The Game/Document:

Reflections on the Possibility of Electronic Games as an Object of Study in Historiography

Abstract

This article seeks to bring reflections and possibilities for theoretical and methodological analysis of electronic games as an object of study for historiography. We will seek to reflect and bring a theoretical/methodological basis to the debate on electronic games as objects of study in historiography. When introducing new objects or sources for Clio's fields, it is common to encounter great resistance, especially from veterans of the story. This resistance leads us to the old questions of historiography about its limits, science and reason for being. In theory, issues have been overcome since the critical rupture operated by historiography in the 20th century in relation to positivist methodical standards linked to a history of social physics by Comte, Michelet and Bernard, for whose understanding the researcher's sources and objects would be subject to inflexible laws and universal. When we consider the relationship between past/present/future and the use of the past as a spark that drives the present towards the future, electronic games, especially those set in historical times, could reveal aspects of the construction of certain historical and discursive memories of the past by the present.