Dis/Enabled Playing: Ableist Ideologies and Abledness Consolidation in Video Games’ Mechanics and Infrastructures

This chapter will explore the ways video games reinforce the ableist power structures that build certain kind of bodies, minds and experiences as normal and cast disabled people as abnormal and inferior. The chapter will demonstrate by the analysis of two games, Resident Evil 4 (Capcom. Osaka, JP: Capcom. Playstation 2, 2005) and Super Mario World (Nintendo. Kyoto, JP: Nintendo. Super Famicom, 1990), and will show how dominant dis/ability discourses can be found not only in the representations (in the images or gameplay) but in the structures and modes of gameplay of those games. These video games construct practices or performances that normalize abledness via mechanics, aesthetics and level design by producing experiences of en- or disabling mastery, control, progression, autonomy and precision. Based on these findings, the chapter links ableist ideologies present in games and gaming to what Christopher Paul calls a “toxic meritocracy” (The Toxic Meritocracy of Video Games, University of Minnesota Press, 2018) and capitalist work ethics.