Racial Logics, Franchising, and Video Game Genres

This article explores the ways game adaptations engage with existing popular culture constructions of race within the framework of commercial franchises. Its focus is on games which are part of the so-called “Frodo Franchise” based on Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit films. It considers the role played by licensing agreements, the conventions, and ludic elements of different game genres, the need for new characters and narratives to keep audiences engaged with an existing world, and the opportunity games offer for interactive exploration of a digital world, to illuminate both the challenges to and the opportunities for disrupting conventional representations of race and difference.