neighbors, and the guys guessing whether some gaming-related quotations came from Hatred or other games.
Kevin's sources on the role of right-wing politics in Poland:
Agnieszka Dudzinska and Michal Kotnarowski, “Imaginary Muslims: How the Polish Right Frames Islam,” Brookings, July 24, 2019: https://www.brookings.edu/research/imaginary-muslims-how-polands-populists-frame-islam/.
Farid Hafez, "Street-level and government-level Islamophobia in the Visegrád Four countries," Patterns of Prejudice 52, Iss. 5 (November 6, 2018): 436-447, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0031322X.2018.1498440.
Kornelia Kończal, “The Invention of the ‘Cursed Soldiers’ and Its Opponents,” East European Politics and Societies and Cultures 34, No. 1 (February 2020): 67-95, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0888325419865332;
Theme Music: Occam's Sikhwee by Sikh Knowledge (Free Music Archive: https://bit.ly/33G4sLO), used under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 US (https://bit.ly/33JXogQ)
More info, including show notes and sources at http://scandalousgamespodcast.wordpress.com.
