Reaganoludography: The 1980s Japanese Digital Games in the Service of the United States

Abstract

This article examines the phenomenon in the 1980s Japanese gaming industry, labeled “Reaganoludography” due to its strong reliance on themes directly borrowed from American action cinema, known in Polish film studies as “Reaganomatography.” Using discourse analysis, the article explores how the U.S. versions of Japanese games Japanese games captured the iconography of Reaganite regressive sociopolitical propaganda and how they reinforced the neoconservative discourse that became a model for generations of players in the United States. This subtle alliance between American politics and Japanese gaming led to self-censorship within the latter. While the Japanese industry eventually emancipated from the U.S. industry, found its own topics, and became a core gaming culture itself, it is important to remember that Japanese Reaganoludography (the censored U.S. releases of Japanese games) perpetuated global capitalism and overshadowed more progressive—thematically and mechanically—attempts at experimenting with the medium in the 1980s.