Video Games, Crime and Control: Playing Cops and Robbers

Discussing the state of play in contemporary popular culture, specifically the role of crime and crime control in the video game medium, this book discusses the criminological importance of video games.

Pulling together an international group of scholars from Brazil, Canada, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States, this edited volume analyzes a wide range of noteworthy video games, including Bioshock, Death Stranding, Diablo 2, Beat Cop, The Last of Us, Disco Elysium, Red Dead Redemption, P.T., Spider-Man, Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, and Grand Theft Auto. The book thus seeks to advance dialog on video games as important cultural artifacts containing significant insights regarding dominant perceptions, interests, anxieties, contradictions, and other matters of criminological interest.

Covering policing, vigilantism, different forms of violence, genocide, mental illness, and criminological theory, Video Games, Crime, and Control will be of great interest to students and scholars of Criminology, Media Studies, and Sociology, specifically those focusing on Game Studies and Cultural Criminology.

Jonathan A. Grubb is an Associate Professor in the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology at Georgia Southern University, USA. His research centers on the spatiotemporal clustering of crime, victimization of vulnerable populations, perceptions and attitudes of professionals working with victims of domestic violence as well as human trafficking, and arson within urban environments. Recent publications include, Crime TV: Streaming Criminology in Popular Culture which utilizes modern television shows as a frame for understanding criminological theory.

Kevin F. Steinmetz is a Professor of Criminology in the Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work at Kansas State University, USA. His scholarship cuts across multiple areas including cybercrime, criminological theory, racial inequality and criminal justice, gender and crime, as well as crime, criminal justice, and popular culture. He is the author of Hacked: A Radical Approach to Hacker Culture and Crime and Cybercrime and Society. His works have also appeared in prestigious outlets, including The British Journal of Criminology, Theoretical Criminology, Critical Criminology, Crime Media Culture.